One Year Ago

I don't know what happened one year ago other than I took this picture. My pictures are all organized by date, so sometimes I like to look back and see what was going on 365 days ago. When this picture popped up I just wanted to reach out and tickle Mallory's sweet little feet! Fast forward to today and she is very ticklish. She laughs so hard when we tickle her stomach or legs. Its soooo much fun!

Not My Favorite Things

You see a lot of posts where people share a list of their favorite things. I decided to do the opposite. Here are four things that I have tried lately that was not so happy with. Maybe I can spare someone else the disappointment.

1. Trop50 Orange Juice: Tropicana's new orange juice that has 50% of he calories or something. It was really sweet and watery.

   
2. Special K Cinnamon Pecan: I'm pretty sure I had a coupon for this and it sounded healthy plus I like other cinnamon cereals, so why not? No specifics on why I didn't like it. Maybe the pecans were stale, but Mallory at least had some fun with the box.
   
3. Skintimate Cream Shave. I use the skintimate shaving cream and gel, so I figured I would like this too. Turns out it was a big disappointment for me. It doesn't lather, so it was kind of like shaving with lotion. I like shaving cream because its easy to see where the you've shaved and where you haven't by the shaving cream that is left. I bought 3 of these because CVS was giving extra bucks for them so it was like I got it for free. Anyone want the 2 I didn't try?
4. Parent's Choice (Wal-Mart) wipes: They didn't pop-up when you pulled them up through the dispenser. It may not seem like a big deal a first, but we had to carefully pull them apart one by one. This is not really something I want to deal with when I'm cleaning up poop. I bought a big case of them at Wally World and we finally used them up this week. Yippee!!!

This isn't a product, but we're still having trouble with the "T" key on our laptop. Please excuse any "ypos" in my post.

Daddy's Girl

Mallory and Matthew have gotten to have some good times together lately. They got a night together last night while I went our to dinner. He took her to Wal-Mart. Lucky girl!

This morning I went running and left the two of them at home together. After she finally woke up at 9:00, they went to McDonald's for breakfast. Is he a fun Daddy or what? He gave her a juice box of apple juice. She had never drank out of a straw before. Matthew said that once she tasted a little juice by accident, she figured out how to drink the rest of it real quick! It must have been some good juice, look at her go to town on that box.

There you have it, the high point of our week...Mallory drinking out of a straw. That is just how exciting things are around our house, but we love it!

It Was Time

I have been stressing over this for several months. I chickened out once. I went another time, but was relieved when the place had moved. What has been causing me such anguish? Getting Mallory's hair cut!!!

So today we were going to do some shopping with Matthew. I printed out a coupon and said, "If we see it, we'll do it." Well, we saw the salon.

I was really surprised with myself and how this was such a big deal to me. As the lady went to make the first cut I felt a mix of tears and nausea, but held it together. Mallory on the other hand, did great! She was a little apprehensive at first, but quickly warmed up to it. I am so glad we finally did it. It looks so much better now.

Mal and I waiting for our turn.

Another one of her funny faces.

"Lady, you're not putting that cape on me!"

Such a little princess.

The receptionist came over and blew bubbles. Mallory loved watching and trying to catch them. The camera battery died as soon as Matthew snapped this one. The rest are from my phone.

Mallory getting her prize when she was finished.

Her new do!

A Hunting We Will Go

We're in the middle of a fun filled weekend at my parents house for Easter. Anita and I started the morning off with a nice and hilly run. It would not of taken any convincing at all to talk me out of running, but I sure am glad we went. I don't think I've ever gotten back from a run and wished I hadn't gone. We came back for homemade waffles and then went up to the club for lunch and an Easter egg hunt.

This is what Mallory thought of the Easter Bunny.

Abby was very excited to get the egg hunt started.

Mallory is keeping us laughing with her funny faces these days.

They had an egg hunt for the 3 and under crowd first. This left Nathan free to show Mal what this egg hunting business was all about.

She caught on before long and got a few eggs.

She had help from her daddy too!

As we were walking back inside we spotted a few more eggs that the others missed. Without the commotion of everyone else, Mal did pretty good getting the eggs.

I guess I'm the only one in my family that doesn't mind pictures with the bunny.

As we left Mal giggled when she saw the bunny, so we thought we'd give him a second shot. No good, her reaction was just the same as before.

Some day all three will look at the same camera at the same time, right?

On the drive home Mallory was trying to open her chocolate marshmallow egg. She didn't get it open. But Anita and I sure enjoyed it when she did. Yumm!!!

Its been a great day so far with lots of playing, picture taking and eating yummy food. I hope you're having as good a weekend as we are!

Bluebonnets and My Baby

We drove to my parents house today for Easter. It was a beautiful day, so we stopped to take some pictures of Mallory in the Bluebonnets. She was not too sure about all these blue flowers I plopped her down in. It made me wonder, do people in other states get so excited about their state flowers?

my favorite!

In other news, Mallory had her 15 month birthday recently and is doing great! One of her favorite things these days is books. She loves to look at her books and flip the pages. She will sit on he floor and pull them all down on the floor by her. Her other favorite is shoes. If she sees a pair of her shoes, she wants to wear them and will let know know it. She also like for us to wear shoes too. Recently she came out of my closet with one of my heels and put it on my foot. When she headed back into my closet, I figured she was going to come back with a flop flop. Oh no, she dug around and came back out with the matching shoe for me to wear. I tried to take them off, bu she let me know I needed to keep them on. So, I went on to change the sheets wearing heels. If it makes her happy... She also likes to dance when she hears music. We like to dance everyday a lunchtime with Ellen. We're also still trying to find something that she doesn't like to eat.

