First Bully

Today Mallory and I were outside playing and watching all the cement trucks coming and going.  Yes.  They are pouring our garage today!!!!

The neighbor had her grand-daughter, Blaire, today and she likes trucks too.  So she brought Blaire over for a closer look.  We took the kids in the back yard (aka: mud pit) and the girls are playing on the little swing set together.  It was cute!  Blaire is 21 months old and Mally is just about 16 months old.

The neighbor and I are chatting away and all of sudden Mallory starts crying.  Crying hard.  Real tears.  Blaire is just looking at us.  : )  I pick up Mallory and try to comfort her and figure out what happened.  I thought maybe she pinched her finger in the steering wheel on the slide that they were playing with, but I couldn’t find anything.  Then I look at her other hand and I say to the neighbor… um, does Blaire bite?  Neighbor says, she use to but I thought she was over it.  Nope.  Poor little Mally’s pointer finger had nice deep teeth marks on it and she even scraped her teeth down her finger and peeled off some skin!  I’m guessing Blaire wasn’t letting up and Mally just yanked her finger out of her mouth.

Once I got Mally all calmed down I knelt down by Blaire and told Blaire we don’t bite.  It hurts.  Can you say your sorry to Mallory?  Nope!  She just looked at me and looked at Mallory with her big blue eyes!

We don’t get to see Blaire very often – but hopefully this won’t be the last time.  My neighbor was pretty embarrassed and took her home.  : )

Garage Phase 3: Stop Raining

I think it has been raining since “Garage Phase 2” which is causing huge delays in this process and creating an angry Lynn and Jesse.  : )  The calendar is whizzing by and I really would like my truck in a garage for the winter.  Granted I did get heated seats with my new truck… however Mally’s seat is not heated and I’m not a fan of scraping ice and snow.  : )

Last week Wednesday night our concrete guy stopped in to check it out and mark off where he was to pour.  About two hours after he left… it started raining.  And raining!  It rained THREE INCHES that night!  Our concrete guy called Thursday morning at 6:30 and said he wouldn’t be coming. 

This week has brought on more rain.  So much so that schools are being canceled due to flooding roads.  Its like hurricane season in the midwest!  I think we got about another 4” of rain yesterday.

I took some pictures this morning (from the deck – I’m afraid to step on the lawn for I might sink and never be found again.) and my pictures don’t do it justice.  But I attempted.

The school is suppose to come put in a patio here in this spot.  It is pure quick sand/mud.  I would have the entire landscape class stuck in my backyard as lawn art.  Yesterday it was a pond – full of water.

Jesse’s retaining wall is washing away.  He already had to redo this section of the wall once!

I can’t stand this next picture – but I’ll show you.  Mud mud mud mud mud!  I can’t stand mud!

I’m not sure when the rain in suppose to stop and if it does stop how quickly we can get this area to dry out so it is useable and buildable.  This would be why I’m not in the construction business.  : )  I’ll stick to my accounting and graphic arts – there is no mud involved with that.

Tea Party

First… test the tea and make sure it is good.

Second… Get the cups ready for your guests.

Third… Blush your cheeks.

Forth… Call your friends and invite them to your tea party.

Hello?  Cousin Garrett?  Ellyn?  Ask your Mom if you can come over for a tea party.

I think they are coming…

Cheers!

Don’t forget the treats!  

And that is how we do a tea party. 

Pig Tails!!!

The other morning Mallory woke up with some wild hair and I didn’t have the energy to give her a bath… and the ‘ol water and comb trick did not work.  Then I thought… can I?  Nah!  Her hair isn’t long enough.  Then I tried it… and it worked!!  Pig tails!!!

Bundle Up

In the summer our AC unit goes out. In the fall/winter our furnace goes out.  We can’t win.  It was only chilly in the house in the mornings – so I would put slippers on Mallory and her bathrobe.

