Look Alike

I have the week off and my goal was to have a spare room by the end of the week – with a real bed!  This spare room looked like one of the episodes on Hoarders!  Okay it wasn’t that bad, I promise!!  It was just the catch all and unorganized. 

As I’m cleaning and organizing I come across tons and tons of old pictures.  When we lived out in Oregon my Mom would send me loads of pictures so I didn’t feel so far away.  Some of the pictures she sent me crack me up now.  Pictures of the deer my Dad, Brother, and Uncles got during hunting season!  Pictures of the new garage they built!  Pictures of the new hunting shack in all its many stages of being built!  Pictures of when my Mom went to track a deer! 

Pictures of my parents when they first found out they were pregnant with me!  My Dad seriously looks like the guy on That 70s Show!  No joke!  See…

Then I found our wedding pictures and honeymoon pictures!  The most shocking of these pictures is to see my little brother… little!  He was so young when we moved away!  There was a picture of him holding up a sign in the window (that he made) that says, Welcome home Lynn & Jesse.  He did not like us gone on our honeymoon!  Then we moved back and he is all grown up and a beast!  ; )

I found tons of pictures of my niece, Ellyn, from when she was a baby!  She was just three months old when we left and I clearly remember her laying on the floor the night I had to say good bye.  I cried and cried and cried my eyes out!  (Crying right now as I type this!)  I did not want to leave that precious baby behind and not be able to watch her grow up!

Here is one of the pictures I found of us.  This is from December 2003.  Our first visit home.

Who does she look like?  She looks like my very own baby!!  Those eyes!  The cheeks!  The nose!  Everything about this little girl, looks like my Mallory!  I even have that exact outfit she is wearing in Mallory’s closet!  Except… Elly has hair!  LOL.  Don’t let it fool you though – she just had that chunk in the front – the rest of her is fuzzy!  The first time I saw her, my first words were “You don’t have hair!”  Because all my pictures I was getting it looked like she had a full head of hair.  Elly is 7 months old in this picture – and Mally is 6 months right now.  Crazy how much they look alike!  Except I think Mallory is going to be blonde. 

Oh guess what else I found in my cleaning/organizing?  Wedding presents!!  Yup!  We have been married for 6 years and have moved umpteenmillion times and I’m finding wedding presents with the tags on!!  A brand new brownie pan!  New kitchen towels… that are green and match my kitchen!

Alright, I should get back to my goal I only have a few days left.  And there is no light in this room, so you have to do all your work before sun down.

She Talks…

In her sleep!!!  I’m not joking.  Mallory has woken us up the past 3 nights because she is talking in her sleep.  I have gone in her room to give her the pacifier to make her stop talking so that we could go back to sleep!  She just pulls it out with her little hand and keeps on talking!  Apparently she has lots to say and wasn’t done!

Last night she was talking so much we shut the baby monitor off and even had to shut her door! 

I’m kind of hoping it is just a phase and she’ll out grow it.  By out grow, I mean tonight.  : )

Homework

I’m finally getting around to doing my photography class homework tonight.  Just to show you what a difference it makes – here is one before I started messing with some of the settings.

Then I started messing with the settings and fighting my camera.  Cha-Ching!!  The money shot!  The skin tone is real.  The lights are blurry.

Can you see it?  My baby is actually starting to get hair!  Blonde hair!  It’s stinkin adorable and I can’t wait to put barrettes in it.

Then I needed to take a picture and make my lights twinkle!!  It worked!! 

Now, if I would only slow down and take nice pictures like this all the time.  Maybe next year.  ; )

Christmas Eve

I forgot my camera this year on Christmas Day.  I know!  Mallory’s first Christmas and her Mom forgets the camera.  I’m going to blame it on her, because she decided to pee all over her Christmas dress 3 minutes before we left the house!  I was frantic and rushing and doing a wardrobe change on the poor girl so we could leave.  You want to know the kicker?  She didn’t even need her diaper changed!!  I wasn’t about to tell her poor Dad that, but I waited until later that night when it was much calmer.  : )  I had just changed it before I got her dressed, but he was going to change it before we left (15 minutes after I dressed her).  Hey, he was trying to help out!  : )  We don’t even have a picture of her in her dress!  Ah well.

