Family Time

Believe it or not, I haven’t had a family picture taken since we were at the hospital when Maxwell was born.  I know… that was FOUR months ago!  I know… my Mom’s a photographer!  I know!  I’m a slacker!  Mally has yet to have two year pictures and the only pictures of Max are of when he was a week old!  Ahhh!  I will get them in for pictures soon!  I will!

In the meantime, I had Steph take some quick pictures of us.

I really did not want Max in this sling for the picture, however Max was being extremely fussy and he was so content and everyone gasped when I said I was going to take him out.  NO!  He is being good, don’t disturb him.  LOL.  So I didn’t! 

One of Jesse’s coworkers got us this really neat picture frame when we had Max.  And on the frame Maggie is included… so we needed to have a picture with Maggie too.

Here is a closer look!  Love it!  It will look so great in our frame!

Jet Skiing

The Jet Skis went out the first night we were here.  Jerry and Steph took one…

… and Mally and Jesse took one.

I stayed behind with Max and tried to get him to take a nap.

I was successful in getting Max to sleep (in my arms) and that is why I don’t have any pictures of them coming back.  Jerry came back all by himself!  Where’s Steph?  Then Jesse comes and he has Steph on with him.  Jesse, Mally and Steph come up to the shore and Steph hops down off into the water.  Jesse tells her he is going to hand her Mally to carry into shore.  She says, Okay… then starts saying how she is stuck.  Jesse must not of heard her and he hands her Mally anyways.  Now Steph has Mally and is in knee deep water and can’t move.  Her sandals have sunken into the muddy bottom and she can’t get her feet to pick them up and move them.  She is giggling and screaming about how she is stuck and slowly starts falling… falling… into the water!  She falls in!  I can’t really remember what happened with Mally… I think maybe Jesse got her before Steph fell in.  Steph giggled and laughed the whole time!

One of the days I got both kids to take a nap at the same time, which never happens.  So Steph told us to go take a Jet Ski ride, since I hadn’t been out yet.  I’m not much of a water person so I requested a Mallory ride.  : )  So we slowly rode around the lake and then when I felt somewhat safe I said we could go faster now. 

Then we found this little path that took you into another lake… so we took it.  We rode around on that lake and looked at all the huge houses/cabins.  Pretty soon I notice Jesse kind of looking around and I said, your lost – you don’t know how to get us back to the other lake?  He says, yup.  Oh boy. 

We circled the lake a few times and nothing.  I’m starting to think – how long will it take before Jerry comes looking for us?  Jesse tells me that we have lots of gas in the tank.  Oh thanks hun! 

Finally we find our little path again and we are home free!  Whew!

Swimming at the Lake

I have so many pictures so I’m going to break these posts up a bit.  I don’t want you to feel like I am that crazy lady who went on vacation and now I am making you look at all my pictures… well maybe I am that crazy lady… oops…

We left our house at 7am and didn’t get to the cabin until 5pm (lost an hour).  The kids were rock stars!  They traveled so well and no one had any meltdowns!

When we got here Mally found the water immediately!

She wasn’t afraid to splash in it at all.  It wasn’t too cold for her either.

She loved to scoop up the water on the shovel and let it fall back into the lake.

If she wasn’t scooping water – she was walking back and fourth along the edge.

Max and Jesse watching Mally play in the water.

The next day she wanted to go to the “pond” again.

She squealed and squealed when Maggie would go fetch the frisbee. 

Jesse took her for a walk around the edge of the lake.

Why is she always wearing her clothes?  Phish.  I don’t know.  Its vacation.  Things like that escape my relaxed brain.  : ) 

I knew they wouldn’t make it far before he would have to carry her.  And don’t think you are going without Maggie! 

Ah!  The girl found her swimsuit!  :)

Mally and Jesse made a sandcastle.

I think she really wanted to squash it.

Towards the end of our trip she was getting braver and braver with the water.  She was laying in it on her belly and sitting and kicking. 

Jesse attempted to take her out deeper swimming with her life jacket… however he got out there a bit and he took a step and sunk in about two feet of mud!  The bottom was a mud pit!  It is not a swimming lake.

