Taste of Spring?

In between the visits from the big bad Polar Vortex, we have been lucky enough to have some nice spring like weather. We had a chance to take Mallory out to the Crossings in Colonie for some outdoor fun. The first time we took her (pictures with her wearing the pink hat), the temperature was close to fifty degrees but the most recent trip (pictures with her wearing the purple hat), the temperature was a crisp thirty-five degrees and the wind was a little more than we had anticipated. Needless to say, we only had her out for enough time to tire herself out...and have a minor knee scrape which could have easily ended our trip. The highlight of the day was running into some remote control cars that some kids were playing with. Mallory couldn't get enough of the speeding cars racing by her.

On my way to the park....with my plate...

Follow me!

Look at me!

Me and Mommy!
 

Laughing at the remote control cars!

When we weren't outside enjoying the warm sun, we were having some good times inside. Lately Mallory has been really into having us reading books to her. She usually just skims through a bunch of books and then throws them on the floor before moving on to her next mission.



Enjoying a good read...

 

More reading...

And.....the pups found ways to steal some camera time...

Me and my pups!

Hi, I'm Laila

Oscar soaking up the sun...

Even with all the indoor and outdoor activities, Mallory still found time to work on her cooking skills!

Happy New Year!

Love my Minnie!

Happy New Year Everyone! December flew by so fast that I didn't get a chance to post any updates but all is well and we survived another Christmas. Aside from a persistent cough, Mallory held up really well over the Christmas Eve and Christmas Day festivities. We went to church with Papa and Nana Merriman on Christmas Eve and then spent Christmas morning at the house before heading over to our respective families. In the morning we let Mallory open gifts and had a nice big breakfast. The big hit of the gifts was the pop-up Princess Castle! Whenever she is at Grandma/Grandpa Astriab's house, she loves playing in their pop-up castle, so that was definitely at the top of the list for Santa.

The Merriman Christmas Tree!



Love my Castle!

So we packed everything up and headed over to the Merrimans for the first half of the day and then the Astriabs for the second half. Mallory made it all the to the end of the day with little fuss and seemed to really started to enjoy the gift opening process. All of this without one ounce of nap! We're really looking forward to seeing how different she will be next year with the whole Santa concept and gift opening. Unfortunately, one of the things we were not able to time right was getting a picture with Santa. To our surprise, one of the gifts from Papa and Nana Merriman was a framed picture of Mallory with Santa at the mall. Somehow Mallory remained still and didn't get scared by the big guy!

After the Christmas dust settled, Michol and I picked up a new camera (our gift for each other). It's a really nice Nikon model and will take a little time to figure out, but we hope we can start really taking some nice pictures of Mallory. Right now we seem to be using our phones more than our old traditional camera and the quality of the pictures are not always the best. Here's a sample of some test shots I took while playing around with the camera:



My "Pony" from Aunt Duffy!

  

Floor shot of Oscar

 

Somebody has a shadow...

Close-up of Laila

Ariel shot of the backyard

So as we head into this new year, we wish everyone the best and look forward to sharing our new 2014 tales! 

Crazy Month!

By the looks of Mallory in the above picture, one would think things at the Merriman house have been relaxing and low-key. Well, we have had some moments of downtime (mainly when Mallory is napping or in bed for the night!), but things have been quite busy over the last month. For starters, I completely forgot to post a Halloween update so I will do that here. But before going any further I just want to explain the picture above. If you look closely at the book that Mallory is holding, you will see a little girl sitting on Clifford's (the Big Red Dog) legs. For some reason, whenever she flips through this book and the dogs are nearby, she likes to "imitate" what she sees on the page with Oscar. Luckily, Oscar doesn't seem to mind but he will get up after a few minutes of being used as a canine chair.

For Halloween, we did the same thing we did last year, where we dressed Mallory up and took her over to our parents house for dinner and pictures. She still seems to young to go door-to-door, so next year should be a whole different ballgame. We went with the Bee costume and were able to keep the headpiece on long enough to get some "ok" pics:

With Winter approaching fast, we had to start getting Mallory used to wearing hats and gloves. This proved to be a little stressful since the first couple of times we tried to put them on her, she was not having it. We needed to nail this down because her school takes them out once a day in the playground as long as it isn't below 32 degrees. Luckily Nana and Papa Merriman  had better results when taking her to the mall on a couple of occasions. She put them on no problem and hasn't had a problem with them on to this date. Go figure!

Unfortunately over the last week, Mallory has been battling illness. It started last weekend with her stomach giving her some issues and then over the course of the week, she did not want to eat or drink much. The doctor checked her out and was 99% sure it is a viral infection. She said Mallory just needs to keep drinking fluids and eventually it should work itself out. As of today (Saturday), she is showing signs of improvement starting with a good breakfast, a decent lunch, and hopefully a substantial dinner.

