I never thought I would

I never though I would spend so much on diapers... but I did anyways. I just dropped exactly $199.00 on "old style" Kissaluvs size 2 diapers for Liam.



See the problem was that we were having nothing but issues with Liam and prefolds with Snappis. If I didn't stretch the Snappi as hard as I could he would leak poop all over his longies. If I did stretch it as far as I could he would "stick" to the fabric of the prefold and when I would remove his diaper I would also take enough skin to cause him to bleed.

It was almost enough for us to give up... if it wasn't for the fact that he cant wear disposables cause of skin sensitivity.

So since they were on sale cause they are being discontinued in this style (nothing wrong with them, they just redid them a little) I got them for a lot less money. This size fits from a 20lbs child to a 40lbs child... so we should be good now.

I bought 20.



Owen liked them. He was the most excited I have ever seen him about diapers... which is to say that he asked if I was happy and I said I was so he said he like them.



Liam liked them too.....

And then it happened...



First I hugged them.



Then I threw them.



Then we had a diaper fight with them.



Even Liam tried to throw one!



And that was that. A few minutes later we lost the light so we scooped up the new diapers and I washed them. We have been using them since last night and I have already noticed the difference. They are far more absorbent and not once has my little Liam bled.

Money well spent.

Bailey Calendar

So last year I made a calendar to go with all the pictures I took of my kids for Kids 365 the year before... I loved that we were the pictures of the calendar! I thought I blogged about it... but I apparently did not. So here is a link to that first set of calendar pages.

This year I wanted to do the same... but I wanted to be sure that unlike the first time, my kids were the youngest at the beginning of the calendar and the oldest at the end.

Well I succeeded. Wanna see the finished mosaics for the calendar that is currently hanging on my kitchen wall?

January:


February:


March:


April:


May:


June:


July:


August:


September:


October:


November:


December:


I foresee that I will be making one of these every year for forever!

Calling it as I see it.

So lets face facts. I am not gonna finish blogging Christmas... cause there really isn't much to tell. We spent New Years recovering from Owen's birthday party. We watched the Rose Parade, which I love!

Then on the 2nd we packed up all day and then we left.

On the way out we went and visited Anthony and Katherine and their beautiful new baby girl.



Aren't they cute?

And just look at her little face!



Then we drove home. It took us 24 hours of pretty much straight driving. There were a lot of bathroom breaks.

That was it. I cant believe that I spent several weeks trying to figure out how to make that more interesting! Now on to what else has been going on around here... but that is another post!

Owen's Birthday

Ok... Seriously. Why am I having such a hard time finishing this?

Thursday was Owen's 32rd birthday. His parents planned a big party for him. We spent the morning prepping for the festivities. Owen went out and spent birthday money to buy an external hard drive for mp3's and a thumb drive for me cause we were running out of room on my memory cards!

Then he spent the day running around with his dad picking up things like the food for the party and his birthday cake. I went over to my parents and loaded the pictures onto the thumb drive and set up the external hard drive to download.

Then it was time for the fun.



First we all just hung out in the sun room and chatted. It was kind of nice.

Then it was time for the cake!



Notice that there are two cakes? That is because Mario and Melaney's daughter, Violet, shares a birthday with Owen. They had a cake for her so we told them that if they wanted to bring her cake to Owen's party we could have them blow out their candles together.

After the cakes most of the family guests started to head out. First to go was Owens uncle and aunt, John and Carole.



Don't they look like they are so happy together?



Then my dad and sister filtered out. Mom couldn't come cause she was felling really sick and didn't want to take the chance of spreading the cold she was coming down with.

Around the time family members started filtering out, Friends started coming.



First to arrive was my friend, Ginny. Owen invited her to his party without telling me cause he knew I wouldn't make a scene and ruin his birthday party and he wanted us to make up. That is a long story involving her having a not so nice reaction when I announced to the internet that I was pregnant with Liam. If you just joined us here at my blog... the post explaining that is here.

Anyways, the point is that she came and we were able to hang out and be nice to each other. I am not sure that the relationship is repaired... but at least we can be civil for now.



As people were coming and going the kids decided that it would be fun to play in the huge backyard in the dark!



Owen's Aunt Marguerite read a book to the kids...



Owen's cousin, Chris, showed up for a bit. His twin wasnt able to come cause he and his wife had another party to go to.

Then the parade of friends Owen hadn't seen in years started.