Then she climbs in my lap and points to my eyes.  Did I just hear Elmo?  This is how she watches Sesame Street.

Speaking of Sesame Street… can they come up with a new one already?  Seriously!  They play the same 5 over and over and over!  She doesn’t get to watch it every day – so maybe on the days we aren’t watching they play a new one.

Jesse fixed our furnace – just in time.  Its been really chilly out in the mornings now.

Funny Funny Kid

This morning I’m sitting on the floor and Mallory comes over saying “Key.  Key.” and she is searching me.  Pulling at my clothes and keeps repeating “Key.  Key.”  What do you want Mally?  What are you looking for?  Key.  Key.  OH!  A Kleenex!  You need a kleenex?  Key.  Key.  So I get it out of my pocket and hand it to her.  She whips her nose, and puts it back in my pocket.

Few moments later I go to my room to get dressed and I hear Mally coming down the hallway yappering about “milk.  milk.”  I don’t think nothing of it.  I look and here she is at my door with an empty gallon of milk saying “milk. milk.”  I started laughing and she takes off to her room and comes back with her nuk in her mouth and speed crawls past my room so I won’t spot her.  But I do and I yell… Mally Rae what is in your mouth?  (She only gets her nuk when she’s in her crib… but sometimes she goes in there and reaches in her crib and steals it.)  She looks at me and takes off to the living room.  I come out to the living room to find her laying on the floor, snuggling with her blanket and nuk watching Regis and Kelly.  Hey!  That’s my perfect morning!  I want to snuggle with my blanket and watch Regis & Kelly.

I’m going to go fight Mally for the blanket and watch the rest of Regis & Kelly with her.

Pum. AKA: Pumpkins

On Saturday Jesse built another retaining wall in our front yard.  This guy could be a landscaper!  The ideas he has rolling around in his head are endless.  We are to the point where he doesn’t even consult me – he just does it.  Half the time I don’t have a clue what he is talking about and I just say… do it, I trust you.  I’m just his grunt worker and I keep him fueled with drinks and food.

It started out a little rainy and chilly on Saturday morning, but that didn’t stop him.  It didn’t stop Mallory either - she wanted to go outside too.

Mallory is a total daddy’s girl right now.  She can’t get enough of him.  When Jesse is home, but walking around doing his thing… Mallory is a room behind him yelling “Dadda” chasing after him.  Its pretty much the cutest thing ever!  : ) 

I tell Jesse he should feel so loved because she doesn’t chase me around yelling “momma” she just cries.  LOL.

As you can see, Mallory is not afraid of getting dirty.  The other night we had a guy come over to look at a project (side note: our local high school has a landscape class for the students.  They learn about drawing up landscape plans.  Then they get to go out “into the field” and do some landscaping.  We contacted the teacher and told him we had some projects if he needed any.  All you do is supply the suppplies and they do the work.  We live a couple blocks from school – so we are the perfect distance - they can walk here!)… This guy is here looking at what we want them to do for their project and Mallory is on her giraffe in our back yard is a mud pit.  Her shoes literally got stuck so far deep in the mud that her feet popped out of the shoes.  And when I picked her up and took her inside she cried!  She wasn’t done.

I realize her clothing his very random but some days I just throw whatever I can find on her.  It has kind of become her trade mark-style.  When we go to church I put her in cute match-y dress-y really nice clothes and it so does not look like her.  

After lunch Jesse sent Mallory and I for a load of bark dust… wood chips if you live in the Midwest… which means we got to go to my favorite nursery.  They have little wagons for you to pull the kids around on and I loaded Mallory up in a wagon and we went and picked out pumpkins.  Mally calls them pum.

You can’t have pumpkins without mums.  This nursery had their mums way too overpriced so we went to our local nursery and picked out 4 mums.  I couldn’t stop.  I was in love with the colors and they were so cheap.

At the local nursery they had the 3-wheeled big wheels for the kids to ride around on.  Mally instantly spotted it and rode that around while I picked out mums.  She was having a blast.  She loves ride on toys.  