She's our sweet girl and we love her more and more each day!

My Little Bookworm

One of Mallory's favorite activities these days is reading books. Her favorite by far is "Who's Hiding In the Ocean?". We probably read it at least 10 times a day. Its a 3 way tie for second between "Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You?", "There's a Wocket in My Pocket", and "But Not the Hippopotamus". And some days, she just wants ALL the books so that she can flip through a few pages and move on to the next one. On these days the living room looks like a bookmobile overturned in our house.

The hippo book was a big favorite today. I have no clue how many times we read it today. I've gotten to where I have to change up my speed and tone every time I read it just to not go crazy. If any of you are familiar with this story, does it bother you? Really, why not the hippo or the poor little armadillo?

And some days, books are best used for hats.

I'm Done...

with all Nuby Sippy cups. They have a really "cool" feature that Mallory has figured out. If you turn one over and press it on your high chair tray you can get your drink to flow out and make a puddle to play in while your mommy isn't looking. This is what she did Saturday morning with her milk while I wasn't watching. She had given herself a milk bath. It was special.

"Uh-Oh, she caught me!"

Tonight during dinner she tossed her cup on the floor. This happens a lot so I had just left it this time. When I was cleaning up I found a big puddle of water on the floor. While I went to get a towel to clean it up, Mallory slipped in it. Thankfully, she hopped right up like nothing had happened.

If any of what I have just typed did not make sense try adding a "T" wherever it looks good. The "T" on our computer came off recently. I snapped it back on, but it doesn't always work.

I Don't Want to Fold

I don't really have anything big to blog about but it sounds like more fun than folding laundry. So, here goes...

Matthew and I went to the rodeo on Thursday to see Brad Paisley. It was great, even if on the way there Matthew informed me that he "did not care about any of that rodeo stuff". He was going for the Brad Paisley concert plain and simple. We did find a new (to us) rodeo even that we both loved. It was the Mutton Bustin'. They put kids age 4-6 on the back of sheep, sent them out of a chute, and gave them a shot to hang on. It was hilarious!

It was a great night for people watching. The weather was miserable; temperature in the 40's and rain all day. There were people that need more clothes on, infants that needed to be home in bed, and people that needed to spend a lot less time in the tanning bed.

No trip to the rodeo is complete with out some good eating. Matthew was on a turkey leg mission, so he walked right up to the very first stand selling them and ordered his leg. The lady working there felt bad that the only one she had was so scrawny, she gave it to him for free! Later I indulged in a funnel cake while Matthew sampled the cheesecake on a stick dipped in chocolate. He decided they needed to figure out how to put a layer of chocolate in the middle of the cheesecake. I thought the cheesecake needed to not be frozen. Two of the things we did not eat that I just don't even comprehend were the chicken fried bacon and the deep fried banana sundae.

I had an "I Feel Old Moment" while we were eating and a Darius Rucker song was playing. One of the high school girls sitting next to us said to her group, "Is this the guy from that blowfish group?" Matthew's "I Feel Old Moment" was seeing that her letter jacket said class of 2012.

I was a little torn about going to the rodeo on a Thursday night, because I was missing ER and Grey's. Thankfully, my friend TiVo was hard at work recording my shows for me. I am sooooo loving the last episodes of ER. It has been so good! I'm so happy they are going out on top. I loved this week's episode. It was so great to see our old friends Doug and Carol back on, but I was very sad that they never learned they had sent a kidney to Chicago to save Carter. I just now watched Grey's and my heart is breaking a little for Meredith.

Friday was my last morning of Boot Camp. It was great! I'm so glad I did it. It felt great to get back into a workout routine, plus I found some new muscles and took some time off of my mile. Matthew was great to get up every morning with Mallory while I went. I'll definitely do it again sometime, but am giving him a break first.

Mallory and I are heading to Ft Worth tomorrow to spend a few days with Anita and her peeps. It's been 2 months since we last saw each other. This is a long time for us, so we're all looking forward to the visit. I'm being positive and telling myself that this is going to be the time that Mallory sleeps in the pack 'n play while we're there. Afterall, she should be used to it since she's been sleeping in it at home for the last month while her room has been a painting mess! And, just in case you forgot what our sweet little girl looks like, here she is last night telling us its time to go to dinner.

Well, I think I've killed enough time and will go fold the laundry now before Matthew gets home from work. Hope you enjoyed my random thoughts.

Around The House

Things have been pretty uneventful around here lately, but we've still managed to find a few photo ops every now and then.

Mallory is always very interested in all the parts of Matthew's uniform when he is getting ready for work. They sure do love playing with each other.

This may be my new favorite picture of Mallory.

I've been working on styling Mallory's hair lately so that it won't fly away everywhere. Matthew couldn't resist catching a shot of her before I got the pony tail in.

Matthew found the bumbo seat this week. Mallory has been playing with it and reliving the good old days of her youth.

We bought her this slide back in December. I finally got it out this afternoon for us to play with. I think we'll be spending more and more time outside soon.

This is probably the only time she got on her car facing the right direction. She has a thing for riding backwards...who can figure her out!

And just another funny thing from our girl...I caught her spinning around in circles looking over her shoulder. She looked like a dog chasing her tail.