Mallory and I go out to the garden just about every day (that it is not raining) and check to see if there is anything that needs to be picked. Apparently we weren’t searching the cucumbers hard enough because I found giants in there today!!
Oh and I have to show you my dollar store find! We had a field trip today to the dollar store. Went for closet organization materials and came home with frilly headbands and dog toys. Apparently the dollar store doesn’t believe in organization.
She is taking more interest in using a spoon when eating. I load the spoon and she puts it in her mouth, flipping the spoon upside once it is in her mouth.
She is also taking interest in cups and drinking from them like a big girl.
Lawnmower! Jesse took her with him when he mowed the lawn one day and ever since he has had a partner to mow the lawn with. Last Saturday he went to mow the lawn and I took her in the house to cool down and get ready for a nap. She heard that lawn mower and crawled over to the baby gate and yelled “dada dada” and pointed out the front door where she could see him on the lawnmower. I asked her if she wanted to go ride the lawnmower with dada and she fell to her butt and put her arms up for me to pick her up and take her.
Today was the perfect day to see if Mallory likes Jeep rides. My parents came over with their Jeep and we went to Lake Wissota for ice cream.
We stopped off to get an ice coffee – my main motivation for a morning walk! Went to the grocery store to get some quick items and then headed home. On the way home I spotted a garage sale sign. From the distance I spotted something big and plastic that looked like kid stuff. I didn’t have any cash, but I decided to stop anyway.
A KITCHEN!! I’ve been wanting to get Mallory a kitchen! And it came with all the kitchen accessories for $15!!! Could not pass it up! I learned from my garage saling friend, Molly, you take the price tag off immediately so that no one else can sneak in and get it. : )
We had the garage sale lady put a SOLD sign on it and we quickly walked home to get the truck and the checkbook!
I scrubbed it all up and now Mally has a cute little kitchen in her room!
I didn’t realize that she would almost be too short for it.
Mally will be able to cook in three languages. The kitchen talks to her. It tells her what she is cooking. It tells her that “her sons are coming”, “Don’t forget to save the leftovers”, “You are such a good cook”, and the phrases go on.
She held up one of the pretend cans of peas and look at me and says clear as day “peas”. I was shocked! How does she know that? She loves peas and eats them all the time, but I get them from the freezer not a can. She did it again today… so I don’t think it was just a coincidence.
Cup, Cheese, Peas, Pup (Puppy), Cat, Mama, Dada, Be (Blanket), Pret (Pretty – aka flowers… I guess I said one time that flowers were pretties and now when she sees a flower she points and says Pret), I think she said book tonight too. She has been attempting some tougher words such as cracker and kitchen. It is the cutiest thing ever!!
Mallory + Maggie = BFFs! These two get along so well. When we go outside Maggie follows us where ever we go. She is constantly by our side. Me, it drives me crazy bonkers! Mally, she loves it!
Maggie lays by the swing set if Mally is playing on it.
Maggie is so good with Mallory. She lets Mallory climb all over her. Mallory “pets” her, more like hits her… but Maggie loves the attention and will take anything she can get.
Just for the record you would never see me relaxing up against Maggie. She gets all this puppy love from her daddy.
Mallory had her first babysitter last night! Some friends called and wanted to go out for supper. They were getting a sitter, but said we could bring Mallory with. We thought – a sitter might be nice.
We have these adorable neighbor girls and when they see Mallory they take interest in her and talk to her. They have a much younger little brother that they are always taking for walks or playing with. I felt like they would know what to do and would feel the most comfortable with them. : )
We got the youngest of the two girls and she walked over last night. I had her come about 30 minutes before we left so Mally could get use to her. When she came I was feeding Mallory supper and Vanessa walked in and Mally starts pouting and crying. For some reason when people come into the house and she is in her highchair she cries. (It has happened a couple of times.) I get her washed up and take her out and hold her. She feels much safer and starts pointing at Vanessa.