This little outfit she is wearing (Christmas Eve) is the same outfit that my niece, Ellyn wore.   It is amazing how much Mallory looks like Ellyn.  I can’t wait to take these to my Mom’s house and compare them to the ones she has of Ellyn.  (Ellyn was born pre-digital world so I don’t have any here to show you.)

I gave this present to Mally so she would not cry and sit still so I could get a few pictures.  If you give her something naughty – she loves it!  And it will immediately go in her mouth! Little did I know that she was actually opening it!!

Not only did Maggie destroy a present… Mallory opened one!!  : )  No, I did not rewrap that – I took it like that!  LOL.  It was for my Mom and she likes baby drool!  ; )  As for the present that Maggie destroyed – we wrapped it up and gave it to Adam, From Maggie!  Adam liked it! 

I do have pictures from Christmas morning of Mallory opening her present.  Here she is – her first Christmas morning!

 

She loves her new toy from us!  We just put batteries in it tonight and Jesse was playing with her and she was giggling!! 

She got lots of noisy toys this year!  Hopefully they will keep her entertained during those tough couple of hours while I am trying to finish up working. 

Sorry Adam!

It is going to be a sad Christmas for my little brother this year.  On Saturday we went and got him the perfect gift.  Brought it home.  Placed it under the tree (yes we got a tree) for me to wrap this week.  Sunday afternoon we went to my parents house to cut out cookies.  Left Maggie in the house.

Came home to… Adam’s Christmas present DESTROYED!!  Pieces from one room to the next!!  I was spitting mad!!  I was shaking I was so mad!  That was a $65 present!!

I won’t even tell you about the mess I found upstairs!!!  I’m still not over it!

I swore Maggie off and she was now going to be an outside dog!  No more!  But then about 10pm the guilt set in… and guess who got to sleep inside!  Grrrrr!  Stupid guilt! 

On the positive side… it was only one present!  She could of destroyed the whole tree and ALL the presents!  When does this puppy stage go away?  I’m really read for the terrible 2s to be over with!!

How about some fun happy pictures to end with?  Here are some pictures from the zoo lights we saw on Friday night.

   Adam did have on his wish list a dog.  Hmmm… Now there is an even better idea!!  *insert evil wicked witch from the west laugh*

6 Months

 Back on the 7th Mallory turned 6 months old!!  I had my Mom take some pictures of her so I could get some actually printed before Christmas.  Well, guess who was scrambling last night to get her pictures ordered.  Seriously!  Which one of my parents passed procrastination down… hmm… I’m not saying who!  Thank goodness for one hour photo at Walmart [online]!  I can pick my pictures up on Saturday, when I finish the rest of my Christmas shopping.  *blush*

Miss Mallory – Jesse and I took Mallory to the Dr. on Monday because she just wasn’t getting better.  Every morning I would get her up and she looked and sounded worse then the day before.  I broke down and called the Dr. (I’m a last minute Dr. caller) and they advised me to bring her in.  When her Dr. walked into the room she sees Mally down to her diaper sitting on the table playing with her pacifier.  The first words out of her mouth were, “Hello Miss Mallory!”  She has only seen Mallory a few times so far and to hear her call her ‘Miss Mallory’ was too funny.  That has kind of been her nickname and it has stuck.  Every one calls her Miss Mallory, even her Dr!  : )  (By the way, it was just viral and nothing they could do but let it take its course.  She is getting better – still coughing, but she is actually eating again today!!)

She now weighs 17 pounds!  She is quickly growing out of her infant carrier car seat.  That car seat is a beast to carry around now.  When others volunteer to carry her for me they lift it and say… how are you carrying this?  Muscle woman!  ; ) 

Talking.  She jabbers and coos and yells all the time now.  The other night Jesse’s parents were over and she was sitting on the couch with them and I was across the living room in a chair.  She spots me and just starts talking/yelling and has her eyes on me the whole time.  It was pretty funny and cute.

