Fun Fun and lots of Fun!!

Some random pictures of all the fun we have been having!

We love all the new adventures!!!

Lake Champlain about 6 hours from where we live. We were invited to stay at a family cabin on the lake and had so much fun!!! Brooklyn's friends! They trio had so much fun together!

We stayed at the Baldwin Family's cabin. They are a fun bunch of people!!! It just so happens that Teresa, (the wife), is the sister of my friend who lived below Matt and I when we lived in Salt Lake!!! What a small world. The Baldwins live in a town called Sonyea about an hour from we live. They live on acres and acres of land. Its a pretty sight!!!

Matt doing some dusk fishing... Beautiful scenery....

The other side of Lake Champlain is Vermont. Matt swam half way across the lake and its several miles long. I kayaked along side with him and didn't think to bring my camera for this!!

Our private beach. Notice the cabin in the background... This was heaven!

Not sure what to think.... haha

Did I just see the famous monster in Lake Champlain? There is a rumor that there is sea monster in this lake... Of course I was a little nervous when we kayaked out to the middle of the lake.

I ran a half marathon back in September. It was in Syracuse about 1 1/2 hours from where we live. It was a beautiful sunny morning and got a little too warm doing the run. But it was all fun!!!

The Saturday morning running group. We ran together each Saturday morning for the long runs to prepare for the race. Rebe, me, Katie, Lisa, (Lisa's twin sister Linda I believe... she flew in from Arizona to run with us).

Another friend from the ward who also ran the race, Michael Bourne.

Proud of my time for a first time half maraton run

I had to post this funny picture. We had a farewell party at our home for Adriana who is now serving her mission in California. These two smeared cake all over each other.

The Schaefers are such an awesome family! They are from our ward and live about an 45 mins away in Mt. Morris. This Ranger is one heck of a fun ride!!! The only times we have ever ridden in it is at night with no light and just the headlights through the trees and brushes going at a great speed. They live on 100 acre land and so you can imagine how fun it is ride all over and through it!

We had a deaf group activity at the Schaefers where we had a bonfire, BBQ and some of us even slept over night!

Making smores!!!



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!!!

At Canandaigua Lake. Brooklyn loves playing in the water. 

Shoving her face with a nectarine... This girl loves fruit!!!

Her famous pucker lips!

What did I tell ya? Pucker up gal!

Taylor loves the swings!!! She loves them so much that she.....

Fell asleep!!!!

Beginning stages of standing up on her own! Look at those chunky legs! Love em!

At Stoneybrook Park

This awesome toy sits at an angle and the you can spin around and around. I tried this as well and loved it!

Hiking up the river at Stonybrook. She is such a happy baby!

We had fun at Stonybrook and playing in the water. We are definitley going back in the summer!

Random pictures and then some....

I ran out of time to post pictures from two weeks ago so here they are along with some randoms! 

Brooklyn and I have been enjoying a lot of time at the pool, pretty much everyday when the sun is out. We bought some small water balls and play basketball in the water... I am training her well (wink wink).

Taylor taking a pleasant nap. Notice she has her face covered... she always sleeps with her face concealed!

Loving this!

Dad was able to come swim with us one of the days last week.  Brooklyn had so much fun learning how to swim!

I love her eyes!

I took Brooklyn to Jump on it with some friends and she had so much fun! Taylor is always having a blast when she gets to sit in this carrier. 

Preparing to dive! 

Bouncing Taylor on the blow ups! 

Some friends of ours, the Schaefers, invited Brooklyn, Taylor and I to Nunday (about an hour from Rochester) to a carnival! Matt was studying for finals. So I packed the girls up and we spent the night at the Schaefers home. Nunday is a cute small town way out there! The drive was just beautiful with green green green trees everywhere! Brooklyn checking out the balls on water!

The view from one of the swing rides

Can you see Brooklyn and her two friends?

I just loved the way this booth looked that I had to get a picture of Brooklyn in it.  It reminds me of something that looks magical in movies!

Ashlyn, Caylee and Brooklyn

They rode on this ride for about 5 mins!  I asked the worker if they could ride for a long time since there was no one waiting in line and he said sure! :)

Justin Schaefer, Adrianna, Me! We were on this laaaame ride that was supposed to spin around fast and it didn't... oh well we had fun anyways!

My first time making sushi! We make some almost every week! I am holding up some ginger and I can just eat a whole jar full of them! MMMM!

A while back we had girls night! It was so much fun! All of our husbands are in the business program and all moved here at the same time! L to R: Kira, Dani, Jenelle, Rachel, Me.  Jenelle and Rachel and I all live in the same complex area and didn't know each other then. I just love these gals so much! We all moved in with one child each which were all girls.  Now two of us have a second child, Kira, broke the streak by having a boy and he is darling!

For girls night we went out to eat and then headed back to Rachel's home and made some purses! They turned out so cute! We hung out until midnight and snacked on Pavlova with strawberries and drizzled raspberry vinaigrette! It was sooo yummy! 

I have been taking Brooklyn to Barnes and Noble in Pittsford on Wednesday mornings. They do story time and then always have a craft item to make that goes along with the stories that were read. Brooklyn just loves making the crafts. When we are done we play with a train set they have there and then take a couple rides up and down the escalator. Brooklyn is here with her friend Madi, Jenelle's spunky daughter! They made elephant masks! 

Ribbit..Ribbit! 

Duck... duck... duck... GOOSE!!

Flower!

A trip to Niagra Falls! Either Brooklyn and Matt are GIANTS or Niagara Falls shrunk!

One night I went upstairs to check on Brooklyn after she had gone to bed and found her sitting up in her bed like this! She seriously was like that for about 5 minutes before I laid her down. Who knows how long she had been sleep-sitting before I came up! HILARIOUS! Matt came up and we had a good laugh!

"Brooklyn why is your Daddy so good looking?"

Brooklyn at Madi's house chilling! They were being silly, YO! Whats up!!?? (not sure what they were doing here... I made that up.)

Madi and her family moved to Hartford, CT for the summer for an internship and so they dropped off an early birthday gift for Brooklyn. We can't wait to have them back in August!

Dancing on Soul Train!  Just kidding... She loves to climb on things and do some funky dancing!

Another funny and cute way she has been sleeping!