Unsolicited advice

You didn't ask for it, but I'm going to give it.

If you are pregnant or about to be pregnant, and planning on living on one income after the kid is born, buy diapers now!! That was by far the best advice I received when I was pregnant. Brad and I started buying diapers in different sizes when I was about 14 weeks pregnant. Once a month, we made a trip to Sam's, and bought a big box of Huggies and wipes. There were about 10 boxes stacked up in her room by the time June came.

Mallory is almost 10 months old, and I just now had to buy a package of diapers and wipes for her. 10 months people!

Just for fun, I calculated how many diapers and wipes we have used in these short 10 months. I came up with approximately 2,000 diapers and 5,000 wipes. And, we have saved almost $500 by purchasing them in advance. Dave Ramsey would be proud.

So, there is my 2 cents.

A video and a milestone

For the last several weeks, Mallory has been soooo close to crawling. Every time the grandparents would call or see her, they would ask. Every time someone would ask how old she was, they would ask. At first, I was getting nervous that she wasn't developing as fast as other babies. And then we got to see those babies getting into everything and making their parents crazy. So, Brad and I have just chilled out about it and are letting Mallory decide when she wants to do it. Well, I guess that day was today!

She loves to play with her yellow brush after I give her a bath. So, I put the brush in a plastic bin that she had been eyeing and off she went. Now, it's not perfected yet, or very graceful, but she is getting there.

I don't mind though. She'll be walking before we know it...then running...and pretty soon we won't be able to keep up with the little rugrat!

A weekend of cousins!

It is so gloomy today. I thought I would make a trip to Target to get me in a better mood, but a monsoon of a thunderstorm kept me from getting there. Bummer. I am thankful for the rain, but ready for the blue skies and spring weather to be around!

We had a fun weekend of traveling to the metroplex. Brad really has a coosh (sp?) job. He recruits all over, in a school vehicle, get his meals paid for, stay in nice hotels and I get to travel with him and see friends and family I normally wouldn't get to see as often. It's one of the blessings of being a coach's wife.

These pictures are a little out of order, but you will get the drift. Our week/weekend in a nutshell:

Cousin time! Mallory and Tate are exactly 6 months apart, so it has been and will be fun watching them grow up so close. We went to the metroplex for his baby dedication at church. Here is Tate trying to get some tummy time in while Mallory "plays" with his hair. She is also in need of a serious diaper change!! Side note: Thanks for the dress Aunt Jenn, she looked super cute at church!!

Brad's grandparents stopped by on their way home to Houston to visit with Mallory earlier in the week. We thought she might recognize them, since she just saw them a week ago, but she still wouldn't give a smile. Turkey! I always say, "She's smiling on the inside!" I'm just glad we are over the phase of crying when people hold her (other than me and Brad).

I can deal with no smiles, but crying kind of hurts people's feelings.

This is Julia. She is our niece and Mallory's other cousin. Julia is almost exactly 5 months older than Mallory. How fun is that? I am predicting a lot of discipline needing to happen in the next couple of years because of trouble these two are going to get into. She obviously LOVES bubbles!! We got to spend the night in the "country" with her and her parents (we enjoyed seeing you guys too!)


The first "cousin bath"! The girls are now old enough to take a bath together. I think they enjoyed stealing the rubber ducky back and forth. Although, Mallory really liked the spray thingy we used to rinse her hair out with. She was fascinated with it.

There it is. We had a fun and fast weekend. I think Mallory may be allergic to the metroplex though. She has been sneezing snot out of her nostrils all day today!

I'll leave you with that image:)

FYI

Don't use wheat flour or less than the required amount of eggs when making chocolate chip cookies. It's not a good outcome.

Don't let the picture fool you. These cookies were nasty! I decided to be a sweet little wifey and make some chocolate chip cookies...from scratch. I have done this many times in my lifetime, and they never turn out like the Nestle commercial (you know, the cookies in the oven melting down and forming perfect little circle cookies). But, they are usually always edible. Not this time. They started out good, but turned bad pretty quick.

I've been on a wheat flour kick recently (not sure why, except that I heard it was good for you and I was scared that my white flour had bugs in it...did you know you are supposed to store flour in the freezer to avoid that problem? Me neither). I don't think chocolate chip cookies should be made with wheat flour. And I only had 3 eggs instead of 4. I should have just given up then, but I continued. I thought the dough looked a little "sugary and wheaty", but thought it was just the texture of the flour. Out of the oven they came. I let them cool a little and then attempted to get them off the cookie sheet. No such luck. They are as hard as a rock! As soon as I tried to scrape with my spatula, they turned into a crumbly mess. Bummer! I was really looking forward to enjoying the leftover dough and cookies after dinner tonight. I guess I should stick to the break apart dough from Pillsbury.

I am so not a June Cleaver.

Imitation is a form of flattery...right?

It seems like we have begun a new stage with Mallory. She has started copying us! We were with my family over the weekend celebrating Kelly's birthday, and she learned these new noises...almost as cute as her laugh! I tell you what, I think this might be my favorite time to be a mommy so far! I enjoyed the newborn stage because of the sweetness (don't even ask Brad about the first 4 months!), but after 7 months, her personality really started coming out. She is a hoot to be around lately.

Happy Birthday...

...Aunt Kelly!!

Love, Mallory

Now to explain. My sister (Aunt Kelly) started a tradition of buying Mallory all of her "holiday attire". So, in honor of her birthday, I attempted to dress Mallory in everything Kelly has bought her so far. I'm kind of glad I didn't since she got so mad with just the Thanksgiving head-dress. Now you can see why I don't mess with the bows anymore. It's just not worth it...even if she looks super cute with them on!