This little pumpkin Mally has – I picked because of its stem.  I liked it.  Apparently Maggie liked the stem because she took that pumpkin and chewed off the stem!  Punk!  I was so mad!

Here is our neighbor Judy!  She’s wild and crazy, but I love her!  She saw me taking pictures and started yelling “Lynn!  Take my picture!”

So I got her!  She is such a clown.  She was coming over to check out all Jesse’s hard work.  A few moment later – her husband came with a drink for Jesse.

Yesterday afternoon Judy called us to come over for a neighborhood end of summer party and Packer party.  Our neighbors are a riot!  Oh my goodness!  They are all older – retirement age… but we could not have more fun.  All I can do is just sit back and watch and laugh and hope that I am this much fun when I am their age.

The best part… I could take Mallory home for a nap and bring the baby monitor back to their house and it reached!!  I told Judy… “Hey Judy!  Look!  You can babysit for me right from the comfort of your own home!” 

I didn’t get an after picture of Jesse’s big Saturday project because Judy came over but I’ll get out there today and get the picture and show you his talent!

Learning Time Outs

My Mally-Girl turned 15 months yesterday and with that she turned the terrible twos.  : )  Okay, she is not terrible… and she is not two… but she is feisty and testing boundaries. 

Oh and did I tell you she has started walking.  We were suppose to go camping and jeeping this weekend… it’s a long story and the weekend was a flop for Mallory and I so we booked it home… oh about 2am and got in our own beds at 3:30am after my low tire pressure light was on, seeing lots of deer, seeing strange people walking down the freeway, swerving at a LIVE skunk… and safely getting home and putting a very excited baby to bed in her own bed!  At 2am when I told Mally we were going bye-bye to her own bed.  She started getting silly and pointing and babbling.  It was if she knew what I was telling her.  The rest of the weekend was just Mallory and I and it was low-key… and she started walking everywhere.  Walking down the hallway to her room.  Walking around the kitchen/living room circle.  Walking walking walking.  She still walks with her hands up in the air for balance, I guess.  But she pretty much walks 80% of the time now. 

Back to my feisty 15 month old…

Whenever I am in the kitchen (making lunch/supper; doing dishes; getting a snack) she bee-lines it to the garbage and starts hitting the lid.  She was there yesterday and my patience wasn’t the greatest with her… so I slapped her little hand and tell her no.  Doesn’t get it.  I slap a little harder… she makes a sad face looks at her hand and looks at me.  I stand her up tell her to go play with toys and off she waddles.  Few moments later she is back at it.  So I put her in her time out spot.  Now she thinks time outs are so fun!  How do I make time out not fun?  I put her on the floor up against the couch and I tell her she was naughty and she needs to sit here.  So she sits there (with a grin on her face) and she leans back and relaxes up against the couch.  Then she attempts to crawl away and I say, “No.” and she pushes herself backwards until she gets up against the couch and leans back with a smile.  Over and over and over.  And each time she gets goofier and goofier.  She is a clown!  So finally she has sat there a minute… I go and get her and tell her we don’t play in the garbage that is naughty… and I am down eye level with her and she starts doing this… “eyes.  eyes.” and point at my eyes.  She is not even paying attention!! 

Ugh.

I’m telling Jesse about this over supper last night.  The whole time I am telling him he is smiling.  Which makes me laugh.  Then we look over at Mallory and she gives us the most cheesiest grin ever!  Then Jesse says… I was like that when I was a kid.  I was a goofball kid.  Nice!  Now we really know she looks like mommy but is all daddy!!  And I tell Jesse… she even has that little grin you do, but hers is a little more cheesier.  He says, she’ll get it perfected – give her some time. 

My frazzled days are just beginning with this one, I think.  When does kindergarten start?  I kid I kid!!!!!!  She’s never going to kindergarten!