All and all Mally loved the lake!  Oh and Maggie too!  She was wet from the moment we got here to the moment we left.

Dunked Kleenex

I have told this story two times today… to Mrs. C and to Jesse… and both times I am laughing so hard I have tears in my eyes and I can’t hardly speak.  I thought I needed to get this one in the books to remember later.

This morning I am in my bedroom (pumping, okay… ick I know, but a mom has to do what a mom has to do) and my nose is running like crazy.  I ask Mally to go to the bathroom and get me a kleenex.  She loves jobs like this.  She takes off running.  She is gone for awhile and I’m going… Mally are you bringing me a kleenex?  Yes, Mom.  Okay.

She brings me one so proudly and I grab it and it is all wet!  I say, Mally this kleenex is wet!  Can you go get me another one?  She takes off running. 

She brings me another one.  Mally this kleenex is wet too!  I want a dry one honey.  Okay.  She takes off running.

This time I think, I need to watch her to see how she is getting these kleenex’s all wet.  The bathroom is across the hall from our room so I wiggle so I can see out the door and I see her with kleenex in hand and her other hand is lifting up the toilet seat lid and she is dipping the kleenex in the toilet and taking it out!!!

Mally!  No.  I don’t want my kleenex in the toilet!  Oh okay, she says.  And gets another one.

Seriously!  She was dunking the kleenex in the toilet and then bringing it to me!  How does she come up with this stuff?!  She cracks me up!!

Another funny story I just thought of…

This afternoon I went to lay Max down for a nap and he was fussing a bit in his crib before he fell asleep.  I shut the door and just let him fuss for a minute or two (I’m trying to teach him to fall asleep on his own– I am one tough mom who has sleep rules.  LOL.) and Mally is yelling down the hall as we walk away “Don’t worry about it Max!  Max, don’t worry about it!  Momma come get you!  Momma come get you!”

Oh and Max fell asleep in his crib tonight all by himself – snuggling his blanket and watching his sound machine!  This is only the third night in his crib.  *Mommy 3 – Max 0*  : )  Sorry… makes me giddy when I tackle these milestones!

Rest, Relax & Refresh

We just took a week long vacation up to Michigan.

We got to stay in this nice huge cabin on the lake.

The guys had to decided whether to go jet skiing…

… or to go dirt biking. 

Us girls just had to decide whether to relax on the comfy couches, on the deck, or down by the water.

So many tough choices for the week.  ; )

My Little Assistant

My garden is getting out of control.  My garden is getting so out of control.  Tomatoes.  Green Peppers.  Jalapenos.  Oh my.

I decided I needed my little niece El to come spend a few days with me so she could play with Mallory so I could get some work done.

I picked El up Thursday night and we got home very late so it was straight to bed, which she wasn’t so fond of. 

I got all the kids up bright and early Friday morning because we were going garage saling before I had to go to work.  I figured this is perfect since I have El with me… she can entertain the kids in the truck while I hop out and explore the garage sales real quick.  It worked for the first stop.  The next stop, they all wanted to get out.  So I let them and it was a gross stop.  I was so hoping that no one would touch anything.  We made a loop and then came right back to the truck.  Then we went downtown and saw that the school was selling a ton of school stuff!  I flipped the truck and around went back to check it out.  See, we are turning our basement into a school room because our nanny is going to homeschool her girls, and she is going to teach some preschool things to Mally.

Here it was the Math league selling old school stuff (desks, chalk boards, bulletin boards, chairs, cabinets, etc.) and it was just on donation basis.  You offer a fair and reasonable price!

They only had one little desk, so I didn’t get that… I didn’t want the girls fighting over it.  Then I spotted a square table – not too big and not too small.  Perfect!  I’ll take it!  Then I needed four chairs – I got one in every color.  Then I found an old wooden locker that they painted and turned into a file cabinet.  Perfect!  Then I got an ice cream bucket full of these shapes that have something or another to do with math.  I’m kind of a math geek, so I got them too.  Oh and I got some little chalk boards to write on to practice writing your letters.  I got all of that for… $25!!!  I think I did a little jig right there in the parking lot!  I came running back to the truck telling El all about it – she was so kind and played right along with me.  But then she no longer wanted to go to her school she wanted to come to my school.  Hahaha!