First we had Ramses.



Then Iris and her boyfriend. I am pretty sure his name is Alex.... I could be wrong though.



Then Sam and his daughter showed up. Eventually Sam went home and changed and put his baby girl to bed. He rejoined us later.... he lives two doors down from Owen's parents and he and Owen have been friends for pretty much forever.



Finally Owen's friend Arthur showed up. Owen was super excited to see Arthur cause they had lost track of each other several years ago when Arthur's mom decided to sell the house they lived in. Arthur and Owen had been next door neighbors their entire lives before that.

Eventually the only guests that were left were Mario& Melaney and Arthur. We got the kids to sleep and started getting ready for the big countdown to the New Year.



In this picture are 6 of the Bailey/Ramirez kids. (Liam was sleeping in the bedroom!) Can you find all 6? It is like a Where's Waldo page! Remember those?

Eventually the festivities ended. Then we realized that Arthur wasn't safe to head home and Owen wasn't tired anyways... so they called Sam and the three of them hung out like in the old days.



Eventually I fell asleep and Sam went home... Arthur stayed until about 6 am... then he headed home and Owen finally got to get some sleep.

This ends the festivities of Owen's birthday/ New Years Eve party.

The second week of our Christmas Vacation...

Well sort of... I am gonna start with the Sunday of Liam's baptism, just after the festivities.

After Liam's baptism at the church we headed over to my mom's house for some sandwiches and presents for the newest little member of God's family.



Liam, however, thought he would be better off taking a nap with his Oma...

So I opened his presents.

Then we left my families house and headed over to Owen's parents house. Shortly after we got there we all headed out to Clark Park again.

For a little while we all just stood there...



Then we got down to business and started feeding the ducks!



After we went through the 4 loaves of cheap white bread from the 99 cent store we got to the business of playing.



Eventually it got to dark to see the playground equipment. It was time for the park to close, so we loaded up into the van's and headed out. The Ramirez family headed home... The Bailey Families headed out to dinner.

The next day we headed out to Exhibition Park in Los Angeles.

We first went to the Natural History Museum. We expected it to cost a small fortune cause our group was so big... we were wrong! Turns out Active Duty Military and their group gets in for FREE!



We saw Dino bones...



We did arts and crafts...



We saw some truly quality taxidermy...



We got to see some real paleontologists at work in the "Dino Lab"



And we got to see some Mayan treasures.

Then we headed out of the Natural history museum and enjoyed some corn on a stick and ice cream!



Liam, whom by this time had finally recovered from the flu, enjoyed the heck out of being able to crawl around in the grass...



On a completely sidetracked note...



Isn't it beautiful how much Owen's parents still love each other after more than 35 years?!

Next we headed over to the Science Museum.



This is our whole group!

The Science Museum is technically free... but they do recommend that you make a donation... but nobody will give you a hard time if you don't!

In the Science Museum we all enjoyed learning about how stone arches work...



The kids played under the arches for a little while...



Then Dadzilla struck!





Finally we went outside to see how many kids it would take to pull up a truck off the floor using leverage...



Turns out it takes more kids than The Ramirez's and we have!

After all that we headed back to the Bailey house and called it a night.

On Tuesday we went to my parents house again.

Mom gave the kids their stocking, since for some reason that had never happened on Christmas Eve.

Liam finally got to open his presents since he was no longer sick...



He thought ripping off all that paper was awesome!

Then it was decided that it was time to eat the gingerbread house that Mom and Alexander had made together.



The next day was the 30th... Annie came out again and while we waited for my cousin Rachel to drive up from Chula Vista, Carole told the kids the story of the Blue Willow Plate.



Once Rachel got there we went out to lunch at a restaurant called Life Plaza. They serve primarily Asian cuisine.



Mikaela tried desperately hard to use chopsticks like the adults.



Rachel thought that that was so awesome that she had to Facebook it from right there! (She also Facebooked when Alexander sang all the lyrics to La Vie Boheme too!)

After lunch we had the most awesome shaved ice and ice cream sundae ever! You don't believe me?



I told you.

After lunch and dessert we headed over to hang out and have a Monty Python night with Jan Williams, Neal's mom...

While the guys and Annie watched Flying Circus episodes I attempted to teach my cousin to crochet. I am sad that there are no pictures of that...

The next day was Owen's birthday.... which I guess really does deserve it's own post... so I guess I will have to continue this later!