I hate teeth.

Or more specifically....teething. Poor Mallory has just been out of sorts the last couple days. Low fever on Sunday, not napping well, cranky....you get the idea. Last night (Sunday night) was AWFUL! She was up every hour from 7pm to 3am - all she wanted was to snuggle and rock. (Which, if you know Mallory at all, you know can only mean she's not feeling well!) Needless to say, Mommy was NOT looking pretty this morning.

The misery continued today. I guess daycare went okay, mostly because she was distracted by the other kids. But naps still didn't go well, she threw up once, and was not happy when we got home. I finally pried her mouth open enough to get some Orajel on her poor little gums and find the pointy little bugger causing all the trouble - upper right molar. The Orajel seemed to do the trick through supper and most of "school", but we did end up leaving class early.

Now, I just came up from putting her back to sleep. It was a process and involved tears from both parties. It's just so awful to know she's hurting and that I've done all I can to help - poor kid's hopped up on ibuprofen, tylenol, "natural" teething tablets, AND anbesol (and yes, I did speak with my health care professional - thanks Sandy!) I finally gave her a sippy cup of cold milk, which seemed to help. And now I'm off to dig up a teether to stick in the fridge for tomorrow....and hopefully get more than 2 hours of sleep in a row. Wish us luck! :)

Pumpkin carving bust

Well, it didn't go nearly as well as I had hoped. Neither Mallory or Joshua were really into the pumpkin guts. Well, for that matter, neither was Uncle Adam....heehee. So, Kasey and I did most (all) of the pumpkin gutting and carving and then staged some pictures for posterity. Win some, lose some.

And yes, this is about as interested in pumpkins as Mallory was all night. Joshua has a pretty cool refrigerator radio that she was into instead.

I do feel bad for Kasey's floor though. It was all clean and sparkly when we arrived but when we left, it had been desecrated with pumpkin guts. Good thing she's a Norwex girl! :)

Yay mailman!

Yep, Mallory's ebay Halloween outfit arrived in time for church. She wasn't feeling terribly cooperative during picture time, but I did manage a couple. They really don't do the outfit justice - it was pretty darn cute!

I've created a monster!

I can no longer drink my yummy Ovaltine milk in front of Mallory. *sigh* She's figured out that Mommy's milk and Mallory's milk are not the same thing and that Mommy's is way yummier! At first, I thought that it was just that I let her taste mine from a straw. So, I tried being sneaky and poured her milk into my glass. She took one drink and spit it out all over the front of her shirt. Silly girl.

My poor mailman....

is definitely earning his government pay this last week. I've gone a little ebay crazy....I think I need a twelve step program or a patch or something. Or, I suppose I could just stay away from the computer. Yeah right.

I'm actually anxiously awaiting my mail delivery today. I "accidentally" bought a super cute Halloween outfit for Mallory. Since she already has a pumpkin shirt to wear to daycare on Wednesday and she already has her costume, I'm really hoping it gets here today so that she can wear it to church tomorrow. (It's kind of a dressy outfit.) I'll definitely get pictures.

Speaking of "accidentally" buying ebay items - have you ever done that? You know, bid once just to see how high the other person has gone, expecting them to want it more than you and to bid again?? I know at least ONE person that reads this blog has experience with this.....you know you who are! :) It's a bad habit....worse than actually meaning to buy the item. I think.

That's about it for the day. Mallory and I are having supper with the Harvala's this evening. Hopefully both munchkins are happy and in the mood to play - I'm bringing pumpkins to carve! Yay! I'm hoping to get lots of fun gooey pictures....check back for those.

Uh-oh...

spaghellelos! Or something like that. :)

It's Mallory's new word for the day. Apparently she copied Jojo today at daycare when something was dropped during lunch. Then, during our semi-emergency trip to the grocery store for milk (because someone left the gallon of milk out all day - not naming names, but it starts with D and ends in -addy!) she was repeating it up and down the aisles. There was even a nice old lady that was impressed that she was saying such a hard word! So, we made our way over to the pharmacy to show off for some friends....and WHAMMO....she went from out-going Mallory to shy Mallory. No luck.

Then, as we got back into the truck it was more "uh-oh spaghellelos". So, Mommy got all excited and called Grandpa and Grandma Hanson to let them hear. Nope - zip the lip again! Lil' turkey. I had really hoped to get it on video, but no luck tonight. Stay tuned. :)

We need your help!

It's voting time....Mallory needs help choosing which costume to wear. The oh-so-cute ladybug or the way cool giraffe. Please help - decisions are soooo difficult!

Just a couple quick pictures while Munchkin is sleeping. Hooray for the big after church nap!