After I was done with work on Friday afternoon I had to spend some quality time with the girls and Max… so that I could eventually sneak away and work on my garden.

Elly and I set up the basement (which she loved doing) and then we played with the little shapes.  Apparently she has these at school too and she was showing us how to make all kinds of things.

Mally got bored with the shapes and started being our personal chef and bringing us all kinds of play food.

Then El wanted to start posing. 

I wanted El and Mally to put their backs together so I could take a pictures – but Mal could not understand and she didn’t have the patience for it.  So we set the self timer and played.

Sorry it was no make-up Friday that day.  Oh and I had just got my haircut the night before and chopped off all my hair!  *eek!*

Okay.  So we got a bit carried away

Then Mally finally decided we were having too much fun and she wanted to play along.

 

Where’s Max during all this girly stuff?  Hanging out on his play mat enjoying a little nuk time! 

Here is the table and chairs.

Here is the file cabinet.

Then the next day we put Max down for a nap and headed to the garden.  The girls loved that!  Except they wanted to pick everything – whether it was ripe or not. 

Then we had to wash it all… and then Mally fell or something and she was done and only wanted me to hold her.  So El ended up scrubbing and cleaning all the produce.  Which she loved too.  This girl loves to work!! 

Here is everything!

Then we had to put Mally down for a nap so we could get some stuff done.  : ) 

El and I froze broccoli, canned some jalapenos and froze some green peppers. 

She was a great helper and I am ready for her to move in.  : )

Happy Birthday Daddy!

All Before 8am!

This morning I wake up on my own and think… hm, I never wake up on my own – someone or something always wakes me up.  I wonder what time it is?  It is 6:45 already!  My alarm got turned off!  I need to get up ASAP!  See, I am not a morning person and I need to get up before the kids so that I get the morning crankies all worked out before children start waking up.

I am at the table eating my bowl of cereal and I can hear Max starting to grunt and wiggle.  Oh boy.  Here it goes.  I finally go get him before he really starts getting restless and wakes up Mallory.  He doesn’t want to snuggle with me and go back to sleep – he wants to eat.  So I leave my bowl of cereal at the table and go feed Max.

While I am feeding Max, Mallory wakes up.  She is running around the living room and what not.  Finally I hear her in the kitchen saying something about needing a napkin.  I can’t see her – I’m still nursing Max in the living room.  I don’t really pay much attention to her mumbling about a napkin.

Next thing I know she is coming across the carpet with my bowl of cereal!!!  I flip!  I started demanding her to take it back to the kitchen because the whole time she is spilling milk all over the carpet and I’m stuck nursing Max.

See… My Mallory is not afraid of trouble.  She just acts like it is no big deal.  She doesn’t get scared easily… unless there is a bug.  LOL.  So she casually walks back to the table with this bowl of cereal spilling the whole way going… oh I made a mess.  I need a napkin.  Oh I made a mess.

Once she gets that bowl back on the table she comes running to me and she is now covered in milk.  I tell her to go get the towel off the stove and dry her feet off and then clean up her mess.  She does.  Then I hear banging around.  Mallory what are you doing?  “I can’t get it?”  What can’t you get?  “I can’t get my mess.”  I look and this is the first time I actually see the damage!  Milk every where!  She was trying to squeeze between the chair and the wall and the heat vent was in her way.  I told her just leave it, I would assist her when I was done with Max.

I finish feeding Max lay him on the floor to play and go clean up Mallory’s mess.  The whole time I am cleaning up her mess I’m mumbling nonsense… I can’t believe you did this.  I can’t believe you did this.  What were you thinking?  Oh Mally.  What are we going to do with you girl. 

Mallory is standing there watching me and she says, “Its okay Mom.”  I could not believe she just said that.  Where did she hear that before?  Really, this girl is trouble!  Of course I giggle at her.

Then I get out the mop and start cleaning and she gets our her swiffer and starts cleaning too. 

