Mally in Action

I pulled out my old (much smaller camera) last night to clear off the memory stick so I could use it tonight.  Much to my surprise it was full of videos of when Mally was a baby!  She was just beginning to roll over!  They could almost bring tears to a mommy’s eyes!! 

Then it made me sad that I haven’t taken any videos of her since she was beginning to roll!!  So I took one of her this afternoon while she was playing in the kitchen cupboards.  She is usually not very patient while I do the dishes, but today she was playing hard.

Hope you enjoy seeing her in action and hearing her little voice.  : )

Jesse Dirt

When my cousins were little they called Jesse… Jesse Dirt.  Something to do with the movie Joe Dirt and that Jesse’s parents house had piles of gravel and dirt (for their construction business) in the yard.  I think at one my point they even thought that Joe Dirt was Jesse’s brother.  I know.  Lovely!  : ) 

However, if Jesse had a landscape business I think he would have to call it Jesse Dirt.  He has been landscaping up a storm the last couple of weeks… make that months.  The last two weekend he tackled landscaping around the house, which entailed many trips to his Dad’s gravel pit to pick rock.  Trips to the garden center for wood chips, bushes, trees, plants.  Trips to my Mom’s for flowers.  Flagging down a random dump truck that kept driving by the house to see if they would bring him a load dirt – they did.  Trips to the neighbor’s to get their rock they no longer needed.  And a lot of hard work and heavy lifting in the hot sun!

I tried to get some pictures, but I can’t stand the color of our house so I didn’t take very many.  I think next summer’s project is to get different siding.

This tree is called Summer Glow Tamarack.  I think this is my favorite tree/bush that we planted.  It will “glow” this pink in the summer.

Jesse Dirt being creative and planting plants in the cracks of rocks.

Jesse Dirt took a few breaks and let Maggie do her job… lick his legs and get all the dirt and sweat off them.

Mallory playing on her most awesome birthday present ever.  (My sister got it for her – and she kept telling me, “Lynn!  I got Mal the most awesome birthday present ever!”)

Maggie and Mallory playing.  Ugh.  That licking stuff!  I can’t take it!  You can be sure I was yelling, “Maggie!  Stop it!”  The trouble is Mallory kind of likes it.  She giggles and chases after Maggie for more.  GROSS!  She is not my kid!

We also planted hostas around our pine trees that we trimmed up.  Jesse Dirt had us move them twice!  We planted them and then he really did not like where we planted them and we had to move them all again – closer to the tree.

Almost a month ago now, we put in this firepit.  Talk about a lot of hard work- this was hard work!  We went out to the gravel pit and search and search and searched for flat rocks that we could use.  We then rented a tiller from the hardware store and tilled up a huge square of lawn so that we could bury the rocks.  We dug a hole and nested EACH rock into the ground.  Then we had to completely bury the rocks and rented a compactor to compact the dirt and rocks in so that they were nice and snug and wouldn’t move.  THEN we had to find the rocks we buried!  That took so long, because we didn’t remember where they all were.  We looked like we were digging for bones out there with our little brooms searching for these rocks.  However, when you found one we got very excited.  And when we found a big one the excitement was even more!  Of course once that was all done, we had to plant more grass seed and wait for the grass to grow before we could use it.

We have it nestled in the back yard near the gardens.  Now I need to wait for Walmart to clearance their big huge mega pots so I can snag a few and put them around edge of the pit next summer for my pops of color!!

Mallory loves to garden!  She would seriously stand here all day if I let her.  She jabbers away and torments my plants.

She even chews on these rocks.  When I’m not looking she rubs her bottom teeth on the rocks.  I don’t know how she can do it – makes my skin crawl.

I already have a pepper!  This one is called a Chinese Giant.  He is not very giant like… but maybe he will get bigger.

On Saturday we worked from the time we got up to the time it got dark out.  When it got dark we called all the neighbors and had them come over for a fire, drinks and smores.  The one neighbor came and he says… I went for a ride in my car (he has an old huge white convertible that he takes out on only super nice days) and I get back and that dang neighbor is still working.  I can’t have that so I planted four more rows of corn.

Now, this neighbor is probably in his 50s or maybe even in his 60s.  He says he always use to be the last one in the neighborhood to stop working now this punk kid comes here and works longer then him and he can’t have that. 

Swimming Backwards

We are finally getting our hot weather back.  This means that Mallory and I can go back outside.

I had her help me weed the garden.  Since we have raised beds she can stand next to them – which she loves!  When I pull her away to go she throws her little fit.

However, you must keep a close eye on her because she likes to eat the dirt.  I caught her with a HUGE clump of dirt in her mouth.  We are talking like the size of a grape… not nothing little.  I removed the clump, but she still had a mouth full of gritty dirty dirt. 

Then she likes to pick the plants instead of the weeds.  She tortured a pea plant.  Tried to eat a potato plant leave.  If she would only eat the lunch I provide her then she wouldn’t have to resort to eating my plants and dirt.  : )

Yesterday I took her baby tub outside, filled it with water and toys and let her go to town.  I thought she would be a little more into it then she was.

 

Until she discovered my lens cap on the ground and went crawling for it.

She even tried to put it back on while I am trying to take pictures of her.

The last month or so I went back to Auto on my camera.  I don’t know why… I think I was just lazy and didn’t want to think about all the steps in manual mode.  But during this outing I went back to manual mode.  I need to stay here because the colors are so much brighter when in manual vs. auto… at least I think so.

 

My crawler took off! 

 

 

Just in case you were thinking… Aw Mally’s swimsuit is so cute.  Um, it might be even more cute if her Mommy didn’t put it on backwards!!!

I didn’t notice it was backwards until we were almost done outside and she got away from me and I looked at her and thought… why does this show so much of your diaper?  That looks really stupid and not appropriate for babies.  Then I look to see if I have it on right, nope!  It is backwards!