Dad's Little Shadow

I snapped this picture on the way in to swim lessons the other evening, and I fell in love with it after looking back through the pictures we had taken that day. Mallory is literally her dad's little shadow in this picture; head looking down at the ground, arms and feet placement the same. Just too cute!

Summer Fruit

Although this is only the second summer Mallory has experienced, I think it's safe to say that summer fruit is by far her favorite. If we let her, she would eat nothing but fruit all day. And while we limit her intake so she doesn't have to learn the effects of too much fruit the hard way (which has already happened), it's so fun to see her face light up when she knows she gets to indulge in some fruit. I had fun the other night watching her steal the entire tub of cantaloupe that we were supposed to share. I would ask her for a piece and she would hold it out for me, but as soon as I went for it she would pull it away and quickly stuff it in her mouth; with a mischievous smile of course! 

Play Date with Ellie

Bouncing balls off Ellie's head

Keep away

Miss Ellie

Getting acquainted

Being shy

Sharing snacks

The girls

Giggles

Banana Waffles & Puppy Slippers

Thank you Griffith family for the puppy slippers! They're a little big on her right now so she likes to watch me step on them to make the ears go up.

Bath Time Dance Parties

Bath time with Mal has progressively become a responsibility that she no longer minds*. For a long time, she HATED bath time. I can clearly remember nights where she would cry and whine through the whole thing. In my attempt to drown out her cries I started bringing my iPod in with us, streaming dance music on Pandora. And since she is my daughter and loves dance music, she now has become my entertainment during our bath time dance parties. You'll notice I still have an asterisk; that's because while she doesn't mind our time in the actual bath she still doesn't like drying off, lotion, and putting pj's on. I love our dance parties though!

P.S. These are taken with my new Canon SLR camera - I am so loving this camera!

Doggy Tricks

This isn't the best video of Leo doing one of his cooler doggy tricks, but it's still a good representation of what he is capable of. If he gets the blanket at the right angle in the beginning, he can wrap himself up so tight it looks like someone actually tucked him in. Keep up the good work Buds!

Father's Day

I can't speak for Jody, but I'm pretty sure he would have to agree with me in that his Father's Day weekend celebration was the bestest ever. Beginning on Saturday he was spoiled with extra love, some laziness, a few homemade gifts, and cooked a hearty Sunday morning breakfast. We turned the side yard into more of a play area for Mallory and have thoroughly been enjoying it at all hours of the day. She absolutely loves it out there and it's great because I can see her from the entire downstairs so I can continue to do things inside - I love learning shortcuts in parenthood!

Jody totally deserves all of the attention that he has received this weekend from his favorite girls. He is an amazing daddy to Mallory monster. I have seen him grow and become stronger in handling our spitfire little girl - a challenge for anyone - and it makes me so proud. It hurts my pride a tad to admit this publicly, but I've started to notice that Mallory is becoming more of a daddy's girl. Favoring him over me in many situations. I knew it would come but I secretly was hoping it wouldn't be so soon. Happy Father's Day to my awesome husband, who is such a fun dad and so full of love for his little girl!

I would also like to give a "Happy Father's Day" shout-out to my clever-witted father - Ken Griffith in Fort Collins, CO - who I am confident that I got my great sense of humor from; and also to my handyman stepfather - Thomas Shirley in Paradise, CA - who has provided his master skills to come to my rescue many times. They are two men in my life that I was blessed to grow up with and I thank God for their love in raising me. I love you dad and Tom, very much!

Gifts for dad

Being a daddy's girl

Pigging out on waffles

LOVES her daddy

Best meal of the day

Pulling weeds like dad

Can't say no to chalk

White baby

Silly monster

Yes to crackers

In fruit juice popsicle heaven

Brain freeze eyes

Lackluster

It's okay, you can say it; my blog has been quite lackluster as of late. I couldn't agree with you more. It's not that I haven't had plenty of things going on to write about: Jamie & Steven's wedding, Nama & Papa's visit, my work events, Mallory being oh-so-cute. The only reason these items have not made it into a posting on my blog: the stupid, (insert bleep here because I'm really, really mad) camera broke.