Anyway I get her all set up with some breakfast and go back to move Max to his jumper and find that he has spit up and the entire back of his head is now soaked in spit up.  Well, I guess you just declared this morning as bath day, huh Buddy Max!  Oh joy!

We go downstairs to get set up for a bath and Mallory is just into everything so I send her out into the playroom and turn on PBS Kids and tell her to stay here and play while I give Max a bath.  She does. 

I get Max in his bathtub and he starts pooping up a storm right in my tub of clean water!  I mean tons of poop.  I don’t think the kid has ever pooped so much in his entire little life.  And before I got him in the tub he had a poopy diaper – so he had already pooped!

I don’t know what it is about my kids and bodily functions! 

I get him out.   Get him fresh new clean water.  Put him back in.  He now proceeds to pee in my fresh new clean water!!  Buddy Max!  Seriously! 

I get him all clean and smelling fresh again.  Mallory comes back in the bathroom as I am drying Max off and getting him dressed.  She starts to gently play in the bath water and then starts to get out of control and starts throwing water around so I ask her to go dry her hands and go back out in the playroom.  She goes and gets a towel dries her hands and then tosses the towels in the toilet.  I mean she threw those towels in the toilet like it was just where they go.  No question.  No hesitation.  Just tossed them in and didn’t even look back.  Or even look in the toilet to see them in there! 

I was flabbergasted!  I said, Mallory… did you just throw the towel in the toilet?  And her response… yeah!  And it was so…like… where else do we put towels mom?  I could of screamed! 

I shooed her little booty out of the bathroom and fished the towel out of the toilet to discover that she actually had two towels in there!!!

This was all before 8am today!

My caramel vanilla coffee was so good this morning!

Date Night!

Our anniversary is on Tuesday and we will be celebrating 8 years!  That seems crazy to me to say… 8 years!  I think we are getting old.  Ick.  And we dated for 4 years before we got married… so 12 years we have been together… old.  ; )

Jesse’s Mom wanted to come watch the kids so that we could go out for the night just the two of us.  This Saturday she came.  Right before she arrived Max started into his – I-only-want-my-mom-to-hold-me act.  Well it was date night and honestly I can’t tell you the last time it was date night… maybe a year ago for our last anniversary.  So I was doing all my PPF techniques and needed both hands!  : )  Which means Max is giving me the look and crying.  I thought he would stop if I turned on the hair dryer (sometimes white noise is soothing to him)… then my hair dryer all of sudden shut off.  I freaked!  OMG!  I just killed my blow dryer on date night!  What am I going to do with 90% wet hair?!  I start flipping switches and pushing buttons.  OMG!  Then I figured out I blew a circuit breaker!  I can’t blow dry my hair with the air conditioner running.  JESSE!  I blew a circuit!!  He came to the rescue and back to making noise to see if Max will stop crying.  Nope!

Jesse’s Mom walks in right after I am done drying my hair and I run and say “Did you bring backup (Jesse’s Dad)?”  She laughed and said, yes, she thought she might need it.  Then she hears Max crying!  She worked on calming Max while I finished.

Well Max was still a little touch and go when we left so we set them up for a walk because Max actually likes to ride in the stroller and Mallory loves to walk.  They even decided to take the dog with them!  Jesse and I left!

We went to Manny’s for supper.  We have only been here once and that was when I was VERY pregnant with Mallory and it was our last date before being parents.  I remembered it being great and wanted to go back.  Last night was another one for the books – so so so so good! 

We got there during happy hour… and apparently we were feeling really thirsty because we ordered a pitcher of margaritas!  Yes, I said pitcher!  Yes, it is just Jesse and I!  Yes, it takes me about 4 hours to drink one alcoholic drink!  I am really a huge fan of the lime margarita, though.  : ) 

Well, it doesn’t take long and I’ve got the giggles.  The margarita was really good.  We ordered the margarita with the higher quality liquor – and does that make a difference in taste… and well… in giggles too!

