What's been going on???

To be honest, a whole lot of nothing. Just life! We went the farm last weekend. Had a blast! Jace's dirt pile was still there so I ended up with 4 dirty, filthy kids. Yes I know my kids just multiplied! Nanny was babysitting one of Tyler's cousin's two kids. I'll post pictures eventually. Right now they are still living in my camera like the kid on the commercials frozen in midair off the diving board!
But here's a preview!

Mallori got her WebKinz from Jo Lynn so between her and Tyler, I have to fight for the Internet! haha It's really cute though and she LOVES it. She even added it to her collection of sleeping animals. Jace wants one too now. I've been looking to see if maybe we can get him one for Christmas. He's a little young to do it by himself but I think he could with help.

Jace has been rockin and rollin along. He's doing pretty good with my mom taking care of Jessie. He wants a little more attention in the afternoons but nothing like the first day she kept him. Here's a picture of the little cutie so you can see who I'm talking about.

After that first day, I had to go to the store and get something for supper. Jace (of course) wanted a chocolate cookie. He'd been whining because he had to leave Nana's so I told him IF he was good and IF he quit whining he could have one. He found something else he wanted and carried it though the entire store. Then we get to the checkout line and he spots a chocolate cookie. He asks if he can have it. My response "You already have the Christmas trees..." at which point he throws himself down on the floor, throws the Little Debbie box across aisle and begins kicking his feet and hitting the floor!!!!! I was so in shock I didn't know what to do so he missed out on a spanking. But I did make him get up and stop. Then we had a LONG talk in the car about how that was unacceptable behavior and if he EVER even thought about doing it again, I would bust his little hinney right there! He also didn't get to watch TV when we got home and the cookies (both kinds) stayed at the store. I was a little disappointed at the last part. I love Christmas Tree cookies!

Well, I'd better sign off of here. I need to go take a shower. We are taking family pictures for our Christmas cards today and I need a shower first!! Wish me luck!

Mallori

I'm finally sitting down to do it! My post that allows you a glimpse into Mallori's personality. I want to start this post off with a disclaimer.
Disclaimer #1: No matter how this ends up sounding, I love Mallori with all of my heart and treat her like she is 100% mine. I cannot tell you the nights I have laid awake wishing she was mine and crying because she never will be fully mine.
Disclaimer #2: Mallori's personality is extremely complex, and liable to change at any moment. She's not predictable like Jace is.

Now that we've gotten that out of the way, let's get started.

Mallori is my little girl whose 100% little girl 75% little boy. She loves to go shopping, talk on the phone, (ok just talk in general! The girl talks in her sleep!), and would rather wear a dress and heels than shorts and tennis shoes any day. However, she would rather be in the yard playing baseball than sitting getting her nails done. She HATES to have her hair done, loves to get dirty (I mean absolutely filthy), and likes to go fishing with her daddy.

She's MOODY! My new nickname for her is Melodramatic, Moody, Mallori. This replaces my nicknames of Eeyore, little rain cloud and night owl. She likes to pretend to be unhappy. She will sulk just because she thinks she might get attention and trust me, she's not attention starved! We are slowly learning to deal with her range of emotions though. We try to tell her it is ok to be mad, upset, whatever, but it's also ok to be happy and she is the one who chooses how she reacts. At the same time, sulking and making everyone else miserable is not ok. If she must sulk, she has to go to her room.

She's HILEROUS! I cannot count the number of pictures I have where she is sitting as serious as can be and everyone around her is laughing their heads off. She says the funniest things! For example, on her birthday Ashley was calling her boyfriend to see where he was. Mallori and Ashley's conversation went something like this....
Ashley: I wonder where that boy is?
Mallori: Who?
Ashley: My boyfriend.
Mallori: Chris? (for those of you who don't know, Chris is Ashley's previous boyfriend)
Ashley: No, his name is Jeremy.
Mallori: What happened to Chris?
Ashley: Blank look...
Me: She traded him in.
Ashley: Nods in confirmation.
Mallori: Oh? Well then give him to me BABY!

We were laughing so hard the guys outside could hear us!!! That brings me to another thing about Mallori. She is obsessed with what I call life events: getting married, having kids, death, you name it. We bought the movie Mulan when she was 3. I had to quit letting her watch it because we had to have long discussions about war and why they were going to war and what happened to Mulan's father.... you get the point.

