Halloween!

Our halloween fun started with pumpkin carving. Cooper got a paw, I got an M for Mizzou, and Brandon's pumpkin rotted, so he didn't get anything except for a smelly pumpkin! I asked Brandon to draw the M on my pumpkin before carving it and he got to work, only when he showed it to me, it was a Y! Ew. I told him to fix it, and he put a B and a U on there! Finally he just carved the M free hand but you could still see the other letters on there a little. Brat.


And these are the owl cupcakes that I made for my secretaries and custodians at school. They were fun to make and they were super cute!

Nik and Katie brought the kiddos down and they were so adorable! As you can see, they were the gang from the Wizard of Oz, and it was perfect for them! They went to our church's trunk or treat and they had the best costumes, by far! Then we went out and went trick or treating in a nearby neighborhood and the kids scored some good treats!





Oh, I was Hermione Granger and I even dyed my hair for the part! I had my friend Becca help me and it turned out great. The box was not the most accurate so it came out more red than brown, but I like it still! Then I made Bran dress as Ron Weasley again, but he wasn't feeling well (we've both been sick, but he's got the worst of it) so he didn't feel like playing the part all that much.

St. George Trip

A couple weeks ago, we headed down to St. George to meet up with Bran's parents. We were only gone about 30 hours, but it was a good trip. Above is the St. George temple, where Brandon's parents were married.

Before we hit St. George, we stopped off at Aunt Kelley's house. She's got a cool little farm and orchard! This is the view from her front yard.







Squirrel!

This is her horse, I can't remember her name, but I got to ride her! Without a saddle and without reins!


They have 3 cows and they really wanted to get close, they probably thought I had food.


And chickens and chicks too. I got to pet this one!

Here's my horse ride...it was really tough with no saddle and nothing to hold onto except the horse's hair!

The horse was eating from the orchard and decided to walk through the trees with me on her back! I nearly fell off!


Feeding the horse was fun, she at a ton of apples!




And this mountain is called "Molly's Nipple" but I'm not sure why?!?! Poor Molly.

Birthdays and Home Improvement

For our birthdays this year, we kept it simple. Bran got Halo Reach and he got me 90 bulbs to plant in our garden. We went to Nickel City for his bday with some friends and I got a sweet wig. We had good cake and Brandon had a Halo party with his friends. Pretty low key, but we were satisfied.

Here's us at Nickel City with the awesome wig that I won.

We decided to go ahead and take control of our front garden. Technically, the HOA is supposed to take care of it, but they are just about the worst HOA on the planet and they don't do anything, so we took out the ugly bushes that used to be there (they were ugly, needed to be trimmed and covered our window) and we put in 2 little ones that we bought. Then we planted 87 of the bulbs in the front, covering the rest of the area. These are just pictures of what it looks like now, but it will be filled with pink, blue and white flowers in the spring!

Cooper updates

Well, our little boy is growing up so fast! He is almost 8 months old now and is nearly fully grown. He is mostly housebroken, but still has accidents. He got fixed on September 10th and had to wear a cone for 10 days! Most dogs hate their cones, but he grew to love his! When we took it off, he wanted it back!

He has a few best friends that he loves to play with when he gets a chance: Frank the black lab, Koa the blue heeler, and Bailey the little tiny Pomeranian/something else I can't remember mix. Bailey is a fourth of Cooper's size, but loves to be slobbered on by him! He also likes "Kitty" the outdoor cat that isn't afraid of Cooper. He has yet to get close enough to actually smell the cat though, but I think he is still trying to figure out what cats are exactly. Aside from playing with his friends, he loves to cuddle, eat ice cubes and peanut butter, take walks, chew on sticks and look out the windows.

Cooper also loves to eat and destroy anything he can. Recently, his accomplishments include: tearing up and eating part of a $10 bill, eating part of a mouse pad, eating and completely destroying our headphones, shattering Bri's glasses (they were plastic lenses), lots and lots of toilet paper (which is kind of funny sometimes), our remote buttons, Brandon's phone is in really bad shape, he ate his puppy teeth ( I had them on my dresser and he got up there and ate them), magazines, and I'm sure there are lots of others! It sounds like we don't watch him, but we do and he will grab something as fast as he can and run off with it! He is really fast and good at running around the couch to the point where it takes both of us to catch him!

Discipline is really tricky for us, well for me actually. Cooper is so good around Brandon...he just sleeps and relaxes all day because he feeds off of Bran's calm energy. And he listens to Brandon when he tells him to stop doing something. He just has to say "hey" and hold up a finger and Cooper stops immediately. When I'm around though, he is really hyper because he feeds off my "constantly on-the-go" energy. And when he is doing something he's not supposed to and I hold a finger up like Bran does, he jumps up to bite it! Totally different worlds!

Here he is post surgery. The day of his surgery he just laid around and was really sad, but then the next day, he was back to his normal self, just with a cone on his head!



And here is a little sweatshirt that I made for him from a sweatshirt I cut up. He seemed to enjoy it for a little while.