While we are eating my cell phone rings and it is Jesse’s Dad.  He says… I have a couple of questions…

Dave:  There is a computer on the floor that is missing a couple of buttons and Mallory has been banging on it.  Should she be doing this?

Me:  *giggle*  Yes.  *giggle*  That is her computer.  *giggle*

Dave:  Okay.  Next question.  She ate supper, had her bath and now she is telling us it is time for Mickey Mouse and then time to go to bed after Mickey Mouse. 

Me:  *giggle*  She is schmoozing you!  *giggle*  She only gets to watch Mickey Mouse after lunch.  *giggle*

Dave:  Well I guess supper felt like lunch to her.  So, how do I get Mickey Mouse on?

Me:  *giggle*  (I tell him step by step how to turn on Mickey Mouse.)

We hang up.  I didn’t ask about Mr. Max, I was kind of afraid too.  However, I did not hear him crying – so I thought all is well.

I tell Jesse about my conversation that I just had with his Dad and we giggle about how I should of played on him with that computer missing the buttons and been like that is my work computer or something silly like that.  Remember by now my margarita is just about gone and my server has not yet brought me a glass of water. 

Our food was amazing!  We then had to decide what movie we wanted to go see because we needed to go sober up and the movie theater was across the parking lot.  : ) 

Thanks to a little internet on our phones – Jesse could look up the theater and see what movies were playing.  Jesse had to do this because… um… well… my eyes get funny.  I don’t know how people drink and like this feeling.  Ugh.  My eyes can’t focus and I feel so heavy!  Jesse tells me – that is called relaxed.  Well, I don’t like being relaxed I guessed.  He doesn’t know the eye thing – he says his eyes don’t do this.  Anyway… back to our movies.  Well nothing but crap was playing and since I was very agreeable I said yes to going to see Cowboys and Aliens!  However I had to get one big box of chocolate candy first.

We leave our restaurant and travel to the other side of the parking lot joking about how we need to be careful of the mall cop.  Then we see the mall cop!  Jesse waves!  And then proceeds to squeal his tires.  JESSE FREY! 

We get to the theater and I remember I forgot to tell Jesse’s parents to put Mallory in a pull up for bed.  I better call them.  So I called and told her where to find the pull ups.  I then had enough courage to ask about Max.  She said… Max is a fuss bucket!  and we both giggle!  I said, “He’ll get better.”  Which really made her laugh.  Then I told her to keep walking –  he likes to move, doesn’t like to sit still.  She laughed, I wished her luck, and we said good bye.

Margaretas really make me more relaxed about being gone from my babies!  Otherwise I sit there and think, are they being good?  Is Mallory listening?  Is Mallory telling them when she needs to go potty?  Is Max crying?  Is Max taking a bottle for Mary?  Blah Blah…

We get our tickets, soda and chocolate and we are walking to our theater and he says to me “this movie didn’t get very good ratings.”  I yell “WHAT!  Why are we going to this one then?”

We walk in and there is a spattering of people – and Jesse says, you want to sit way in the back.  I said yes, remember I have that eye issue when I drink – so I can’t focus.  I need to be far away from the screen!  : )

Anyway, the movie was okay – I stayed awake.  Now, for real, I have been known to fall asleep in movie theaters.  Movies put me to sleep. 

After the movie we were ready to go back home.  We got home and Mally was sleeping on the couch with Grandma.  She totally schmoozed them again and when they put her to bed, she came back out with her blanket and they said, you want to sleep on the couch?  She of course said, yes.  : )

Max was in bed, though!  But I guess Max cried the entire time!  And was not a good boy!  After Jesse’s parents left I went to check on him and he was still doing that post-cry sob in his sleep.  He must of cried lots and hard.  Poor little buddy – just wants his momma at night.

It was a successful date night and put the little sparks back in our eyes.

Little Mommy

Mallory has started coping me.  She gets her little doll and does what ever I am doing to Max – she does with her doll.

Sometimes I have to walk circles in the house with Max bouncing up and down – and she is right behind me doing the same thing.

She tells me her baby is happy – if Max is happy.  She will tell me her baby is crying – if Max is crying.

Now she even feeds her babies! 

