First I need to share the story behind “Naked Baby” – I guess when I used to get Mallory undressed, I would say “NAKED BABY NAKED BABY!” (I don’t remember that, but Rick says I used to do it). Anyway, just recently she started taking her pajamas off and singing the Naked Baby song, and I just had to get it on video.
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Rick & I both had our work parties Thursday night; mine was right after work and then it was on to Rick’s. I’d never been to Rick’s work holiday party because normally he has football practice and he doesn’t get there until 7p and I won’t drive back into town that late. But Mallory & I got to go this year and it was fun to see a bunch of Rick’s work people and their families. A lot of people didn’t know I was pregnant so we got a lot of “when did THAT happen??” questions. I don’t think most people really wanted to know “well, around the 4th of July…” so I just smiled and said we were due in March.
Mallory was pretty shy at my work party but wasn’t very shy at Rick’s. She was actually walking around just holding on to Rick’s hand checking things out, which was surprising since she usually favors me if I’m available. Santa came to the party and all of the kids got a stocking with some candy and a coloring book and crayons and these hysterical reindeer antlers, which Mallory wanted to put on right away. She even told Santa “tanks” and “Mae-wee Tissmas”. It is so awesome to see her behave so well out in public; I know she is good most of the time at home but it was about her bedtime and she let us put that antler headband on her head…at home around bedtime she’d have thrown them on the ground and then told the dog not to eat them.
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And then today we got the storm of the season (at least so far). I had to go into work for at least a little bit, and my drive in at 5.30a wasn’t too bad (except for the jackass on US-23 who cut in front of me – closer than I would do on a totally clear, dry roads day). And then just two lights before my work, I got stuck on a little hill. So irritating. I almost turned around right then because I figured if we were only an hour or two into the 6-8 hour storm, it was only going to get worse. But since I’d gotten all the way to work I decided to stay. I did leave work early – around 1p – and that drive sucked way worse than the morning one. I got stuck at the light at Dexter & Maple on just a tiny incline and it took me five cycles of green lights to get through the intersection. It didn’t help that as I was trying to rock myself forward & backward to get some momentum, two huge city snowplow blew by me and turned right, thus creating another huge snowpile that I had to find a way through. So irritating.
But I made it home safe & sound to Rick & Mallory who had stayed home all day to play. I was excited to get home and take a bunch of pictures in the piles of snow! Cooper had a tennis ball outside with him and he spent ten minutes running around and tossing the ball to himself just so he could dig and find it in the snow.
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Mallory learning that white snow is OK to eat…
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Here are some random pictures from tonight – Mallory sat down right in front of the tree and I thought I would get some cool photos of her face lit up with the tree lights – these aren’t great photos but I still think they turned out pretty good:
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And this final picture…Mallory slipped off the couch and wanted only me to pick her up. But I wouldn’t so she would get up herself and then go play. But just before dinner, she moved stuff out of the middle of the living room floor, and threw herself to the ground and said “help me up, mama!!”. Are you kidding me?
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Arlo news: we are 26 weeks today! Physical therapy is going very well and my back pain is almost complete gone. I am pretty fired up about that. The baby is still moving like crazy all the time.
Ok, I have to go. Rick is bugging me to go watch a movie.