She's very insightful and picks up on emotions right off the bat. Perhaps because her emotions are always bubbling at the surface. There is no hiding when something is wrong. She will find you out every time!

Unlike Jace, she is very stranger leary. She usually won't talk to a stranger first. (I see this as a good thing.) I've always said I didn't have to worry about someone grabbing her because she would let everyone in hearing distance know she wasn't with them! She is calming down some though. She will talk to people that she can tell we know. For the longest time, she wouldn't talk to some family members!

She loves to be the center of attention and will do just about anything to be in it. She has no shame making a full of herself and is completely goofy. It's almost impossible to take a good picture of her because she always wants to goof off. I blame this on her Aunt Lala.

Mallori is a little genius. We have always thought so but everyone else confirms this. She could recognize all of her letters and tell you what sounds they made by the time she was 3. She's known her colors and shapes as long as I can remember. She has a photgentic memory and can remember anything. When she was about 3, she remembered a building she went in when she was 18 months old! She even told me what she had to go there for!

She's accident prone! She's been to the ER 7 times that I can remember off the top of my head!
She's fearless. She'll try anything. She has no problem jumping out of the boat and into the lake with her daddy.
She's trustworthy. Once Tyler held her ankles about chest high so her stomach was even with his head and told her to fall backwards. She did it several times before he made her stop!

Well there you have it, that's our Mallori in a nut shell! I could go on and on but I need to go to bed sometime tonight! :) Sorry it has taken so long for this post. Things are just more hetic when we actually have Mallori! It's crazy that adding one extra person to a family creates so much more work! Also she's in activities and has homework (yes, in kindergarten!) and I'm exhausted by the time I get everyone bathed and fed! haha!

My Weekend Surprises

My plan for the weekend were to sit at home and rest/catch up on some much needed cleaning after Mallori's party. I do what I can during the week but when you have that many people over at once and in and out it just gets ridiculous and I couldn't get to it all during the week. Especially when one night I sat up until 10:30 (very late for me) sewing (yes I said sewing) rafia onto the bottom of a pair of overalls for my scarecrow!!

**For those of you who didn't get to make Mallori's party and are wondering how it went, it went great, or so I hear!! I was so busy I didn't get to really see how everything went. If that makes sense! For those of you who did get a chance to come, thanks for coming! And if you would like to add anything in the comments section about how wonderful (or disasterious) it was, feel free!

Back to my reason for this post. Tyler reminds me that it is opening season of deer hunting and we MUST go to the farm!!! No if, ands, or buts about it people WE must go. Ok I can live... I'll just be resting and relaxing up there instead of cleaning at my house, right? By now you know if I ask that then the answer is definitly WRONG!!

Tyler's uncles found a new trailer to move in at the farm. Yea! We don't have to worry about falling through the floors anymore! So change of plans, we go up Saturday morning instead of Friday night (no sleeping in late!!) and have to do some work when we get there (hook up water, electricity, ect.)

We finally get here this morning. Trailer is wonderful, much bigger than the one we have and I definitly like the layout better. It is just in need of a VERY bad cleaning (worse than my house!). So there goes the resting and relaxing. I've been trying to pick up between going to the hardware store and up to Nanny and Pawpaw's to go to the bathroom. We do have electricity hooked up. This is good because Tyler, Uncle Jeffery and I have all tried to turn on the same light. We also have running water but no sewage.

It looks like the people just left one day five years ago and decided not to come back. I found DOG POOP on the kitchen floor. I mean come on reallly people?!?!?

Right now though, I am taking a few minutes to myself to relax. All of the guys are out hunting so it's just me and Jace. I've given up on trying to tell Jace to stay out of the big mud puddle!

**Interruption** I had to go get Tyler from his deer stand... now where was I? Oh yea! My FILTHY little boy. Covered from the knee down in mud. Not dirt, mud, completely covered. This should be fun.... remember the no sewage? That means no baths!! Yucky! Ok I've been interrupted again. Tyler wants to watch the YouTube video of his cousin sky diving. We'll see what kind of surprises the rest of the weekend holds. Until then, check out the photos from Mallori's party. I have some from Halloween but haven't had a chance to upload them yet. Also, just as an FYI, as of 6:14, we have not moved anything from one trailer to the other. No beds, nothing :( I don't wanna "rough" it!!

Mallori's 6th Birthday Party