The other day she had to bring her baby and goofy to the grocery store.  She had her arms full – just like any mom.  : )  Which in the end worked out really slick because she wanted to walk – and her arms were so full that she couldn’t run or touch anything!  Tricky!

Mally what is your baby’s name?  Maxwell.  : ) 

Pigs at the Zoo?!

This past Friday Jesse had a sales meeting in Minnesota so the kids and I tagged along and made a couple days out of it.  I have been wanting to take Mallory to a zoo – she is kind of an animal lover, unlike me.  : )  We were going to be near the zoo on his sales call.

The week before I had our nanny get tons of library books about animals.  And we read about animals, animals, animals and more animals! 

And we talked about animals, animals, animals and more animals.  One night we were coming back from my parents house and we talked the whole way home (45+ minutes) about what kind of animals we might see at the zoo!

Every time she would say “See pigs at the zoo?!!”  Then she would say “um, what else at the zoo?”  She would get more and more excited with each animal.  I tried to video tape it but every time I would bust out the camera she would come running to watch it before I even taped it. 

We spent the night in a hotel before we went.  Mally really wanted to go swimming – however it was already kind of late and Jesse had to get up for his sales meeting so we all went to bed.  Oh joy!  Mally is a tough one to get to sleep when out of her routine.  We all had to listen to Violet (her singing dog that plays sleepy music for 10 minutes).  Then Violet shut off – she turned him on again for another 10 minutes.  Then Mallory started singing herself.  Jesse and I were trying so hard not to laugh out loud at her.  Finally she sang herself to sleep!

She got to sleep in a BIG bed all by herself!  She is such a wiggly sleeper that we had to build a pillow nest for her so she wouldn’t fall out.

We brought Max’s bed – but he sat up here and chewed on his hands and drooled all over the place while the rest of were getting ready!

The next morning I took Mally to the pool while Jesse went to his meeting.  I thought… oh Max will sleep in the stroller (it is nap time anyway) while Mally and I play in the pool.  Wrong-o!!  However, he did let us play for about 15 minutes and then he wanted nothing to do with his stroller – unless it was moving.  Pool time was over.

We got to the zoo and it was HOT!  Mally fell a sleep on the way there and we thought… do we let her finish her nap and then go in, or just wake her up.  I suggested just wake her up – she will be so excited that we are at the zoo.  Well, I might have been wrong this time.  ; )

I didn’t get very many pictures at all from the zoo.  I’m actually really disappointed about that – I wanted to get a picture of me and the kids and Jesse and the kids… and that never happened.  Mally thought she needed to run the whole time – and Max doesn’t like heat at all so he wanted to be held and didn’t want to take a nap.  Leaving me no thoughts or hands for a camera.

I can’t remember what animal she is looking at here.  Or why she is holding her one finger up.

The farm!  They had a farm at this zoo.  She loved this part the most, I think.

She petted them. And they chewed on my new stroller! 

Jesse showed her how to feed them.

Feeding them was a huge hit!  She loved that.

When we talked about her feeding goats afterwards she says she fed them rocks.  : ) 

That’s all the pictures I have from the zoo!  : (  I even think we missed a big chunk of the zoo.  There were suppose to be dolphins and there is a dolphin show – we didn’t see any dolphins at all.  they also advertised penguins – didn’t see those.  Guess we will have to go again next year.

Jesse took Mally swimming that night because Max did not want to leave my arms.  I think the heat really got to him and he wasn’t feeling the best.  I really wish I would have had my camera this time too – Jesse and Mallory were having so much fun and it would have been great memories/moments to capture.  Mallory was jumping off the side (like a frog) into the water and loving it!  Then he was teaching her how to swim on her belly.  She loves the water!  We thought for sure she was going to be wore out and go right to bed.   Bahahahahaha!  How parents can be so wrong sometimes!  : ) 

Another fun thing was she didn’t have any accidents on our little mini trip!  She stayed dry on the couple hour car ride.  The whole time at the zoo!  I was so proud!  Max on the other hand, had explosion after explosion.  I love the explosion stage.  : )  I remember Mally being in this stage.