Hopefully I will be able to get my act in gear and post some more frequent updates :) Thanksgiving next week!!

Another Lefty?

We have been working with Mallory on using a fork and have finally had success! This really comes in handy especially when she is eating food that is messy :) In the above video, she is enjoying some hot dogs and mac & cheese while watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. She was a little distracted with her favorite show but still made the attempt to stab the food without looking. We normally do not have the TV on when she is eating and we try to all eat in the dining room, but last night was an exception.

For breakfast this morning, she wolfed down her pancakes....but at least did it with the fork!

Definitely a lefty...just like her Daddy :)

Pillow & Blanket

For those who don't know, Mallory has always slept in her crib without any pillow or blanket. Oddly enough, she has slept through mostly every single night since we started putting her to bed at 7. She has always been a superb sleeper. Just a couple of weeks ago, we hung up a blanket on the side of her crib and she immediately took it off the rail and began sleeping with it. Seeing how quickly she adapted to the blanket, we decided to add a pillow which Aunt Duffy made for her. Here's what she did with it the first night we put it in the crib...sorry for the video quality:

 

Run, Run, Run

As mentioned in the last post, September has been a busy one for everybody....

Mallory started her new "next level" at school and has been doing great so far. She seems to be acclimating very well with her classmates and we have received nothing but positive ratings on her daily report sheets. The dropping off (handled by Michol) has continued to go well. Mallory seems to jump right into playing from the moment she steps into the classroom. She does manage to let out a quick "bye" to Mom as she throws off her coat. I still have the easy job of picking her and she seems equally thrilled to go home.

Aside from that, Mallory is doing great. It seems like she is learning new things every week (or day for that matter). It's amazing how fast they can pick things up. Unfortunately, we do have to deal with some "terrible two" episodes from time-to-time, but they seem to pass over pretty quick. Recently, we took her over to a local park to run around and let off some steam. Of course, the one area she seemed most interested in was near an apple tree. We had to keep telling her not to pick up the rotten apples that were squashed on the ground. Luckily nothing went in her mouth!

When we weren't keeping Mallory busy, Michol and I both participated in a couple of local races. I completed my first half-marathon in Saratoga a couple of weeks ago in a time of 1 hour 42 minutes (229 out of about 1,500 runners) which was only a couple of minutes slower than the time I was shooting for. Next year, I am going to run the same race again and shoot for 95 minutes...here's hoping! 

Michol had her own challenge in the Color Me Rad race she participated this past weekend. The course was set over a 5k distance and throughout the race, runners were sprayed with colorful paint. She had a great time and pushed through to a great finishing time! After the race was finished, the challenge wasn't over as she had to get the paint off. An initial pass with baby wipes did not work very well so she was really hoping that soap and water would do the trick....luckily it did work and most of the paint came off.

On the same day as Michol's run, we attended my 20th high school reunion. It was a very small group, but it was great to catch up on old times...and reminding ourselves how old we are really getting!

Till next time! 

Busy Bs!



Getting a little Silly!



Based on the date of this post, you can probably guess that the Merrimans have been a little busy this Summer :) It seems this month has flown by so fast...soon enough we'll be breaking out the rakes and leaf bags. Mallory is doing great and continues to do well with her 3-day-a-week school schedule. She seems to be warming up more and more to her classmates and even managed to give one of the boys a "neck hug" on her way out the door the other day.

Unfortunately, we did have another ER trip at the beginning of the month for the same condition she had back in April. All is good now and she is on a maintenance nebulizer treatment that she has to take twice a day. Even though she is still too young for an official diagnosis, the doctors are 99.9% sure she has asthma. Let's hope she outgrows it :(

I hate this bed!!

The month of August also brought us a nice surprise visit from Aunt Duffy. She was able to spend a few days during the work week with Mallory...with a little assistance from Mema and Grandma :) Mallory loved teaching Duffy some of her songs and even learned some new things as well.

Other than that, we have been trying to enjoy as much of the outdoors as we can. We took Mallory to the Crossings one day and she had a great time running around the open field and chasing bubbles. For some reason she wanted to hang out right by the restrooms. Thankfully there was a nice landscaped area in front of the building so I was able to get a few nice shots of her checking out the flowers.



Hmmm....what do we have here?
 

Picking flowers....

 

Chasing bubbles!

Not sure what she is doing here

Still love Minnie....

Unfortunately, Fall is really right around the corner and September is shaping up to be another busy month. We have some Labor Day house cleaning on the schedule (ducts and carpets), Mallory begins her next level up in school, my 20 year high school reunion, a Color Me Rad 5k for Michol, my first Half Marathon, and a photo shoot for Mallory (our friend Andrea will be handling the shoot).  I hope to be more diligent with my posts since there is always lots to share! Till next time....