I sit on the floor with the girls and Mally instantly takes off from my lap and crawls over to the chair where Vanessa had her bag. Mally wanted to get inside that bag! : ) I left them to play while I finished doing the dishes and cleaning up the kitchen. They were going to be just fine. Mallory played with her so well!! I didn’t even hesitate to leave!
We got home and Mally was all snug in bed. She was sleeping hard – it looked like they played hard and she was exhausted and fell asleep instantly. She even has a different stuffed animal in bed with her. They must of been playing in her room and she wanted to take one to bed with her. They played outside because the swing set was moved back onto the lawn. They had snacks. I wish Mallory could talk so she could tell me what they all did. : )
Vanessa even put little check marks next to each thing I had on a list for. Too cute!! I like a babysitter like that!! So I… um… paid her really well. Hahaha! Jesse asked me how much I paid her and I when I told him the amount the look on his face was pure shock! **blush** Pretty sure she made more then minimum wage! Oh man! I’m new at this babysitting stuff! I even asked our friends how much to pay, but when I got home I got all nervous and didn’t know what to pay and just shot out a number and went with it. Maybe word will get out that Freys pay really well – and we’ll have babysitters begging to come play with Mallory!
Our Fourth of July weekend with our friends, Ben & Katie, was fantastic! We had a 9 hour drive to their house. On the way down Mally only slept for an hour!! I thought she would sleep more and was shocked when she only took a short nap. She did very well considering being stuck in a 5-point harness car seat. During the last hour of the trip (it was way past her bedtime) she started to have enough and cried… for two minutes and then fell asleep. : )
Mally begging for a bite of Katie’s graham cracker.
The guys hit up the golf course. It was funny to have these guys back together – we forgot how they get distracted. We sent them to the store for cherry pie filling – and 2 hours later they finally came home. Something about stopping to buy beer glasses and some St. Louis beer to bring back home. If you bought a glass of beer there and drank it – the glass was cheaper. : )
We went to the St. Louis Zoo on Saturday. It was 95 degrees and 100% humidity. We went early in the morning, but it was still screaming hot.
We made the mistake and woke up Mallory when we got there to see the animals. It was her first trip to the zoo – I didn’t want her to miss it.
Sunday was just as hot, if not hotter. We decided to spend the afternoon at the pool.
Shortly after this picture Katie & Lily came back to the chairs by us. Katie scooped up Lily and Lily threw-up (not spit-up – it was throw-up!!) directly into Katie’s mouth! Katie spit it out on the concrete and waved her arms saying “I’m going to loose it! I’m going to loose it!” She held her breathe. Closed her eyes. The whole time I’m dying with laughter. I couldn’t stop. Yet, I couldn’t help her because I had Mally in my arms. I’m sorry Katie! That was not a very nice friend to just laugh (uncontrollably) at you. Again, I’m so sorry!
It was our last night in St. Louis and we had to decide… keep the girls up way past their bed time, sit in humidity, heat and bugs, watch a show, fight traffic, get home late –or- put the girls to bed on time and do our own fire work show. We picked bed times!!
We sent the guys to go buy fireworks and they bought fireworks!! We had quite the show!
Smoke bombs & spinners.
On our drive home we experienced our first ever flat tire along the interstate. Two hours into the trip back, Mally was getting fussy. All my tricks weren’t working – so my next trick was change the diaper. : ) We pulled off and changed her diaper on the tail gate on an exit ramp. Get back on the interstate – get back up to speed – a truck beside us is giving us the signal of flat tire. Then Jesse noticed his low tire pressure light on the dash – looked in his mirror and saw the flat tire. We limped it to the side of the road. Decided we didn’t want to be on the side of the road changing a tire with crazy texting drivers – we limped it to the exit and changed the tire there. Jesse had us back on the road within 30 minutes.
We had a fantastic time with our friends and can’t wait to do it again next summer!!! Miss you already friends!
