catching up

wow, time has really gotten away from me--it's been too long since I posted an update (although I wonder if anyone reads this anyway??) I'll try to summarize what's new in the past few months. The holidays came and went...it was a bittersweet celebration without my brother Jeff and sister in law Beth, who are living in Vienna--but we did see Darin's parents over Thanksgiving, and my other brother Jeremy, sister in law Joy, and our sweet nephews Ian and Luke at Christmas. Darin had some time off as his counseling job ended and he prepared to make a career change back to IT support. We were blessed with a fantastic job for him that is closer to home, has a much better work environment, more satisfying work, and pays more--praise God! Around that same time, Bailey started walking and has pretty well mastered the art of biped mobility. She's now starting to run, usually when she has an unidentified object in her mouth and she sees me coming toward her with a determined look in my eye. She's talking more, too--some words she says are "dada, mama, kitty, Jesus, cheese, no, more, woof-woof (for dog), all done, bye-bye, trees, and stinky!" In January, Bailey turned one and we celebrated with a ladybug party. Darin's brother Nate, our sister in law Kati, and nephew Cooper came to help us celebrate, along with Grandma and Grandpa McIlroy, G&G Halsey, and our friends the Nelsons and the VanderVeens. Bailey loved her first taste of cake! Whew! That's it in a nutshell!

sick days

Cabin fever is running rampant at the McIlroy household. We put Bailey in the church nursery for the first time, and wouldn't you know it, a week later she was sick. The nasty virus has been making its way though each member of our family, so we've been spending a lot of time at home, taking it easy. Here you can see how we've been entertaining ourselves on these rainy afternoons:

fun at the park

everyday dance party

B and I have this routine every morning. After breakfast, we go in her room, put on some music, and I dance around like a lunatic while she laughs and shrieks. She loves it, and I have to say it's become one of my favorite times with her. Since we've been at this for 9 months now, I'm beginning to notice her musical preferences. The girl loves Weezer, Bob Marley and Jack Johnson!

Most of the time, we play worship music in B's room, and she seems to like it. But she shrieks and squeals whenever we crank up the ol' ipod. Maybe it's a fallout of all those late nights her bleary-eyed mom tried to mumble the words to some classic lullaby, and then gave up and sang u2 songs instead.

the cutest 'lil pumpkin

Exciting news! My parents have finally made the move to Washington! They're now only about 40 minutes away from us--a huge improvement from 5 hours! We've been at their house a lot this week, helping them get settled in. Today we went to check out a pumpkin patch near their house. It was fun--we picked out a pumpkin (which I plan to cook and try feeding to Bailey--) and Bailey had a good time trying to get fistfuls of straw into her mouth. She even had her photo taken for a local newspaper!

Fall is here; the weather is crisp and cool, I have a persistant urge to bake things, and the trees are so pretty they're practially a driving hazard.

Cheers to October!

fun at the aquarium

We had a fun day exploring the Seattle Aquarium. Afterwards we went out for a seafood lunch and Bailey discovered bread...she was gnawing on a roll and cried whenever we took it away!

Bailey's first campout

It was with slight trepidation that we planned a camping trip with a 6 month old...many horror stories were told by friends and family. But thankfully we had a blast last weekend camping with our friends Karl, Carrie, and Savannah. Bailey slept well in the tent and woke up a happy camper each morning. Darin and Karl got out on the lake to paddle while the girls cooked up some yummy food over the campfire. My parents stopped over for the day to hang out...Tony with his boat and Mom with her bike. And Bailey found Savannah's mad peek-a-boo skills to be quite hilarious, as you will see in the video clip (see link below)--all in all it was a great trip and we are inspired to get out and camp more often.