I'd have to say that if I had my choice between my camera breaking or my phone breaking, I would choose the phone in a heartbeat. I can't stand not having a camera; it has become a part of me not just because I want to capture these moments in our lives, but because I like to share these moments with my online family. I've lost count on how many times I've gone to grab my pseudo camera from the spot in the house we have it hanging to capture something, painfully reminded that I will not be taking any photos. Grrrrr.

Silver lining: with all the overtime that I am working this month I will be using it to buy the camera that I have always wanted but couldn't afford. And honestly, even with the overtime check I still can't really afford this camera. But I don't care anymore. I'm tired of buying digital cameras that only last two years tops. Besides, I'm confident that this will be one of those purchases that at the time it's hard to justify spending so much on, but it doesn't take long to see the true value that it is. That was my reasoning to Jody when said topic was brought up the other day. I still have a couple more weeks to wait though. Until then I'll have to make do with my iPod - whose camera quality is so crappy that it's pretty much not even worth it to me. So I truly apologize for my lackluster blog but promise that it will turn around soon - because we all know that the one everyone misses hearing about the most is Miss Mallory!

My soon-to-be new love!

It's Wedding Time!

I'm waiting on some new tunes to download onto my iPod - it's the last item on my wedding planner to-do list before the sister-in-law's big day tomorrow morning. I'm so excited for her. And I can't help but say that I'm also excited to see how our...errr...I mean, her wedding turns out. As we all know I love weddings so any opportunity I have to be part of the planning for one, I am 100% there. And since Jamie is smart and understands the importance (and fun) of having a wedding planner, I was hired.

Although Jamie is technically Jody's sister, I claim her as my own. She was a great bride to work with and we had a lot of fun. I was glad that she decided to make a lot of decisions on her own and use me as a guide along the way. I'll be taking the lead starting tomorrow though as I step into my coordinator role. It's going to be a gorgeous day and she is going to be gorgeous bride. It's wedding time!

Packing up the car

One More Day

This has been a very looooong week for me. My event at work ended yesterday, and my co-workers and I were doing the happy dance all afternoon. Not just because we couldn't wait to get off our feet and relax for more than a minute, but because we did an amazing job. This event was super unique and one that my organization has never done before. It was a lot of work to plan but also a lot of fun to experience. I was able to get quite a few pictures that I'll share soon. Right now I'm way too tired to do anything but sit here on the couch. With a bottle of wine in my lap that although I wouldn't mind drinking, I'm even too tired for that. Only one more day day of work til the weekend; yesssss!

A Love for Chalk

We all know that Mallory has a love for chalk, as seen here and here. She'll draw on anything and everything - with crayons too. So far she has steered clear of the walls inside the house, but I will not be surprised if it happens soon. Though it's just paint right? Paint over it. Maybe it will give me the motivation to change the color on the walls while I'm at it.

Rocks...

Skin...

Clothes...

This side too...

Dad's shirt...

The ball...

M*A*S*H* in Person

Today was officially the start date for a really cool event that we are not only responsible for planning, but Sacramento State has the privilege of hosting it on its campus. Our client is executing a Mobile Field Hospital Training and Exercise this week. The contractor finished setting up the MFH unit today and it's pretty cool looking. I'm actually looking forward to seeing the exercises play out - they're going all out with moulage victims acting out scenarios, helicopters, ambulances; like M*A*S*H* in person. Now this does mean really early mornings and late nights for me, but at least Mallory has Nama and Poppa in town to spoil her lots, and it also means extra moolah in my pocket for the overtime. Sounds like a win-win to me!

18 Month/Family Photo Session

I finally uploaded the pictures from when we had Mal's 18 month/family photo session taken by Katie in April, and like usual I am in awe of them all. Every time that I use her I am always satisfied with not just the pictures but how professional and easy she makes the actual photo session. Especially because at this particular session, Mallory decided she wanted no part in being cooperative for the camera. But Katie knew exactly how to work around her attitude and in the end we still got amazing pictures - sooooooo happy! Here are some of my favorites: