It's My Party!

The invitation:



The cake:



The church decorated:















Although it was stressful, the party really could not have turned out any better! We all had a blast celebrating Mallory's 1st birthday!

Happy Birthday my sweet girl

Today my baby is 1. I don't know how a whole year has gone by since she came into this world. So tiny and the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my entire life. I will never forget how bad labor was, but I would do it over and over and over again for her. Every day I think about how much she changes. It amazes me to no end how it wasn't long ago at all that was was an immobile little person who could only communicate through crying. I do not want to call her a toddler...I do not have a toddler, I have a baby. However, my baby is walking more and more each day and is not slowing down. I know I will have to take her bottle away and her paci at some point, but what's the rush? I know those things will not keep her a baby, but she loves her bottle and paci and the people who would criticize do not have to know about it.

Tonight, we had a little family get together to celebrate. We ate at Two Dogs Pizza and of course, Grandma Louise gave M sweet tea and it went all over her new birthday outfit. I kept my cool though and was pleasantly surprised at how well the night went.

I have heard many mothers say that they love their children more and more each day. It is true. As a mom, there are no words more true. There is no other love that can compare. I hope this was the first birthday of many, many more to come that we celebrate Mallory's life. She will never know the joy she has brought her daddy and I.

Here's to many more birthday's my little boo. We love you.

July 4th Blowout

Granny Pat had her annual 4th of July party and there was a huge crowd that consisted of her whole family, my whole family and the entire neighborhood of Pleasant Hill. I always have a good time. Patrick does an amazing job with the fireworks and I was looking forward to it again this year. Last year I was VERY pregnant and miserable and didn't enjoy it much so that was more reason to look forward to it.

It ended up stressing me to no end.

It was not enjoyable.

There is only one Mallory.

There are way too many family members who want to get their hands on her and it becomes a 'competition' of sorts to see who is the favorite.

Grandma Louise is the most negative person I have ever met in my life. I really think she stares me down to come up with new ways to criticize my abilities as a mother.

People LOVE to give my baby sweet tea. This is something I have struggled with since day one of becoming a mother. I have lost count of how many times I have kindly asked to not give my baby sweet tea that has sugar and caffeine in it and they do it anyway.

Because it doesn't get dark until so late this time of year, the fireworks started after Mallory's 9 pm bedtime. Therefore, I had a cranky, whiny baby who everybody and their mother wanted to know 'what was wrong' and 'did I want them to take her?'

Okay, enough of being Debbie Downer but this is an accurate description of my feelings after the cookout and all I could think about was how I was ever going to survive Mallory's first birthday if the 4th party was this bad?!

We did get a family picture first thing upon arriving and I love the picture. I also loved Mallory's little red and blue Kelly's Kids dress she wore. She's had it a while and I've planned on her wearing it for the 4th. My boo has an awesome wardrobe, if I must say so. Not many toys, but way cool clothes. She is her mama's daughter afterall.

Visit with Grandma Weezy

For our Friday night, we went to Pink Hill and ate supper at Two Dogs. We splurged and got the yummy chocolate chip pizza for dessert :) After we ate, we stopped by Grandma Weezy's for a visit. Mallory had a good time walking outside and picking flowers. Before we left, she had a chocolate chip cookie and some sweet tea. I am sure Mallory is ready to go back!!

Disgusted

So here I am, 2 weeks before my baby's 1st birthday and I am disgusted with my body and the way I look. Today has just been one of those days. I am training at the gym twice a week and it is VERY CHALLENGING to say the least. I would never ever push myself the way my trainer pushes me to keep going. The thing is, I don't do my homework like I should. I should be doing cardio on days I don't train and then there's the diet. The diet needs some serious help. UGHHHH....I need willpower!!!

