Tis Love We Get, When Love We Bring...: Bailey Family Updates!

Ok life has been so busy for me and continues to be busy but I told myself today that I would blog and post pictures and there will be lots of pictures! We have had so much fun in the last five months, I am not even going to try to post all the pictures from those five months as it would take months to do that!

Matt and I have been so blessed to be living here in Rochester, NY. We love our friends from work, school, preschool, church and neighbors. We have been able to meet a lot of people and have enjoyed getting to know Rochester well. Matt's coaching staff is in awe with how much we have done since we have moved here. They have lived here a long time and think its so cool that we go out and visit and explore where we live and beyond. I am amazed more people don't around here as its beautiful and so vast, though NY is a small state.

Happenings:
Matt: Is in his 2nd of 2 and 1/2 years in the MBA program as well as in his 2nd year of coaching the swim team at the college and loves it very much! He feels he can relate to the swimmers very well and is such a great coach to them. The head coach gave Matt such a great compliment the other day. He told Matt that he is so good at looking at both sides of the situation and trying make the best of any situation. It’s true, Matt does not like to hurt anyone and wants to help everyone. I am grateful to have such a great husband. Along with school and coaching Matt finds time to play his electric bass which gives him the relaxation he needs from all the stress of school and work. He better be writing a song for me! :) Matt is also busy with his church callings as a ward missionary and also a Sunday school teacher. He loves teaching and learns a lot from the lesson he teaches. One thing Matt always wishes for is more time with his family and we enjoy any time we get with him. During the swim season he is a busy man, a very busy man! We also recently discovered nasal strips for him! He can finally sleep well! Matt has always had a hard time sleeping with his mouth closed as he doesn't get a lot of air. I suggested we try the nasal strips and they are HEAVEN for him. I am so glad we decided to try them and see if they worked. We are grateful for the funny looking strips across his nose each night!

Shari: I am busy busy busy with my two little girls! I also work from home and do it in the mornings before the girls wake or during lunch or nap time. I am grateful I can work from home and be able to contribute to paying off our endless bills. I have been enjoying my time working out as well and was able to run a half marathon recently. I didn't train for it much at all and enjoyed it. Another half marathon run is coming up in the spring. Since its getting cold I have been hitting the gym and enjoy the time to work up a real sweat. I am not where I want to be but it’s getting there! I enjoy my calling at church as the Compassionate Service Leader because I get to serve in so many ways! I was born to do this calling because I love to help others. I am grateful for the things I am learning and how humbling the experiences are. Our ward has had a wave and is still having a wave of new babies being born so I get to help organize meals/babysitting for them in any way and it amazes me how generous people are in giving and helping. If only we could all be like that... I have also been enjoying crafts and getting together with friends while our kids play. Being a member of the LDS church has made such a big difference in moving here. We were able to quickly make friends and feel at home with them. I am enjoying it here and sometimes its hard for me to admit that because I do miss my family very much back in Utah... if only we could just move them all out here then they would understand why we like here so much! (hint hint family)

Our girls are such dolls... We love them... we cherish them... we adore them... we can't live without them... They bring us happiness... They bring us joy... They bring us laughter... They bring us the spirit we have in our home...

Brooklyn: She is such a sweetheart and growing into such a beautiful young girl. She is also full of energy with a very feminine side. She loves clothes, toys, and games. She loves to be a big sister to her little sister Taylor. Brooklyn loves it when Matt or I play with her and chase her around the house. Some of her favorite games are hide and go seek, Go Fish, and also putting puzzles together. She loves loves her preschool class and is in her second year. Next year she will be in kindergarten. She is so ready for that and ready to take on the world. We often invite friends over to play and they dress up and play in the kitchen or go outside and play in the backyard or on the tires. She has this trademark going on where she puckers her lips and turns her head to her shoulder, its so darling! She is so smart and often I wonder how she knows so much and I think I never knew that when I was her age. It amazes me how much she knows. Recently she shared the First Article of Faith in the church primary program and she did so well without any help. She spoke so well I could easily read her lips. She received many compliments on her speech. We have been working on memorizing more Articles of Faith and she has now memorized 1-3.

Taylor: Boy this girl is a scooter! She scoots everywhere, not crawls, scoots. She is also known as the "vacuum" in our home. Anything she can get her hands on she will stuff it in her mouth. I caught her with a dead fly her mouth and you can only imagine how frantic I was in getting it out and to make it worse, it had broken in her mouth as it was an old fly... (shutter....). Of course she smiled and giggled after the whole episode. She has blue eyes like Daddy and her two front bottom teeth are the cutest little sharp cutters! They hurt! Taylor makes such a cute "mad" face and forms her lips like Arnold (Gary Coleman when he was a kid) and her eye brows squint downward. We can't help but laugh each time. She is able to stand on her two feet all by herself without any support and I suspect she will be taking steps in no time. She adores her big sister. Her face lights up whenever she sees Brooklyn. She gets carried everywhere by Brooklyn and I am constantly reminding Brooklyn to put her down though Taylor looks happy but after a stumble and a fall, I decided I didn't want to have a heart attack. Taylor has brought an added spirit to our home along with Brooklyn's.

Enjoy the pictures!!!