Scary spiders

I like to think of myself as adventurous. I might not actually be adventurous, but I like to think that I could be. Anyway, I had all three cousins at my house this morning (Tera, Damien and Mallory) and decided to have them help me decorate cupcakes. I made the cupcakes last night (I'm adventurous, not crazy!) and got them frosted while the kids played (see previous remark). I think we did a darn good job - no huge messes made (Damien's face is the exception) and all the cupcakes got frosted. Go me.

New spring coats

Just in time for spring. (Happy spring, everyone!) I got ambitious this year and decided Mallory needed a couple new coats. Okay, maybe not "needed". In fact, her little corduroy coat from last fall still fits perfectly fine. But I wanted to make them. Good enough for me!

This first one ended up a little bit big. The pattern is out of a European magazine called Ottobre that I discovered thanks to my new friends at Sewingmamas. I decided that since I was going to put that much work into something, she better be able to wear it for a while, so I went with about a size and a half bigger than what she wears now. There's definitely some growing room. This is going to be her "special" coat for church and things like that. No playing in the mud in this thing!

This one fits a bit better. This pattern is from My Favorite Things and is called, aptly, The Little Hooded Jacket. The outside is a laminated cotton fabric, so it's waterproof, and the lining is a jersey knit to keep it a bit warmer. I adore this jacket! It was my first separating jacket zipper and first time using piping. I wish I had one in my size!

Now, I just need to decide what to sew next. No worries...I have plenty of ideas! :)

Little dancer girl

A week later than planned, but dance class has begun! Mallory wasn't so sure about it, though. She got dressed happily enough, but during the car ride there she kept telling me she wanted to go home, not to dance class. Fortunately, once we got there, she was okay and joined the group with no problems. It was a nice little class for two and three year olds. I'm guessing Mallory was one of the youngest there and it did show a couple of times, but overall she did great.


Here she is with her new little friend, Amelia. Amelia's mom is also a veterinarian - we work together one day a week. Don't you love their little matching tutus?
Making the circle "really, really small."

Banging on "drums" - I can't believe how well these kids listened! They actually all waited to start playing until the teacher (Miss Erin) had given everyone a drum and told them how to beat on them. They played loud and soft, fast and slow.

I think they were supposed to be touching their toes with their "bumpers" in the air. That didn't work quite as well as the drums. Or maybe they were jumping like frogs, I can't remember for sure. The frogs would explain the picture better....

And here's a nice big circle.

Of course, a half hour of dance class isn't terribly tiring for little kids. So we hung out at the school for a little while afterwards to let them burn off some steam. The little boy in red is Austin, another co-worker's son.

Happily, the school had a nice long cafeteria for the kids to run up and down. Mallory and Amelia spent most of the time holding hands...and clothes-lining poor Austin when he ran between them.

After twenty minutes of running, Mallory was ready to head out. She was pretty disappointed when I told her we were heading home and not going to dance class again. I guess that means she had fun. Unfortunately, it sounds like Miss Erin would prefer no parents in the room for the rest of the classes...no more cute pictures. Guess we'll have to wait for the recital in two months.

By jove, I think she's got it!

Going potty on the toilet, that is. I figured that in and of itself deserved a mention on this oh-so-neglected blog of mine. I was beginning to think that my precious daughter would be in diapers until kindergarten - even though people swear that never happens! Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating a tad. But, if you remember...I mentioned oh, almost a year ago, that Mallory had peed in the potty a few random times both at home and at daycare. We definitely haven't been working on training this whole time. In fact, as recent as last Thursday morning (ten-ish days ago) she flat out told me that "I wear diapers, no wear panties." Try arguing with that. However, that night, she told me she wanted to wear panties. So on they went. I'll spare you the nitty gritty, but she has done really well! The first few days I had to make sure she was on the potty at least every 45 minutes. I even found some of those oh-so-fashionable Gerber plastic undie covers to try to contain the accidents. By late this last week, she's started telling me when she has to go potty, holding it a bit longer (depends on what she's had to drink), and even managed to hold it for two miles (after she said she had to go) until we got home! Yippee!!