Sitting.  She can pretty much sit by herself now.  Which she loves.  She hates to lay down.  If you lay her down she picks her head up and will not let it touch the ground. (Crunch formation)  She is going to have the best baby abs ever!

Show Stopper.  Every where we go people stop us to see our baby.  We went to Best Buy last weekend and I can’t tell you how many people stopped us.  As we were standing in the customer service line one of the workers came over by me and said, I heard there was a cute baby over here.  Then Mally was flirting with our customer service guy.  ; )  He looked at her and said, “Hey cutie” and she just looked back at him and sucked on her pacifier with her little eyes sticking out from under her beanie hat. 

Eating.  She is eating everything pureed & mashed right now.  I can’t tell if she has a favorite yet, but there are some things she will gag when she eats… peas!  Which I don’t blame her, cooked peas are gross.  Jesse likes to give her all the naughty things.  He has let her suck on a salty chip!  He shares his popsicles with her!  He lets her have little tastes of his Rocky Road ice cream!  Then Tuesday night I come home and she was drinking a bottle.  I thought it was milk… nope it was ORANGE JUICE!  He says, “I thought she was thirsty, I was thirsty and orange juice sounded good to me, so I thought Mally would want some too.  She loved it!”

Independent.  We have decided that Mallory is done with nursing now.  I know, it seems like I was just telling you how she wouldn’t take a bottle.  Now, that seems to be all she wants.  Nursing has been a struggle the last couple of weeks.  She cries.  She chokes.  She gets frustrated.  I get frustrated.  She cries more.  I’ve been watching her take a bottle and she is all smiles and happy and never cries, never chokes.  So we’ve decided that lovely Mr. Pump is going to be my new best friend for the next 6 months.  I’m really not looking forward to that.  She’s a big girl and she will do it herself!  : (

Attitude.  This girl is going to give me a run for my money.  Which we giggle at right now and we think we like.  But the way she looks at me as she is reaching for something she can’t have and I’m telling her no… she has the sparkle in her eye of, oh yeah watch me mommy!

Awesome!

I’m doing my homework for my photography class tomorrow night and look what I took!!

Look at my fstop (blurry background)!!  Whoop whoop!   Okay, this is not my assignment at all – I got distracted.  I think my husband is wearing off on me… getting distracted easily.  : )

Back to my homework…

Running behind

Seriously Christmas is going to be here in TWO weeks!  Ahahhh!  I was telling my sister and my mom yesterday that I need an Elf.  I have way too many things and not enough time.

Yesterday I had this brilliant idea to make a last minute Christmas gift for the Frey side.  Except I needed some Christmas-y pictures.  My Mom took some last weekend – I called her – NOT HOME!  So I went to her blog and tried to steal them (sorry Mom) and it wouldn’t let me!!

So I had to take my sick baby, put her in her Christmas jammies, and put her in front of a wreath.  Yes, we don’t have a Christmas tree yet!!  As kids we would start to panic when we didn’t have our tree until the week before Christmas… now I know why that happened.  There just are not enough hours in the day!  : )

I am no photographer!  Good thing I am taking classes!  Plop her in front of the kitchen table.  That makes an excellent background, no?!

Move in close so you can’t see that lovely table!  Watery runny cold eye… Oh you poor baby! 

How about a hand – they can’t see that your sick this way!  heheheh!  We’ll trick them!  Except your hand is so washed out from my flash!  And I used my new trick from my photography class!!  Grrr.  Maybe the next class will be about flashes.

One last smile for mommy… pleeeease?

Can’t you just pick me up and snuggle me with my blanket.

I have to tell you what I learned at my last class.  How to take your pictures from this…

To this…

Isn’t that amazing!!  I was real excited about it!

