It's Official!

In case you haven't seen it on facebook, here is our first photo of Baby Mallon #3!

Baby is due to arrive September 7th -

Kali May has decided this pregnant thing is pretty cool, and all of her small stuffed animals are being carried around "kangaroo style"....that is... stuffed down her pants. She says they just need to grow for a little while, and then they will come out either as a baby Sister, or a baby Caleb.

Caleb doesn't say too much about the subject. When I try to tell him there is a baby in my tummy, he looks about as confused as if I was trying to teach him physics... then pats my belly and says "bewy button!"

Even though life has suddenly taking a small curve ball as I'm slowed down quite a bit with the first semester sickies, we are just very thankful that God has given us another baby, and we can't wait to meet him/her!

Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Happy 2012!

Well Hello everyone out there! I don't really know how many people still read this blog considering my lack of consistency with posting, but if you still do read this - Happy New Year to you!

We had lots of fun things happen over this holiday season, and unfortunately I was really horrible about taking photos. But I have a few to throw in and I'll do a little recap just to catch everyone up on the life of the Mallons :)

In November, Grandpa and Grandma Borntrager drove their RV down here and stayed with us for a month!!! Unfortunately the first thing we did was share the flu with them. Instead of turkey, most of us (except for Scott and myself) ate chicken noodle soup and crackers for Thanksgiving dinner. But we DID try to make up for it and ended up having tons of fun. We spent a lot of time playing outside, and somehow even convinced Grandpa and Grandma to paint our backyard fence for us. While they were doing that... the kids discovered the joy of jumping in mud. Little did I know how many fun (and messy) days of this were ahead for me....

We also had an early Christmas with Grandpa and Grandma before they took off. Grandma had organized a REALLY fun little skit of Jesus' birth that the kids got to help act out complete with a manger figurine set and large flashlights for the star of Bethlehem. I think that may have been my favorite part of Christmas, and I also think it helped the kids understand the true meaning of Christmas just a little bit more.

We had a GREAT time with Grandpa and Grandma "from Montana", and we can't wait to see them again. They left their RV in our front yard and flew home.... so we know they'll be back!

After they left, it was just a week before our second Christmas, and our time quickly flew by as members of Scott's family all came into town to visit. We were especially glad to get to spend time with Scott's Grandma Jean from Nebraska! We don't get to see her very much and we love her A LOT, so it was great to get a little time with her.

On the Eve of Christmas Eve, Scott's cousin Rob and his wife Kristyn and their little guy Randy came up to visit. We had a great time with them, playing, opening a few presents, and making lots of cookies (note that is red frosting on Kali May in the pictures). And really.... isn't Randy just about one of the cutest kids around?? (see below)

On Christmas Eve we had a fun visit from the Kay family and a surprise guest... Santa (aka Mr. Kay's Dad). The kids were surprisingly excited to see him. I was expecting the screaming child reaction that I so often see with little ones at the mall, but "Santa Kay" was really amazing!!! The kids knew that Santa was just "pretend" and that he was really baby Henry's grandpa. Between that and Santa Kay's jolly kindness, they just couldn't HELP love him I guess:) We took advantage of the happiness to get our one family photo of the holiday :)



After Santa's visit we ran off to Grandpa and Grandma Mallon's house for a fun Christmas Eve party. This is sadly where I missed getting very many photos of our family all together, but here are just a couple:






That night we came back to our house, and the next morning we had a fun time opening gifts and spending time together. Grandpa and Grandma Mallon, Grandma Jean, and Uncle Eric all came over bearing MANY gifts and joined in on all the fun before making a dash over to Aunt Katie's house to do the same thing with them (they were VERY busy!) :) Later in the day we went back over to Grandma and Grandpa's house and had a great time ending the holiday celebrations. We had so much fun celebrating Christ's birth with everyone and we can't wait to do it again next year :)

Well, I think that pretty much does it except for New Year's. I didn't get any photos of that event either, but our friend Angie and her son, Henry came over to celebrate with us. In true parenthood style, Scott went to bed around 10pm, and Angie and I only made it until 11:30, but we had fun :)

NOW.... wait, I'm not done! I have to show you what we have been up to in the last week!