That's pretty much the excitement around here. I did enroll her in a little dance class that was supposed to start last Thursday. It's a community education type program and they actually have a class for two and three year olds. It meets just one night a week for half an hour, but at the end there will be a recital. May 14th for any of you that may want to mark your calendars. However, since we had a nice snowstorm last week, we didn't have class. I'm a little concerned how this will affect the recital. Just kidding. I can't wait to get some cute pictures in her little leotard and tutu (yep, I made her one!)

Since I don't have much other news, I'll fill the rest of this post with some random pictures. I know that's all you come for anyway, right?

My niece, Miriam (she's in the center below) turned one the end of last month. Well, actually, January, I guess that's technically two months ago, now. We spent the weekend visiting, managed to not catch the tummy flu that made the rounds, and brought our ice cream freezer to make homemade ice cream. Joshua and Mallory were in charge of that.

Superbowl Sunday found us trying out the local ice-skating rink. Fortunately, it was pretty quiet, probably due to the big game. They had these cute little walker things for little kids to push. I still spent most of the time half bent over to help Mallory push and to make sure she didn't fall over and crack the back of her head on the ice. She had a blast - laughed everytime she fell down. We haven't gotten back yet, we really should.

My multi-tasking whiz kid.

Believe it or not, there was actually a weekend around here that was nice enough to play outside for a significant length of time. We played at Grandma Deb's house with Tera and Billie. Mallory was practicing for when she's older and in charge of the winter sidewalks.

We tried to get a group picture. Yeah, that worked well. (That's Grandpa Larry's dog Jake that joined us.)

More sledding.

Still more.

Did I ever mention that Mallory is in a big girl bed now? She transitioned pretty well. We did end up getting a baby gate (toddler gate?) for the bedroom door after she drug her quilt all the way UP THE STAIRS and stood outside our bedroom door whimpering. Gave me a fright. Up went the baby gate. Actually, since then, she hasn't tried to get out of her room. *shrug*

And, as promised way too many weeks ago, cow pictures. Isn't it nice they're all showing their good sides?

Nothing like ice cream in January

Woo-hoo, my camera is here! It's so wonderful, and I'm guessing will be even more so once I figure out how to work all the buttons. For now, I know that I press the silver one on top to take a picture. :) In case you're at all curious, I got a Canon Powershot SX110 IS. It's easy like a point and shoot, but does have some manual settings that I hope to try out someday.

So, in order to get the camera broken in (I hope I didn't just jinx things), I brought it along to Matt's mom and dad's this weekend for ice cream making. Yep, you read that right. It's about 10 degrees outside and two plus feet of snow on the ground, but they made ice cream. Must be a Minnesota thing.

Grandpa was in charge of the ice cream maker, but Tera and Mallory helped put the ice in the bin. Genuine Minnesota ice.

Then, we wait. And wait. Fortunately, Bambi II was able to distract most of the waiters. It's a good thing that it's actually a pretty decent movie, as we've seen it way too many times.

Finally, there is ice cream. It was a long wait for some of us.

Very delicious!

What, is there something on my face?

And finally, just to show off how well my new camera takes close-ups....

I'm so excited to have a camera again. I'm trying to remember to keep it (and charged batteries) in my purse so that I can catch more candid moments. (There's a post with cows coming up!)

A new year

Maybe I'll be able to keep up with the blogging this year. Or maybe not. Time will tell, I guess. No lovely pictures with this post as my camera is officially toast. Mallory was so excited to show Grandpa Larry the picture of her with Santa that she dropped the camera on the linoleum floor. Twice. Cameras don't like that much. Apparently I got my updated wish list to Santa a bit too late, so a new camera did not appear under our tree. That's okay, I've taken matters into my own hands. Thanks to amazon.com and the power of the internet, a new picture taking device should arrive at my doorstep in about a week.

That was just my quick update. I hate to leave all my loyal followers (follower?) hanging like I did. I hope to get a nice fat pictured post up real soon. See ya then!

Here you go, Tessa

First of all, I need to admit, I'm a terrible blogger. There. It's out. Not like you didn't know this anyway, right? Anyway, my sister emailed me to oh-so-politely ask me to get my butt in gear and update with some pics. I've been pretty bad at getting pictures, and it's only going to get worse. Mallory was so excited to show her grandpa and daddy the last picture we took, that she dropped the camera and broke the telephoto lens. *sigh* Guess what's on my Christmas list?

Here's the picture that caused all the excitement. Funny, she was way more excited about the idea of Santa (and showing off the picture afterwards) than she was here!