Okay, now I must get back to my Christmas hustle and bustle.  I’m going to cheat tomorrow… going to a bake sale to get Christmas cookies instead of making them!  Hey, a girl has to do what a girl has to do!  ; )  If you want to come with… let me know!  : )

What a night.

I have a feeling it is going to be one of those days.  First, I’m still in my PJs.  Second, I changed Mally from one set of PJs into another.  Jesse is still in bed sleeping.  Maggie won’t go outside to go the bathroom.

Last night Jesse got a call from work asking him to come in for 3rd shift.  He has been giving suicide trainings and they needed to be done for 3rd shift.  He left at 10pm.  Guess who woke up at 10:15!  Poor little Mally’s nose was so stuffy she couldn’t hardly breathe.  Then she wanted her pacifier and you can’t suck on a pacifier with a stuffy nose!

I shoved my parenting books under her mattress to elevate her head.  (They are the thickest books I have.)  Suctioned her nose.  Nursed her.  Snuggled and rocked her back to sleep.  Put her back to bed. 

At 1 she woke up again with the same thing.  Couldn’t breathe.  We did the same routine except this time I went and got her car seat and put her back to sleep in her car seat (more elevation).

3:30… she’s awake!  But that time it was only for about 2 minutes.

4:30… Jesse comes home.  He says… Man there is a lot of snow out there.

6:30… my stupid alarm goes off.  Jesse turns it off.

7:00… Mallory wakes up.

We seriously have tons and tons of snow!  I can’t even get Maggie to go outside and go to the bathroom.  She sticks one paw in the snow and turns around comes back in.  I opened the garage door and the drift in front of the door is up to my waist!

I don’t know if Mally has a cold or if she is getting teeth which is causing the extreme runny nose.  Hmm… guess time will tell…

A little hot chocolate cures the sleepy mom!  Cheers!

Daddy Salon

Last night I had to go back to work for an hour.  While I went to work Jesse decided to give Mallory a bath.

When I went back upstairs after work I was playing with Mallory before bed and I kept saying – Baby girl you have a mohawk going on.  How come your hair is doing a mohawk tonight?

Then Jesse says, I did it!  I gave her a mohawk!  Ohmygoodness!  Daddy doesn’t know that she will have a permanent mohawk until the next bath!  These pictures are from this morning… and she woke up with her stylish daddy hair!

I do see in the inner rock star in you Ms Mallory!  Look out!  : )

Ew, Long Line

As kids we had this game called Mall Madness.  We got credit cards and when we would swipe them some times the guy would say, “Ew,  Long line.  Try again later.”  It always makes me think of Black Friday.

I did not participate in Black Friday… well… because of my Miss Mallory.  : )  Instead my sister, her kids, Mallory and I decided to have a good ‘ol fashion craft day instead! 

I did however get to the Dollar Store at 8am.  I was expecting a parking lot full of fun shoppers and there were only two cars in the lot!  : (  I was able to get in and get my items I needed for our projects and back on the road in about 15 minutes, that was wonderful!

We use to have craft day on Black Friday with my aunts and cousin, but we all grew up and apparently craft day wasn’t fun for us anymore.  Now we have our own kids and we decided to start the tradition again. 

Project #1:  Decorating magnetic picture holders.

Look at my baby!  She sits in a highchair now!  Sniff-sniff!

 

Project #2:  The secret. 

We made a little something for Grandma.  But she was there while we were making it and we kept telling El, if we just don’t talk about it, she’ll never know.  Then El yells, GRANDMA DON’T COME OVER HERE!  When we had it all finished she grabs it and says, “I’m going to give it to Grandma!”  Shannon and I both screamed NOOOO!  Um, the secret project is awesome!  I loved how it turned out, but it is a secret and I can’t tell you!

We had to wrangle Mr. Garrett.  He is a mover and a shaker now.  He walks everywhere and causes trouble.  My mom gave me a little pan to take home and I had it by the carseat and the next thing I know that pan is by my feet under the table.  Hmmm…

We put them in the playpen and they fought over toys.  Mally would have a toy and Garrett would take it from her and then Mally would try to take it back from him.  Trouble!!