Anyway. We hope you have a great day today and we love you! Happy Birthday!

Mallory pictures

Here are some recent pictures of Mallory. She is growing up so fast. Sniff, sniff.

Here she is eating a snack of Cheerios and cheddar cheese. You can also see her 2 teeth on the bottom. The white spots next to the teeth aren't more teeth, they are epithelial cysts (what her doctor called them...he said they should go away in the next year...weird). She is getting more used to table food. She's had a banana, green beans, toast, baked beans, ranch style beans, mashed potatoes, a piece of a brownie (!), turkey and probably some other things that mom doesn't want to know about while she was gone! She's also sporting her Cal onesie that Grandpa and Mimi gave her, but it didn't make the zoom, sorry California relatives!

This is my favorite. The other day she took a 2 1/2 hour nap! We were slightly worried about her, so we opened the door to peek our heads in. This is how we found her. The picture is blurry because I didn't want the flash to wake her up before I got the picture...

And then Brad noticed this....


I don't know how she wiggles around her crib so much. She isn't crawling yet, but somehow she manages to get from one side to the other. I'd love to set up a video camera and watch her one night. Crazy sleeper!!

Lettuce anyone?

So, Brad and I had this theory a while back. First, a little history.

When we lived in Abilene, we spent the summer "landscaping". We layed sod in our backyard, put up a new fence (not by ourselves), dug flowerbeds in the front yard, planted shrubs and the unfortunate hydro-mulching of our front yard. If any of you are ever considering hydro-mulching, don't do it. And if you have to do it, make sure you have a sprinkler system. We had a horrible experience with it. It cost a pretty penny and we ended up with a yard full of weeds!! Okay, now on with the theory.

When we moved into our current house, the yard was really pretty. We have thick bermuda grass that was green and looked like it had been well maintained. Brad enjoys taking care of the lawn, so he was pretty meticulous about mowing. About 2 months ago, we started noticing some weeds coming up. Then, it seemed like all of a sudden, our yard was consumed with them (front and back). Our theory was that we brought all of the weeds (in our lawn mower) from Abilene! It made sense. Everywhere Brad had mowed, there were the weeds. Apparently our theory failed. Part of our fence blew down a week ago and we saw the "yard of weeds" next door. So, that brings me to today.

My finger nails hurt. I spent approximately 1 1/2 hours pulling up weeds in our front yard this afternoon. Brad fertilized the yard last week, so I thought I would be sweet and help pull the weeds. Secretly, I wanted an excuse to be outside and possibly get some sun on these white arms of mine! It seems like forever ago that I was even remotely tan (pre-Mallory days). Anyway. Back to the weeds. It started out good. They were easy to pull up for the most part. Then, I got a bunch of ants mad at me, found several spiders (seriously, what good are they?), 4-5 inch long worms, crickets and lots of rollie pollies. I haven't wanted to touch a rollie pollie since I was little...not that I wanted to today...that is what gardening gloves are for! I found some very tough and annoying weeds. I'm not sure what they are called, but they seriously looked like heads of lettuce! And the roots were forever long. We don't have a hand held shovel thingy, so I scoured the kitchen for some kind of tool to use. A cake server did the trick!

Our front yard now looks like the tee box on a golf course. Tons of divots...but, there isn't any more lettuce, so that makes up for it! I didn't even finish half of it, but it already looks better. I made Brad come out and "admire" my hard work. He probably couldn't even tell that I had filled 3 HEB bags, but was nice anyway, and said it looked good. I think I'll work on it some more tomorrow. It's kind of rewarding. And, if you ever have cake at my house, it won't be served with my "gardening tool", don't worry.

He deserves a HUGE gold star!

So much to blog about. First, I have to start with Mallory. Today is her 9th month of life birthday. We went to see the doctor today and got a great check-up. He said she is perfect and a blessing. We have a very sweet and Godly doctor. Mallory has recently gotten some dramatic tendencies when she doesn't like what you are doing to her or with her. (Oh boy for the terrible twos!) He was checking her ears and she was SCREAMING so loud. As soon as he stepped away from her, she stopped and did this little sigh. So dramatic. I wonder where she gets it from? Anyway. Here are her stats at the old age of 9 months: Weight: 18 pounds, 13 ounces (70th %) Height: 28 inches (she is finally getting "normal" and is in the 50th %) and her head is 17 1/2 inches. I would post a picture, but I don't have a good recent one. It'll be coming soon....

Next, I went away last weekend to our church's women's retreat. It was a very good and refreshing time away. I really got to bond with girls my age and the speaker was amazing. I have to admit though, I didn't really miss Mallory...until Sunday. Am I a bad mommy? I guess since Brad did such a good job the weekend before that, I felt completely confident. Plus, my parents came in to help, so that eased my mind.

Which brings me to my last topic, and the best one. I have a fantastic husband. When we moved into our house here in Temple, we painted practically every surface we could. Poor Brad. He was really burned out with painting. Anyway. I still had ideas for painting the kitchen and bathroom cabinets, but thought we would wait until this summer. Well, Mr. Sneaky spent the whole weekend painting our kitchen cabinets for me! My parents had "Mallory duty" and he painted all day and night long. I walked into the house (earlier than he had thought I'd be home) and saw a fan on. My first thought was "Oh no, a pipe busted and the carpet is wet!". I walked around the bar and saw the following sight:

He's amazing and worked so hard all weekend long. It was the best surprise and I'm so glad that I don't have to paint them now:)