We've just been hanging out this weekend. Mallory's cousin Tera left yesterday for Maine, where she'll be spending the next 4 (!) months with her dad. Grandma Deb's house is going to be pretty quiet....we'll have to see what we can do to remedy that! :)

I got some new ribbon in the mail this week. Mallory thought they were quite beautiful, too! Although, I'm not real sure she has the color mix right....what do you think?

I've been working on replenishing my headband and clippie stock. It sounds like they've been selling fairly well at the new salon in Ghent. I'm also working up the courage to list some on etsy or ebay. Give me time.

Oh, and Tessa, just thought you'd like to know that oh-so-annoying talking puppy has been dug out of the toybox. Seems Mallory has ANOTHER new friend. Is taking the batteries out of a talking dog considered animal cruelty?

What an exciting day!

So much super exciting stuff today...well, exciting for us, anyway.

Mallory got a new hat. The picture is super cute, but trust me when I say it's even cuter in person! She's my little reggae girl.

She also made a couple of new friends - one of the winged variety....

Yep, that's a moth, not just a very realistic hair clippy. It stayed on her head for several minutes before flying off. Here's a little better picture.

And one of the two-legged kind....Mallory had her first date. Okay, okay, I know that this isn't usually done until kids are 16 (30??) or so, but it was chaperoned and they were under strict supervision at all times. (And diaper changes were done privately. teehee)

My friend Katie was babysitting little Alex, so we met for supper at Perkins and then went to Alex's house to play.
Alex brought his new truck along for supper. He and Mallory did very well, sharing not only toys and books, but food. Alex sure liked the grapes!

After supper, we went to his house to play. Unfortunately, he had had a long day with his grandparents and was pretty tired and clingy. Not so much into playing. But I did manage to snap a few pictures of them for blackmail later!

Oh, and Alex has a really pretty kitty, Emma, who is Satan incarnate. I first met Emma while I was in vet school - Alex's mom brought her to the clinic I worked in when I was a student. She was a very sweet kitten then. I don't know what happened...to call her crabby would be a HUGE understatement. So, even though Mallory really wanted to play with her, she was off-limits for the night.

Bruiser....deja vu

Yep, she did again. This time, going down the little indoor slide at daycare - the girl is fearless! Got going too fast, face planted into the carpet and got up laughing, according to Jojo. Fortunately, the owie isn't too bad, just a little spot of rugburn under her eye. I didn't get a picture, as she fell asleep on the way home from town and went right to bed. Yay!

We took a quick trip into town to drop some stuff off at Grandma Deb's work and then Grandma took us out to supper at BK. Billie and Tera came too, but they were a little late - crazy Marshall drivers! Mallory made such a mess of herself with her applesauce that I took her shirt off and she just wore her sweatshirt home - and to bed. She did wake up just a little bit ago long enough to get jammies on and have a little sip of water.

Jojo also told me yesterday that she thought that I'm going to have my hands full with Mallory.... There's a little girl at daycare that is a little, shall we say "aggressive" toward Mallory sometimes. Apparently on Wednesday, she pushed Mallory during storytime. Mallory got up, walked over to her and smacked her! So of course, Jojo told her to be nice. Then, she looked at Jojo, grabbed a handful of the little girl's hair and pulled! Again, she was told not to pull hair and to be nice. After which, she gave a sweet angelic smile. Good grief! Jojo said she didn't laugh out loud, but that the little girl kind of deserved it. :)

That's it for updates tonight. Sorry there aren't any pictures, I'll have to remedy that this weekend. I went a little crazy shopping for tights for Mallory - she wore some today, Kasey - and they are SUPER cute!

Back from cousin Joshua's house

Whew, what a fun day! Mallory took her morning nap, then we headed down to Kasey & Adam's house to play with Joshua. Unfortunately, Joshua laid down for his nap just before we got there, so we had some time to kill.

So Mallory alternated between waiting patiently (above) and playing by herself and with Grandma. This is as close as she's going to be to getting behind the wheel for a LONG time!

Then, just as Joshua was waking up, Mallory was ready for nap #2. So it was a while, but they finally got to play. They did a very good job sharing everything from the balls to Teddy Grahams.

But it was a long day, and Mallory knew when she was ready to go home.

** Copied from previous blog**

I got a call from JoJo - Mallory's daycare provider - this morning when I was on my way to work. Apparently, Mallory slipped while navigating a step and hit her head on the door jamb. It IS kind of hard to go down steps with a book, you know! She just got a shallow little cut above her eye - not even big enough to close with a butterfly strip. But it does make her look pretty tough. Don't you agree?






Fortunately, a bath and pink fuzzy jammies makes everything all better!

Okay, we're going to try this again....

I had to start a new blog for Mallory. The 3 "l"s in the url was bothering me too much. Plus, I came up with a marginally better blog title. :) I'm going to try to invite myself down to Kasey & Adam's so Mallory can play with Joshua this afternoon. Hopefully, I'll get some good pictures to share!