 

El was done with us.  She was on to her own things like coloring her Cinderella pictures. 

El is so into reading that when she rode home with me she read Mallory’s safety instructions/warnings on her carseat to me.  Then El says, I know this sentence but I don’t know this one word.  She spells it for me, moquebo (something like that).  Um, El, I think you are trying to read the Spanish instructions.

Project #3:  Paper snowflakes.

Aren’t these awesome!  They were way too time consuming so we only made one. 

Project #4:  Magnetic Clothespins

How cute are these?  Yup, when you live in Wisconsin you have to have a camo one!!  Plus, Garrett was with us on craft day and he needed something boyish!  : )

Some how that middle camo one missed quality control.  He needs his edges sanded!

We made a few of these, oh over 50!  We were a bit addicted! 

We had one more project on the to-do list but our children were done!  We’ll have to roll it over on to next years list.  They’ll be a next year, right Shan?  You secretly had fun, I know you did!

This was my absolute favorite shopping trip on Black Friday in 2006.

Oregon!

I was looking for a little vacation and it just so happened that we had enough airline miles to get us all out to Oregon – so we went!  Except don’t let those airline miles trick you into a totally free trip.  You have to pay to use your miles and then there is a fee for this and a fee for this mile… blah blah blah…

We basically went out to Oregon to see all our long lost friends!  We saw so many friends it just made miss them all the more.  It is also so incredible that we pick up right where we left off and it feels like we never even left or that we haven’t seen them in over 2 years!  That makes for some great friendships. 

Our incredible host and hostess had a room for us and even a vehicle!  Loved their minivan too!  The side doors automatically opened!  How awesome is that when you have a carseat and diaper bag… and on this trip I had two diaper bags.  Loved it!  We spent the first night with them, ate supper, and watched Mallory have her first (and only) melt down of the trip.  We were trying to keep her awake to adjust her to the time zone.  Well it was going on 8:30pm (10:30 her time) and she just lost it.  Cried.  Wouldn’t eat.  Just cried.  It wasn’t too long before she just crashed from exhaustion and was asleep.

The next day we went to my work to see all my coworkers again and check in.  They got to meet Mallory for the first time.  They hear her a lot when they call but now they got to put a face with all that noise. 

Then we had supper and spent the night catching up with our old classmates and neighbors!  Such a fun group of people!  Miss them tons!  Oh and what is really funny now… our group of friends has expended to a big group of KIDS!  Lets let the pictures do the talking…

Myself, Cora (13 months), Abbie, Laura

 This next picture cracks me up.  I can’t even remember what the conversation was.  Lin, Justin, Ryan, and myself

  Liz and me.  Justin – our friend with the mohawk.  Hopefully my little boy cousins don’t see this… they will be begging their Mom for a mohawk again!

Zack – our friend with the mullet.  Hmm, maybe my boy cousins will beg their Mom for a mullet.  Hahahaha!  Do you think this is a real mullet?  Hmm…. real or fake…

Mallory’s naughty parents kept her out way past her bedtime.  But she didn’t even notice.  She slept in her carseat and had no idea that people were taking pictures of her!  And peeking in on her to see how cute she was.  Don’t judge me… but Mallory slept in her carseat that entire night!  I undid her buckles, but I know not to wake a sleeping baby especially when you are staying with guests.

Meanwhile her parents are having a blast with some friends!  : )

We also got to see all our friends from the church we went to.  I don’t have any pictures from this night.  There was another little baby boy this night and he was 8 weeks old I think.  Mallory does these crunches when you lay her on the floor… so we kept teasing that Mallory was working on her abs for Cooper!  ; )

So happy to be home taking a nap!

These next pictures are for my Mom to show her that I am really not crazy!  Mallory does take a bottle and she will drink from it!  Guess it has to be on her own terms.  Little stinker!

I know it looks like there is nothing in the bottle, but there is.  She is not drinking air, I promise. 

What?  Don’t you drink with your feet up in the air?