A little bit of everything

Finally I think I'll be able to get some pictures posted. I've been trying for a couple days - honest! Hopefully tonight's the night - although, I might get distracted, as I'm watching The Biggest Loser while I'm posting this.

Let's see...where to start? I think I have some pictures left over from Easter. These were from Easter dinner at Great-grandma Lorraine's house (Matt's grandma).

This is arriving at Great-grandma's - Mallory in her new spring dress (although not her Easter dress, since that one came off at naptime) that was perfect for playing along with dolly and her blanky. I had made that blanket last summer, but this is the only time that she has ever played with it.

Renewing some friendships and playing games. The two boys are Matt's cousins, Nick and Ben. They were super nice to Mallory and played all sorts of fun games and helped her find her Easter basket. Nice kids.

She also made some new friends. This is Matt's cousin Danna's little boy, Joey. He's about a year younger than Mallory, but she had fun playing with him. Too bad he was still recovering from an ear infection...he was a bit clingy and cranky. That's not a fun way to spend Easter.

Then we tried to get a nice family picture. Some turned out better than others.....by the way, I have no idea what happened to my font. I can't find my "Arial" right now. ???

Okay, that's it for Easter pictures. I'm going to post this before something crazy happens and I lose all my hard work (and time spent waiting for pictures to upload!). More to come....maybe tonight, maybe not. :)

Random cute stories

Sorry, once again I've been remiss in updating my blog. Gosh, and I was doing so well for a while! And to make matters worse...I don't have any new pictures to share! I do wish that we had a scanner, as I have some prints from Jojo and Grandma Deb that I'd like to share. Oh well.

Since I don't have any exciting happenings to share, I'll just leave you with a few cute stories. Let's see.....

* Mallory has hit another milestone. She had her first full-blown temper tantrum last night. How fun. We had made friendship bread (anybody want a bag?) last night as her corndog was cooking. HUGE mess. So, afterwards she helped me load the dishwasher. I unwrapped the detergent tablet and handed it to her to put in the little cup, which I then closed. Enter meltdown. I'm not sure what she thought that blue and white tablet was...but it sure wasn't supposed to stay in the dishwasher! Screaming and tears ensued. I was able to distract her with a chocolate egg (thank heavens for leftover Easter candy!) and get her into the living room to read a book. However, when I had to go back and check on the bread in the oven (and she saw the dishwasher running) she started crying again. Poor kid.

* Fish lips. I really wish I had a picture of this to share with you. When Mallory is asked for "fish lips" she sucks in her cheeks and puckers her lips. So cute!

* Had I mentioned I got a free treadmill? It was on the area freecycle group and the nice "older" gentleman that gave it to me said it worked just fine but he was getting rid of it because his knees couldn't take it anymore. Yeah. That's because it has two speeds.....superfast and superturbofast! Matt said it looks like Tim the Toolman got a hold of it. I'm hoping he's able to adjust something so that you can actually walk on it. Otherwise I'll have to pawn it off on some other unsuspecting soul. Note to self: if it sounds too good to be true....

* I need to get my sewing machine out again. I've found a ton of neat projects that I want to do for Mallory and myself. I've even found cheap material to recycle from the thrift shops in the area. Now to just get them done....

Gee, I know I had more cute Mallory stories....I really need to just write them down when they come to me.

Correct me if I'm wrong....

...but I don't remember reading that Jesus oozed out of the tomb on Easter morning. I tried my hand at "resurrection rolls" this morning while Mallory recovered (napped) after 6:30am worship. The recipe is meant to be done with kids as an object lesson to show them the "empty tomb".

You're supposed to dip marshmallows in melted butter (embalming oil), roll them in cinnamon sugar (burial spices), then wrap up in crescent roll dough (the burial shroud). After baking, the marshmallow is supposed to melt, leaving an "empty tomb". Somehow, things went awry.

I even did a second batch and tried to make sure I sealed the edges really well. Nope. Oh well, at least my hot cross buns turned out a bit better.

Happy Easter everyone!