First.... more mud:

I finally got smart and realized I should take off their clothes before letting the fun begin. Here they are discovering the glory of rock throwing in mud puddles.

And finally.... daddy hard at work, as usual. Since our fence is now painted (thank you to Grandpa and Grandma Borntrager)... we are working on planting grass. When Scott said he was going to rent some equipment and dig some trenches in the ground.... I had NO idea what all that meant. I've helped him put in sprinkler lines before, but digging for drain pipes and electrical lines (which is what we are also doing).... is a WHOLE different story. I'm truly amazed at all the work Scott is doing, and that he knows WHAT to do.
Here is a starting photo of the work in our front yard......more to come!

Pumpkin Patch 2011 :)

Yesterday we made our annual trip to Lombardi Pumpkin Patch. I LOVE going there, and this year we went with Scott's family, so it was extra fun. Well.... it was EXTRA fun considering it just so happened to be 97 degrees with no breeze (and yes of course I wore a down jacket thing to try to fit in with the fall theme), the lines for everything were as long as Disneyland, and we arrived right after church.....when both our kids were starving and beyond ready for a nap. ALLLL that considered, we really had the best time we could possibly have! I was hoping to get our annual family photo on the hay bails, but I quickly decided whatever shots I got I would just be happy with. We really did have a good time, but we decided next year we might choose our arrival time more carefully :)

Books from my Mom

A few weeks ago I was telling my mom about how much the kids have been "reading" lately, and....being the school teacher that she is..... she quickly put together a package of books and mailed them off to me. But these are not just ANY books.... many of these are MY BOOKS. When we opened the package, all these memories that I didn't even remember I had flooded back. There right before my eyes were these stories and pictures that have been in my mind forever because of reading these books as a kid, and I never would have remembered the names or authors of the books to buy them on my own. The kids LOVED them of course, but I think I was really the one that got the amazing present!!!! :) THANK YOU MOM :)

On another random note, I have to post about Kali May's coloring skills. Normally, this is what her pictures look like these days:
Then randomly a few days ago, I looked down at her table and saw THIS! Now this might not look that much different to the untrained coloring book professional, but I thought it looked AMAZING. It is the first time I've actually seen her try to color specific parts of the picture a specific color!!!! Ok, I'm sure this impresses NO ONE but me....and maybe the grandmas reading this.... but I just had to put it on here. I LOVE coloring, and I am really hopeful that my kids share that same love :)
Meanwhile, here is what Caleb is up to. Helping daddy of course!!!!! Caleb is trying to fix the perfectly working door latch....
...while daddy takes care of a few more significant things!! Someday soon we are hoping to have a toilet and sink downstairs again :)

Craft Day!

Last Friday was the first day the kids and I all felt somewhat better, and I got the "crafty" bug. While Caleb was sleeping in the morning, Kali May and I decided to paint some pictures for her walls. Here she is hard at work:

and here they are (they are hard to see)....she painted everything except the white heart. I've painted some bright pink hearts on her other wall, and will hopefully finish up with painting and decorations in her room sometime this week! she had soooo much fun doing her "own artwork" - she asks me to paint with her every day now.

Once Caleb woke up, I figured we might as well keep the painting fun going. We put on some paint shirts, got some finger paint, and went to work to make some fall leaves.
Here is the painted paper after they were done. it was funny..... Caleb of all people was completely baffled by the idea of paint on your fingers. I had to wrestle his little arms to get them in the paint and on the paper. haha.... maybe he just needs more practice?
Here they are at the end!
although he wasn't so sure about the whole painting paper part, you can see he didn't mind adding it to himself.....
Then I took the kids outside to try to pick some REAL leaves to add in to our fake ones for a pretty wreath outside. As you can tell by their faces, for some reason they were REALLY not into this. haha. we abandoned the idea after a few minutes of aimless leaf picking.
But we still managed to finish a sort of "leaf wreath" for our door!!!! I really can't tell what it looks like... I was so proud of all of us for actually finishing it that it truly looks like the most beautiful wreath in the whole world to me :) :)
Happy Fall Everyone!