Halloween Faerie?

Well, Bailey has really loved dressing up and we're considering some costume possibilities. Thoughts?

Guess who's swimming?

Bailey started swim lessons this week and has really done well. Her babysitter, Nate, has been taking her down, and had told me that she was doing well and that she'd swum the length of the pool with only a noodle wrapped around her - he didn't tell me that she was also swimming independently under water. I took her to her swim lesson yesterday and the second she got in pool she started doing this:


I was STUNNED!! She LOVES swimming - pushes the swim instructor away when they try to hold her to swim around the pool - and loves to dive down and get things off of the bottom of the pool. It was such an incredible thing to watch and I was so proud of the way that she claimed her place in the water. When I told her she was swimming like a fish, though, she replied, "no, I'm like the little mermaid!" I guess we know what has inspired her swimming!

Bailey's Ballet Photos

Rounding out the ballet recital week, here are Bailey's Ballet pictures - enjoy!

Co

A Star is Born

The Pool is Open!

The pool opened this week and for the first time, Bailey experienced the diving board. For two hours! She loved it!

Same time next year...

Well - one year ago (almost to the week) I wrote about taking Bailey to Farm Tots for the first visit of the year. I shared how she spent a couple of hours jumping in a puddle. I could pretty much copy and paste as today was a repeat - only there was sun. Enjoy the opening of Farm Tots 2009!

Guess who wants to go to Hawaii?!?!

...Bailey does, too:

The Easter Bunny's Coming to Town

Well - ok - the Easter Bunny has come and gone. How did time pass so quickly?!?! We have been very busy here at the casa Dare. I have been working many hours, playing with Bailey, starting my career as a chauffeur (well, driving Bailey all over the place for her activities), and playing the piano (I am in the theater W-Sa evening and Su matinee, until May 17th - If you get a chance, come see Gutenberg! The Musical! at Arts West in West Seattle - http://www.artswest.org). Adam has been working a great deal - go Xbox!! Bailey, well, she's just THE BEST!! She's three and she's busy. And, she's growing up. Check out her Easter pictures (I melt every time I look at them):

Bailey's First Recital - a teaser

First haircut!

Bailey got her first haircut last Thursday - an exciting day! Momo came up to do do Bailey's special first haircut and did a great job - Bailey did a terrific job with the haircut and had fun!! Here are the pictures from the big event:

Sleepover

For Valentine's Day, Adam got sneaky and arranged a sleepover for Bailey with one of her playgroup buddies, Zoe. We loaned Ruth and Ryan our video monitor so that they could watch the girls (more for entertainment purposes than anything). They said it was hilarious to watch - the two of them trying to have conversations (they don't always understand each other at this age) and going back and forth to each other. A bit like an Abbot and Costello movie.

Apparently Bailey went to sleep easily, but woke up at 5:30am announcing, "My mommy and daddy are coming to get me." Zoe informed her that we weren't coming until after breakfast, but Bailey did not back down. She wasn't upset, just didn't want to miss us! We picked her up around 10:30am and she fell asleep on the way home and slept until 2pm - and when she woke up she wanted to go back to Zoe's to play - she had a great time!! (and so did mommy and daddy) Our little girl is really growing up!

These aren't the real pics - this is them pretending to have a sleepover the week before:

Cinderella

We've moved to a new princess - Cinderella. On Wednesday night/morning, Bailey woke up at 2:30am because she thought she saw a snake (a very kind one who was holding up her clothes in her closet - also known as a clothes rod), a bee (again, a nice one, she caught him),and then (while she was up) she thought she'd act out the entire movie of Cinderella - it took until 6:30am. I listened to it on the monitor - she's got the script and score down - I'm hiding the movie for a little while, I think this is a sign that she's watched it too much (and, I don't want a repeat - I need my sleep)!

Momo comes to play

While I was recuperating from my tummy tuck, Momo came up to spend the afternoon with Bailey and play. They made cookies together, which Bailey LOVED! She was actually more of a participant with Momo than she ever is with me. When she and I make cookies, she breaks the egg and then wants to wash her hands (which is code for play in the water). With Momo, she wanted to help mix and put other ingredients in. Here are some pics:

Bailey Sings Belle

Bailey's favorite new activity is for me to play Belle while she acts the song - this evening she began spontaneously broke into song. If you listen close you can almost make out the words and melody. Oh, and she doesn't believe in second verses - she just loops through the first verse (well, and a bridge) - as far as she's concerned, if the composer really cared about the second verse they'd have put it first.

Warning - Pic overload!

Don't say I didn't warn ya! Here are the pics taken by the sports photographers at the marathon and 1/2 marathon. I'll add captions for my own pictures - for Adam, the caption is, "would you look at the guy with the hot legs?" (and, to my Mother-in-law, just pretend that the caption said, "great job honey!")

The clock above is the total running time for ALL runners from the moment that the fireworks went off. This doesn't take into account the "chip" reading from when Adam actually crossed the start line. His actual time was 1:58:(something - I can't remember right this second). They adjust for the final results.

This was at mile 20 - I was just thankful that I wasn't wearing a wool kilt about now!

This was right around mile 11 - I was really feeling very good!

Running through the castle - about mile 10.5