Mallory Turns 4!!

Um . . . . . 3 months ago. So this post is super late. We had a crazy, busy summer and I didn't do my vacation posts until the end of summer either. Mallory's birthday post got a little lost in there too. (Sorry Mally) I know I'm a bad mom! :( But better late than never. Clark's birthday is coming quick so I figured I better get hers up here first!

Here's her 4 - year pics:










Mallory is turning into a little lady. She's very sweet, but by far our most stubborn child. At least she's cute. Some days it the only thing that saves her. ;) We cut her hair a year ago. It was above her shoulders and now it's already halfway down her back. She loves having long hair and would like to grow it down to her feet. Don't know that that will happen - could you imagine brushing all the tangles out of hair that long? But we told her we would let her keep growing it a little bit longer. We might have to compromise and settle on bum-length hair! She wants to be a princess and they all have super long hair. I'm quite sure that's where she's getting her inspiration.

Mallory is really quite embarrassing as well. She's 4 so sometimes she doesn't know any better. But her comments none the less are still embarrassing!

So we come from AZ where most of the people there are either Caucasian or Hispanic. Mallory just grew up always seeing those types of people. It was normal to her. Well, the African-American population is HUGE out here. There are many, many people with black skin. We were eating at McDonald's and a lady that worked there kept coming over and talking to us. (She thought the kids were cute.) So we had been talking to her for awhile and Mallory all of a sudden blurts out, "Hey - why are you black?" I held my breath frantically thinking of something to say! The lady was caught off guard too, and just kind of stood there. The few moments of awkward silence there were seemed like an hour! So I start to tell her that God gave everyone different skin colors because it would be boring if we were all the same. And everyone is special because God made us that way no matter what color we are. It was the best I could come up with at the time. The lady seemed to be satisfied with that answer and proceeded to tell Mallory that people are like rainbows. There's black people, brown people, yellow people, white people. . . . . . .yeah, I wanted to crawl in a hole.

We were at Target another time and the lady that was our cashier was probably in her mid-40's. She was missing one of her front teeth. There was a very obvious hole in her mouth. Well, Mallory didn't miss it either. Halfway through our checkout process Mallory VERY excitedly says to the woman, "Hey - you lost a tooth!!" Chase had just lost a tooth and we were all very excited for him - the tooth fairy - the whole deal. But when you're 45 - no one wants a visit from the tooth fairy at that age!! So Mallory was excited for our checkout lady. I walked away laughing, but we have since avoided this woman's checkout lane for fear of Mallory pointing out the whole in this woman's face again. I later explained to Mallory that it's a sad thing when adults lose teeth.

Mallory has also recently learned what a skid-mark is. The kind in your underwear - not on the road. She is now an accomplished potty trainer and we have been teaching her to wipe herself when she goes #2. We usually do a last wipe and check to make sure she's clean, but lately she has been wanting that extra little piece of independence. She wants to do it all by herself - without help. So we've been letting her do it herself. One day I went to check on her after going pee (she had pooped earlier that morning) and I noticed a "skid-mark" in her underwear. I asked her what the brown mark in her underwear was. And she responded with, "It's just a little bit of chocolate." What? I chuckled and asked how she got chocolate in her underwear. She said, "When I was eating candy in the car and you turned a corner and it just whooped right into my panties!" She had no idea it was poop. Her chocolate candy was the only thing she could think of that was brown and could have possibly gotten in her underwear somehow. The crazy things a 4-year old mind can concoct! We've been practicing our wiping again . . . . .

We were checking out at Target a different time and our cashier was a male - who was obviously very confused about his gender. He had long hair, long fingernails, earrings, and a pink backpack. He was talking VERY feminine, but he had forgotten to shave his whiskers off that day. As he was finishing up with bagging our items Mallory says, "Mom, is that a boy or a girl?"

There have been a few more embarrassing "Mallory Moments". I finally have just been training her that if she has a question about another person in the store she needs to whisper her question in my ear - and not say it out loud!! I know her comments are made in innocence, but it's still embarrassing!

So our little Mally girl turned 4 back in July. We got to celebrate with her twice. When we went to Phoenix in May we did a family party for her at Peter Piper.