The adventures of Mallory and Joshua

I would have included Miriam in the title, but she wasn't too adventurous today. Now that I think about it....maybe it should have been the adventures of Brenda and Kasey. Coloring Easter eggs with two toddlers sure took some adventurousness - yep, just made that word up!

Mallory and I made it to Kasey's house a little after 10:00 this morning. Joshua was over at the church with Adam, so Mallory loved on Miriam for a little while.

Is it just me, or does Miriam look just a little worried in this picture? Never fear, Mallory was very gentle and never once tried to poke out...er, "show" me Miriam's eyes. Mallory really would make a very good big sister - and I've been getting a lot of hints to that effect. If anyone wants to put in a good word with the Man upstairs, feel free. We'd love for her to have a sibling...or two....

We then tried to get a nice picture of the three cousins. It was a challenge - this was the best one I was able to catch.

Kasey had mini-muffins waiting for us, so Joshua and Mallory had a little picnic. At least until the muffins and water ended up on the floor. Doesn't Mallory look so sweet?

Moving on to the "adventure" part of the day.... When I was talking to Mom on the phone yesterday, she was telling me how a girl from my hometown with a 2 1/2 year old was saying that she didn't let her dye eggs because of the mess. Mom thought that was kind of silly and that all kids should get to have fun with egg dye. I kind of wish we could have had a webcam going while we were playing. Pictures are the next best thing - bear with me, there are quite a few!

Joshua thought the green dye looked yummy. Lucky for him, Kasey had run out of vinegar, so that one was just plain water and coloring. But, it did give him a nice mustache!

In the next few pictures, I just want you to notice what a nice, neat job Mallory is doing. Joshua on the other hand.....

He actually was laughing here, not crying. Honest.

If you look closely at the above picture, you can see his green lips.

Oops....we have a humpty dumpty wanna-be. I think Kasey should go for the splatter-painted floor look, don't you?

Remember the neat, clean girl from the previous pictures? I think I spoke too soon. In her defense, it was an accident. Gosh, Mom, wish you could've joined us! :)

Like the orange foot? I must say, I'm pretty proud of myself; all of the dye came out of the kids' clothes with a nice soak in cold water....except the orange sock. I think its a lost cause. But, I haven't tried bleach yet, I'll let you know. Better yet - all of the dye came off Mallory with a nice soak in the bathtub. I wonder how Joshua turned out?
Here's the result of our labors. There are a few more humpty dumpty types - Joshua decided they should be pre-cracked for easier eating access.

After the eggs, Miriam woke up and wanted some lunch. So, while she ate, Mallory and Joshua (and I) played with toys and play-doh. It worked pretty well as a diversion until Joshua wanted to eat it. Blech.

Unfortunately, this is where my camera batteries died. After Miriam finished eating, all six of us went to Pizza Hut for dinner. Joshua was too tired to eat much, but Mallory polished off a huge portion of "meaty ziti" pasta bake. We headed back to the house and everyone took a nice nap. In fact, Joshua and Adam were still napping when we headed home. We made a quick stop at Grandma Deb's to play with Tera for a little bit, then back to our house for a bath and bed.

The easter bunny still has some stuff to do, so better be done. Have a blessed Easter everyone!

Preparing for Easter

First of all, I just had to show you what a tolerant kitty our little Daniel is. I don't often title my pictures, but I like to call this one "Catnap". Teehee.

The next few are of Mallory at last weekend's Easter egg hunt that was sponsored by the March of Dimes at the mall. The pretty much just threw a bunch of eggs, balloons and candy into an unused store and let the kids at it. Fortunately, they were smart enough to divide the kids into age groups with the youngest being three years and under. Needless to say, in this group, the parents did most of the egg gathering.
I can't believe how grown up Mallory looks in this next picture! Getting the hair off of her forehead sure makes a huge difference. It you look carefully, you'll see both of her hands are full of Jolly Ranchers. I'm still trying to figure out who thought that Jolly Ranchers were an appropriate candy choice for kids under three years old.