Retirement

Today, I made a very difficult decision and decided to retire my favorite pillowcase. This pillowcase is actually an old shirt of Brandon's that his mom made into a case and he gave it to me as a gift when we graduated from high school. It is so special to me because he was wearing this shirt on the day that he asked me to be his girlfriend and our journey together began. However, it has become very frail over the years and within the last few weeks, has sustained some attacks from Cooper. Well, maybe it wasn't all Cooper, but it ripped so easily and it was just old. So, I will be sleeping with a normal pillowcase now...unless I can find my Miss Piggy pillowcase that I used to love!

In memory of Pillowcase, June 2004-October 2, 2010

Cooper-licious

Well, I was doing a pretty good job at blogging, and then Cooper happened. But I love him!!! He is just so darling! He can be very vicious sometimes and he likes to bite (really hard) when he plays, but he is just so cute. He is growing really fast! He has outgrown his first collar, but is still too small for the next size collar. He has tripled in size since we got him! He is done with all of his puppy shots so we can finally start going on walks! He loves being outside and just loves to lay in the sun and chew on sticks. I think he is the cutest when he sleeps because he lays in the strangest positions and he snores! Although he used to snuggle up to us to sleep, he is now more independent and likes to sleep on the ottoman, his pillow, under the couch or on the floor.

Oh and Cooper is on Facebook now, so you can add him as a friend and see more pictures, as well as keep up with what he is doing..haha!

So here are some newer pictures of Cooper.

Mother's Day

Yesterday was my first mother's day as a mom...a dog mom, that is.

Taking a hint

Yesterday, I wore some cute gray flats with black dress pants. One of my students asked me, "Mrs. Bailey, do you have white socks on?" I said, "That's my skin." I wasn't wearing any socks.

My. Husband. Is. AWESOME! Part 2

Why is my husband the greatest, you ask? Oh, only because at 11:30 this morning, he surprised me with this little guy:
I walked into the dining room and saw him there. The funny thing is that he was in the middle of taking a poop right on our dining room floor! I screamed with excitement and I think I scared him! I started crying hysterically because I was so happy!

We don't have a name for him yet. We just say "Hey you"


Here he is chewing on my shorts...he really likes to chew on things! And his teeth are really sharp! He just about pierced my ears!First potty trip outside!

Here he is laying on me taking a nap! He sleeps a lot and then wakes up and is really energetic for about 20 minutes, then it's naptime again!

My attempt at homemaking

In our new house, we have windows that had these dinky little curtains on them (left behind by the previous owners). These curtains served no purpose, except to look cute, but they fell very short of that. The problem was that the sun would come through the windows in the evening and create a huge glare on the tv, thus prohibiting us from seeing anything that was going on. So I decided to attempt to make some cute curtains that would also serve as blackout curtains. Now, I have VERY little sewing experience, so I was very intimidated to try making them. But, I found some cute fabric (paisley!) and came up with a game plan. I borrowed my friend Becca's sewing machine and got to work. Once I got started I was pretty impressed with my work. Of course my lines weren't straight, but I didn't really care...it just adds character! So here are some pics of my curtains!

WARNING: Pita chips can be hazardous to your health

While I was on spring break, we decided to go to Costco. Well of course, they had a ton of samples out, and I can't really pass up free samples at Costco! The first sample that I got was Pita Chips and some hummus. Well it was pretty good. So good in fact, that I didn't feel it was necessary to chew the chip completely before I swallowed it. So when I swallowed the chip, it really hurt, like one of the corners had scratched my throat! My throat hurt for the rest of the day! Then, it was still hurting the rest of the day. I told Brandon that I thought the chip had cut the inside of my throat, and that it would have to heal itself (he laughed at this idea for some reason!) Well my throat hurt for the next 2 days and then I found a giant white dot in the back of my throat (yikes!) so I went to go get a strep test. The strep test came back negative, but the doctor said that the giant white dot was really a giant kanker sore. Now, I've had kanker sores before, but never in my throat. It hurt to eat, drink, talk, yawn and pretty much everything else. So the moral of the story....be very careful when eating pita chips and be sure to chew them!

My. Husband. Is. Awesome.

A couple weeks ago, our car wouldn't start. We didn't have time to try and jump it or get it to a shop, so we just carpooled with the truck for a couple weeks. Well now I'm on Spring Break so we decided to try and fix it ourselves yesterday. We jumped it and drove it to AutoZone. Bran decided that he could just replace the dead battery himself, so we went in and bought one. Now, the only tools that we have are my tools and they are PURPLE. That's right, purple tools. I wish I could have gotten a picture of Brandon using purple hand tools, but I didn't have my camera. So he is trying to get the battery out of the car and it starts raining, of course! Meanwhile, I'm sitting in the warm and cozy truck while he is outside in a t-shirt, in the cold and rain. So he finally got the new battery in and all was well until he tried to connect the battery, but the cable things are so corroded that they just broke. So now we really have to take it to a shop! But Brandon did awesome!

The greatest day of my life

So not only did we move into our new house on Saturday (more to come on that!) but kU lost to Northern Iowa. Yes, Mizzou lost too, but it's totally fine because kU choked yet again. We can now add Northern Iowa to the list along with Bucknell and Bradley. Man, I love March Madness!!