Mallory on the Carousel

Callie on the Carousel

Eating pizza with Journee

Having a Cupcake

Opening Presents


My brothers are always putting their best faces forward for the camera:

Jason (looking good Natalie!)

Cameron (and a cute half-of-Kim)

Tanner (and Clark)

(never a dull moment :))

We also celebrated with Craig's side of the family when they all came out to NJ in July.

The Princess Cake

Mallory Eating Cake

Grandma Treesa feeding Tristan and Clark Cake

Mallory with her birthday card that sang a song from The Little Mermaid. These musical cards are a BIG hit around our house!

Audrey helping Mallory open presents
We love you Mallory!

Summer Vacation - Part III

Our third and last vacation of the summer was also spent here in Jersey. My birthday was last month and my parents and youngest brother Tanner flew out to spend a few days with us. We went to Six Flags, the beach, and the Statue of Liberty.

I forgot the camera on Six Flags day :(

We hit the beach on Saturday. I have never seen the beach so busy!! There were so many people and the only open parking lots were the $40 ones. We only stayed for about 3 1/2 hours and paid $40 to park. Crazy! Plus you have to pay to get on the beach. That's New Jersey for ya. I swear they charge you to breathe the air here - everything costs money and it's expensive. But we had a great time! The kids had a blast. We have been to the beach many times, but we have never buried the children in the sand before. We kind of thought they would freak out over being buried, especially Clark. But he's the one that loved it the most. He would come lay down in the sand by us and start burying himself and look at us like - "Come on cover me up!" I lost track of how many times we buried him! The only thing is that we couldn't get him to keep his mouth closed while we were covering him up. So he kept getting sand in his mouth. It was so funny! He would just lay there and chomp on it. We were laughing so hard! This video was of the second time he did it. The first time was funnier, but here's the video of it:


Craig and Tanner rode the waves a lot.

This is my parents re-enacting the opening sequence to the show Baywatch. :)
Lookin' good Mamma and Big Daddy-O!!

Mally

Grandma and Clark (he was exhausted!)

Beach day was a lot of fun!

We celebrated my 27th birthday. Would you look at the amount of heat and flames my candles put off! I know 27 is not very old, but that's quite a fire :)

We went to the Statue of Liberty. Wow, she's amazing. We actually visited Ellis Island first, which is where all of the immigrants coming into the United States had to go to gain their American citizenship status.

Walking to get on the ferry to Ellis Island. Chase is always a caretaker and looking our for his siblings. I love that he just took Clark's hand and showed him where to go.


All of us on the ferry. Someone was nice enough to take our picture, but they cut Mallory's head off.


My mom and the Manhattan skyline.


The building on Ellis Island where the immigrants were screened for admittance into America.


I was very impressed with the tour. It's crazy what those people had to go through to get here - being separated from their families, health screenings, language barriers, sitting on a ship in the Hudson River for days just waiting their turn to get off. Some were denied admittance into the country and were sent back to their native land while other family members stayed and made a new life for themselves in America. It was a little saddening to hear some of the stories.

Ellis Island and Liberty Island are next to each other. We sailed from Ellis Island over to Liberty Island where the statue is.


Our Lady Liberty.

She is actually hollowed out on the inside - which I did not realize. She has a large metal frame that goes straight up with support beams. And the actual "Lady" is a mold that was poured and then placed over the support frame. She is made of copper and when it rains the greenish colored copper runs down the side of the pedestal she sits on top of. I also didn't realize just how big she really is. The statue is amazing! If you are ever in the NY area - don't miss this!!

It was a hot day and while we were waiting for the ferry to come pick us up and take us back to Jersey, we decided to get a couple of ice creams. Bad idea. They melted before we could eat them and ice cream was ALL OVER the decking! Everyone was staring at us because we had made such a mess! I'm a firm believer in cleaning up after myself - and after my children, but there was nothing we could do but leave the mess there. Oh well. . . .

I think we squeezed it all in this summer! It was a lot of fun and we had a lot of good memories made with our families!

Summer Vacation - Part II

Two weeks after getting home from Phoenix we geared up for our second vacation of the summer. I guess it was more of a staycation for us. Craig's parents came out as well as his brother and his little family from the state of Washington. (Talk about a coast to coast flight!) Craig's sister lives in South Jersey where her husband is working as a Resident Doctor so they were already here for the vacation!