On a happier note, Mallory has been good the past two days. She stayed with Grandmother and Grandaddy today and will stay tomorrow too. I love it when she stays with them. We just ate a great supper with them with lots of fresh veggies and fruits out of the garden. Mallory ate so good. That girl loves steak like her mama! It was a nice break to not have to cook and the best thing about it is Mallory went to sleep on the way home. She was so out that I was able to change her diaper, give her a bird bath, and put on her pajamas without her waking up. She drank 4 oz of milk and is down for the count. Now that's a good night! Very rarely are they this easy. Mama is not far behind because I am pooped too!

The Makings of a Celebrity

Granny Pat and Leroy met me at H Stadiems today with Mallory to shoot her commercial. It was part of her prize for winning BOB 93.3's baby idol contest. The lady in charge of the commercial told us that they had 750 babies enter the contest! I still can't believe that my little boo won!! She did wonderful while filming. She was in a great mood and Granny Pat thought to bring her favorite thing...the ball, so that made her happy. They are going to give us a DVD so I can't wait to see it. I should have took some pictures but I forgot my camera. I did a training session at the gym after work so Patrick picked Mallory up this afternoon and we had grilled ham and cheese sandwiches for supper. Mallory tore it up along with a banana. Patrick says she loves daddy's cooking...she really just liked the ham and cheese I think. She got into her bowls again tonight and did some 'cooking'. I caught it on video with my camera this time.


I love it! I hope she grows up and loves to cook :) I don't know if it's because I got home late or what but she has had a case of the mommies tonight. Can't seem to get enough of me and wants me to hold her. I don't mind one bit...wish I could hold onto these moments forever. Patrick and I just talked about how sappy I have become and I think it's because the first birthday is approaching. It's so bittersweet and I am way more emotional about it than I ever thought I would be. Motherhood changes you in many more ways that you could imagine.

Turning over a new leaf

So my blog is a failure. It's not anything like I planned it to be which is how life goes. Instead of trying to make it cute, funny and like I live in a fairy tale, I am going to take a different approach. From now on, I want to TRY to use this blog as a scrapbook of our life with Mallory. She is almost a year old and I feel terrible for not doing a better job of documenting her life. It has gone by SO FAST and she changes every single day and that makes it impossible to remember things. If I had kept up with the blogging, I would have those memories.



Mallory's first birthday is right around the corner. I've been in party planning mode and couldn't be more excited about her party. It's in two weeks and here are some things she does now:

She crawls all over the place. Very fast! When she's in a really big hurry, she will drag her left leg and kick off with her right leg. We call it the 'dead leg drag' and it's hilarious. She will take a few steps here and there and we keep thinking she will be walking any day now.


She loves to pick up her food and eat it. she will eat so much better when the food is something she can pick up. When being spoon fed, she won't eat nearly as much. A few of her favorite foods are spaghetti (the real kind, no spaghettios!), chicken, steak, french fries, string beans, butter beans, oranges, goldfish, and mini nilla wafers.

Mallory sleeps with Patrick and me. I've learned that this is so controversial and now just keep it to myself for the most part because everybody has an opinion on it. It is not something that we wanted to start, but she has never been a good sleeper. She will sleep through the night now with the exception of waking up once or twice just to find her paci and then she's right back asleep. Patrick and I have grown to love her sleeping with us and now we wouldn't have it any other way. She is a cuddler and loves to go to sleep with one arm around me and rubbing her daddy's hair. It melts our hearts every. single. night.

We call her 'chatty cathy'. She is quite the little talker! She says so many words and literally amazes me every day with a new one. Just today she said one, two and three and my mouth dropped open in shock. I know every mom says this but I really do believe my child is a genius! The words she says the most are Riley, flower, baby, dog, mommy, da-da, hey, bye, juice, bottle, bird, thank you and ball. She LOVES animals and any book or video that has to do with farm animals are her favorites.

Mallory seemed unusually fussy this afternoon for some reason and we couldn't find anything to please her. Patrick and I ended up just putting her down and letting her do her own thing. She goes to the cabinets and starts pulling out the tupperware (usually she goes for the spices). Next thing we know, she has several bowls around here and is stirring in them like crazy. She went on and on and entertained herself like this for a while. We got in on video because it was cracking Patrick and I up and I want to upload it soon. That's another goal for another day.