Mallory and I did have plans to go up to my mom and dad's in North Dakota for the long weekend. However, when we woke up on Friday, we had freezing rain and there was a big winter snowstorm hanging out right between here and there. Figures. So, Mallory and I hung out at home yesterday. I had spoken to Mom on the phone and she got me motivated to make some homemade rolls. Mallory is a super helper....
The kneading was the fun part...well, for her part it was more like "hitting".

It's all ready to rise...and didn't we make a nice mess? This is a new face for her - I just asked her to smile. What a ham.

We took a little trip to visit Aunt Kasey (and Joshua, Miriam and Uncle Adam) today. I have tons more pictures of our adventures there, but since I meant to get these pictures posted last night, I thought I better get this post done while I have the chance. I'm going to go empty the dishwasher, fill it up again, and then try to make some hot cross buns and resurrection rolls for Easter dinner at Great-grandma Lorraine's house tomorrow.

He's hired!

I think I can count on one finger the number of times that Matt has gotten up in the middle of the night to help when Mallory wakes up. Hmm...maybe no fingers.... Anyway, I think that's about to change. Fortunately, Mallory has finally been sleeping through the night most nights. We have had a few rough nights lately, however. For some reason, Mallory has been sort of waking up ("sort of" as in she is mostly awake - I think - but laying down and just sort of making pathetic sounding cries) and needing comfort. The problem is, when I go in, I can pick her up, sit down in the rocker and she snuggles right in and falls asleep. So I think. As soon as I stand up to lay her down, her eyes fly open and I hear "nooooo". Sometimes I can get her laying down, covered up and out of the bedroom before she wakes. Sometimes I even make it up the stairs and snuggled back in my bed. But it never fails, she wakes back up and we start over.

A couple of weeks ago we played this game for over two hours before I finally got desperate and took my life in my hands....ahem, woke up Matt. After getting him awake enough to be coherent, he goes downstairs to Mallory's room and I hear nothing but silence until he comes back to bed about three minutes later. (I was trying really hard to eavesdrop through the monitor, too!) When I asked him the next morning what he did..."nothing". Fine, don't share your secret. (insert eye roll here)

Fast forward to a few nights ago. Five o'clock in the morning, this started again. I don't do well at 5 am, especially when I know that I'll be up in a couple hours anyway. This time I lasted about 45 minutes before getting Matt. Again, down he goes, quiet....and back to bed he comes. Good grief. I asked him again what he does. "Nothing, I just tell her to lay down and go to sleep." (major eye roll here)

Last night about 11pm it starts again. Either I'm getting smarter or more desperate, because I send Matt down after only one try. He does it AGAIN.

That's it. Since he thinks he's so smart, he's officially in charge of night time wakings.

And now, I leave you with a scary picture....

This is the way Mallory thinks things work. Hmm....Animal Farm, anyone?

Just a few pictures

It really kind of bugs me that throughout a day, I think of all sorts of things to blog about (well, cute stories about Mallory to share, anyway), but then I finally take time to sit down and type...and nothing. That is actually my excuse for not posting lately....pretty lame, huh?

We did have a few fun days last weekend. My parents and sister came down for cousing Miriam's baptism. Everyone invaded Kasey and Adam's house Saturday afternoon...right in time for naptime, actually. Oops. Mallory was super excited because there were TWO babies - cousin Miriam and little Zachary (he's 2 months old and his parents' are Miriam's godparents).

I do just have to include this picture, too. One morning I asked Mallory if she wanted to take her baby along (to church, maybe...I don't honestly remember) and Matt was just appalled that I didn't ask if she wanted to take a cow or a tractor. Here....she knows how to play with trucks, too. She even makes the brrrr.... noise!

Having this many little ones around (Zachary has a big brother about Mallory and Joshua's age) made church interesting on Sunday. I think we had 5 kids under 2 in the front three pews! Gulp. (Plus, it was a 1 1/2 hour service!) We survived.

I've told my on-line friend Jay that Mallory and Ariel are long lost .... something. They share the same birthday, and always seem to be pulling the same sort of stunts. Case in point.

Granted, I don't have any pictures with her mouth full of kitty food (not that it hasn't happened....), but I still think these two girls need to meet. Or maybe not....hmmmm.