We went to Six Flags one day, which is only about 30 minutes from our house. We had a blast! We got a Fast Pass that allows you to get on all the rides faster without waiting in line, so everyone pretty much got to ride all of the coasters they wanted to. We went on a Thursday and the park was fairly empty. The kids walked on all of their rides too. It rained a little bit in the afternoon, but other than that it was a beautiful day to be outside! And no one threw up on any of the coasters - that was a plus! We all ate a little too much popcorn and cotton candy, but isn't that what you're supposed to do at a theme park? :)

Grandpa Marc and Clark on the Swings

Mallory and Audrey on the Airplanes

Chase, Kori, Mallory, Audrey
Background is Grandpa Marc with Clark and Grandma Treesa with Declan

All of the "sisters" in the family - Sandra, Crystal, and I - each had baby boys within a 9 month time span. They all fell asleep in their strollers at the same time! We thought it was cute!

Craig with Baby Tristan

Declan, Scott, and Clark on the Merry-Go-Round. The boys rode this forever! They didn't want to get off!

Marvin the Martian (the BEST WB character out there!), Clark, and me

Grandma Treesa with Declan

Chase soaking wet from the Log Ride


We went to Point Pleasant Beach another day. I would have to say our beach day was my favorite day. The kids had a great time jumping the waves and running up and down the beach (sometimes to far - Clark and Audrey), building sandcastles, chasing birds, etc. The water was pretty rough that day so we REALLY had to watch the kids. At times the kids were a little too confident about being in the water and a wave would knock them down and throw them back up onto shore. Audrey, our niece, got carried out by a wave and scared the lifeguard right out of his stand! She didn't get too far, her mom or dad (I forget which one) was able to grab her. But it was a little scary because of how rough the water was, it put us all on alert. It's hard to watch 7 young children on the beach even with 6 adults! Other than that incident it was a very enjoyable day. My sister-in-law Crystal came prepared with EVERYTHING! The only thing I really brought was beach towels to dry off with. When we got there Crystal pulled out a beach umbrella, chairs, an ice chest, a huge bag packed with snacks, and beach toys. We were giving her a hard time because she only has one child and it seemed like she had brought half of her house to the beach! But then we realized how smart she was when we wanted some shade - we used her umbrella, she made homeade bran muffins, our kids ate her crackers because we didn't think to bring any! And her toys entertained our kids! She was our lifesaver that day. (We learned from her and now own all of our own beach gear!) We love the beach! It was a lot of fun! We ate dinner on the boardwalk and fell into bed exhausted that night!

Grandpa Marc showing Clark the ropes! It was his first time jumping the waves!

Sweet Mallory Girl

Kori & Grandma Treesa working on the sandcastle

Kori, Audrey, and Chase crabwalking

Clark chasing the birds (this was a big hit!)

Kori, Audrey, and Mallory (all of the granddaughters)


We also visited the Camden Aquarium. Just a few pics. Most of the pictures on my camera turned out fuzzy that day for some reason.

Touch-A-Shark exhibit




We drove up to Philadelphia for the day to take some family pictures. They turned out good. It was hard to get 15 people all looking the same direction! And of course getting the kids to all smile. It was hard to get them to sit still! But I think there were quite a few cute ones! Here they are:

Kori, Audrey, Scott (Craig's brother), Sandra, and Declan


Clark, Me, Chase, Mallory, Craig


Crystal (Craig's sister), Ben, Tristan


Everyone!


Everyone - another pose


Grandpa Marc and Grandma Treesa with all the grandkids! Notice Mallory's smile and Grandpa Marc's smile. We call it the "chump" smile. Tight lipped, no teeth. Craig does it ALL the time. This smile - apparently - is hereditary and is being passed on from generation to generation. :-|


We spent an afternoon in Central Park in Manhattan playing frisbee and letting the kids play in the grass.

Declan, Kori, Audrey

Mallory trying to give Clark a dinosaur ride!

Chase and Me

Tristan climbing on Ben

Craig throwing the frisbee with Clark and Declan on his heels!

Scott and Chase playing frisbee


Those were the highlights of the trip. It had also been years since we had all been together. It's hard when the family lives all over the country! We had a great time with everyone!