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.

Sorry 'bout that

I guess I kind of left you hanging after last Friday. I kept meaning to post again, but forgetting to upload some of Mallory's new pictures. Unfortunately, now that I've finally remembered, I can't get the camera and computer to communicate properly. Hmm.....

Anyway, I'll try to give you a quick rundown of our last week or so.

Last Saturday, Mallory and I went down to Holland to visit Aunt Kasey (and Joshua and Miriam). Mallory and Joshua had a tough time sharing, but both enjoyed playing on the stairs. Mallory also enjoyed visiting Miriam again, she really likes babies! After naptime, we headed home, with a brief stop at Grandma Deb's to visit her and Tera.

On Wednesday, I got to help judge a sixth grade science fair in Marshall. It was actually kind of fun. There was a huge variety of topics....everything from teeth whitening to insulation to energy drinks. Mallory "got" to come with me since Jojo was at the state girls' hockey tournament with her daughter.

Since I was supposed to work all day on Thursday and all of my trusty back-ups were busy, Mallory was at a new daycare that day. I think it went okay, considering, but due to some scheduling snafu's at work, I ended up picking her up about 11:30. She came with me to Ivanhoe and hung out while I spayed a dog, then we went home.

Friday morning found Mallory and I at work together again. It was pretty slow, so we ended up leaving about 11:00. That ended up being a good thing, since she fell asleep on the way home and slept for an hour and a half once I got her in her bed.

Today, we played supermodel and had some 18 month pictures taken at WalMart. She wasn't terribly cooperative - she kept wanting to stand up, but she was too tall for the background that way. We ended up getting a couple good shots, and since I just went with their advertised offer ($5.99....gotta love it!), that was just fine. Interesting how the nice photographer lady wasn't nearly as nice once I told her I didn't want the $60 package!

Tomorrow should prove to be interesting. Billie and Paula have invited Mallory and I to go shopping (Tera's coming, as well.) Hopefully Mallory will snooze enough in the car so that she's not extraordinarily cranky....I'm taking our big stroller, just in case.

So ultimately, nothing too exciting has been going on. But, considering the excitement of my last few posts, I'm totally okay with that. Maybe next time I'll be able to share some pictures.

Third day's the charm

Finally! Mallory is back to her crazy, silly self. (insert big sigh of relief here)

This morning started a little rough. Since I wasn't exactly sure what the morning would bring, I let her sleep as long as she wanted. I heard her gabbing downstairs at about 7:30, so I went to see how she was doing. There's nothing better than a big sunshiny smile first thing in the morning! Her temp was back down to normal, so off to daycare we went. I was a little late to work, since Mallory slept so late, but that's okay.

We came home this afternoon to a big Valentine's package from Grandma and Grandpa Hanson (my mom and dad). Mallory got a fun squishy ball that had weird stretchy spikeys. She loves it! In fact, it beat out her babies for a place in bed tonight. Remember how I had mentioned that I had been sabotaged in my weight loss plans by Amy with the peanut butter hearts? Well, my mom did it this time! I had mentioned to her that I couldn't find the Brach's cherry jube jel Valentine's hearts anywhere. Well, she didn't find the Brach's, but she sent two huge bags of another brand of cherry hearts! The first thing I'm doing is breaking out the snack size ziploc bags and dividing them up into individual servings. Not very fun, I know, but otherwise I'd eat the entire freaking bag all at once!

Then, since Mallory was feeling better and Matt wasn't going to be home until later, Mallory and I met our friend Katie for supper at Perkins. Side note: being skimpy with "regular" ranch dressing on one's salad is waaayyy better than eating a "normal" amount of light ranch. Blech.

After supper, we were invited over to Katie's to see her new house. (She recently moved into town after living on her family farm all her life.) We also met Katie's aunt Eileen who's been staying with her while recuperating from surgery. If there was any question that Mallory was back to normal it was answered tonight! She was full of beans and was such a ham. What a little show-off! We watched her antics and laughed for a solid hour until it was time to go home. The only hitch came when Mallory saw Katie's little dog statue. Poor munchkin wouldn't go anywhere near it and just about cried when Katie picked her up and tried to explain that the puppy wouldn't hurt her. Guess we'll stick with the kitties for now.

Anyway, just wanted to let you all know that it seems the last couple days are behind us. Thank goodness. (insert second big sigh of relief)