Friday, June 28, 2013

FIVE ON FRIDAY



I am back again for Five for Friday posts.   Here are a few things going on with us this week!

College World Series! Our Bulldogs made all the way this year.  First time ever and the first time a team in Mississippi has competed for a National Championship.  Our team had great momentum and seemed to be having a blast through out the entire tournament. We went undefeated until we ran into UCLA and then I think we got nervous. Can you blame the boys?  Our school wanted it bad.  We didn't win the trophy in the end but it was still so much fun to watch and I am so proud of the team.

Having fun!
Kenny and Elle on Monday morning wearing their maroon for Game 1.
We let Elle stay up a little late because the games started at 7.  We had her pose in front of the TV for memories sake.  Almost as good as being in Omaha! 

Potty Training- Yesterday kicked off Potty Training.  This morning the actual training begins.  We did a lot of excitement building yesterday.  I am nervous but I think she is excited and wants to do it and I am hoping that will work in my favor.  I have been thinking about it and I do think I am going to do some posts on the things I am doing and whether they worked or not.  I have a horrible memory when it comes to this stuff.  My friends with babies will ask me questions and I want to help them but I just can't remember.  So I want to share the knowledge I guess and help myself remember in the future.  I will not be posting any pictures of her on the potty or anything in the potty.  So no worries about that.

The beginning of my supply list.  I posted this on Instagram and ended up getting 
some helpful tips from other moms.



Guilty Pleasure- I have a total guilty pleasure.  Eminem.  I love listening to the Eminem Pandora Station when I work out.  Along with Eminem you get Dr. Dre, Tupac, 50 Cent in the mix.  And it makes me want to push a little harder.  I am sure the old people on the treadmill next to me who don't have any music of their own and can hear mine are a little confused.

Concert at Red Rocks - Kenny has always wanted to see his favorite band play at this amazing amphitheatre in Colorado.  He has talked about it for years.  And this weekend he got on a plane and went.  I am so happy for him. I don't particularly enjoy the band's music so he went with some friends.  But to see him check this off of his bucket list is great.  I hope he has lots and lots of fun.

Pool Time- Kenny finally got around to joining a golf course and Elle and I are thrilled to have a pool to go to!  It is getting so hot.  So I am ready to turn Elle into a water baby.  We aren't doing swim lessons this summer but I want her to get more comfortable with the water.  I got her a puddle jumper and am trying to pick up pool toys as I see them. We are going to take full advantage!
Elle enjoying some lunch at the pool.  

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

A BLOGGERS REWARD

Well after putting it off for years, I finally bit the bullet and ordered all my blog books from the last five years.  Five years ago I started this little old blog as a way to document our married lives.  I am not an crafty person so this was my way of scrap booking in a way.  Back then I did not even know that putting your blog into an actual book was possible. I thought it was good enough to have the journal online.  

A couple of years ago I heard about Blog2Print and created an account and created several books.  One for each year.  As the years passed and I continued to blog I would go update my account and create another book for that current year.  Eventually I had five books in my cart for the last five years that I wrote about our lives.  Way to stick with something Mallory! Then I needed the money to actually have the books printed.  They aren't super expensive and if I had just purchased a book a year it would of been fine.  But I need five books and I just could never find the extra cash to devote to it.  It was a somewhat low priority. 

So you can imagine my excitement when my books finally appeared on my doorstep last week.  I was so excited.  It really is so much fun to have these books to look through and read about what was going on when Kenny and I were just newlyweds.  A clue: we went out to eat a lot.  Went to a lot of movies and basically relaxed. A LOT.  I like to day dream that these books will be very special to Elle and our children one day too.  Not only are they a glimpse back into our lives, they are windows into current events, things I was feeling, testaments to our struggles and I even wrote a lot of recipes in them. So hopefully she will enjoy them too!
Elle helping me unwrap them!

All five years on display.

Oh and a few things to mention:
-You can choose to lay out the books on your own or you can just let Blog2Print lay out the pages most efficiently to save space.  I choose to let them lay it out.  It saves money and I definitely did not have time to lay out every single page.  For the most part I am happy enough with how the pages look.
- The quality is good.  They feel like school annuals but the pages are nice and thick and even though pictures are low resolution when they are on the Internet the images are pretty clear when printed.
- If you are interested in doing this for yourself, Blog2Print almost always has a 15% promo code.  Their extremely rare 20% code showed up in my email one day and that is why I decided to finally buy them.  Got to pinch those pennies when you can!

Monday, June 24, 2013

WEEKEND UPDATE

This weekend flew by.  I think this summer is going to fly by.  Kenny and I are in the process of planning some last minute vacations (some with each other and some with friends) and I swear my head is swimming with dates and plans.  It makes my head hurt and I am really ready to have them all booked so I can just start getting excited!

Friday night Kenny and I took Elle for some chips and dip aka Mexican and then came home and put her to bed and did some work.  Sometimes that is the life when you have a family run business ha! There a lot of times where Kenny and I will be parked on the couch working side by side. At least we are doing it together.

Saturday morning we were all up bright and early.  Kenny had a 8:30 tee time with some friends and Elle and I were driving to Memphis for her little friend, Loftin's third birthday party.

The party was at the Memphis Trolley and Train Museum and it was so cute.  Lindsay did such a good job decorating the party room and had every little detail planned.  We had such a good time.  The kids were able to play in the museum, have lunch and then we got to take the River Loop trolley around Memphis which all the kids loved!
This was just after we arrived.  They were so happy to see each other.
One of the tables.  They all had conductor hats and bandannas and trains at their seats so they could dress up as conductors.
Photo op on the train!
Riding the trolley!
The pictures that made Instagram.  Holding hands waiting on the trolley and 
then watching the city go by out the window.

Saturday night Kenny and I ordered sushi in and watched Identity Thief.  It was pretty funny.  

Sunday we went to church and then for another yummy lunch at Restaurant Tyler. Might be our new favorite brunch place. Shhhhh. Don't tell City Bagel. Then Kenny wanted to take Elle and I out to Starkville Country Club because after playing the course on Saturday he decided he wanted to join.  I am definitely not opposed because Elle and I are in serious NEED of some pool time.  We already get use of the club and will be there when the pool is open on Tuesday.  Cannot wait!

Friday, June 21, 2013

FIVE ON FRIDAY


I am linking up on a Five for Friday posts.  I enjoy reading posts like this and sometimes it is easier to write just a little bit about a lot of things.  So here we go.  Five things from this week!

- Rocking some new kicks! I got some new running shoes the last time I went to Memphis and I love them.  I was getting really bad shin splints with my old pair and even sore to the touch ankles.  I just figured it was from not being a hard core runner. I went to a running store and had them watch me run and tried on all different brands and these were the ones I decided on.  Color choice wasn't even given to me until I decided on this particular style of shoe. But these shoes are great.  Super comfy, look cute with my workout clothes and I haven't had any issues with shin splints since I bought them.  I will definitely be buying another pair when I wear these out!

- Book reads! I read a few books at the beach and started this one at the very end of the week.  But the past few days I couldn't put this Nicholas Sparks book down.  I love his books.  They are a bit predictable but every once in a while I will read on of his that makes me bawl.  This one was just okay but I still enjoyed it.  At the beach I also read a new young adult novel called The 5th Wave.  It is the first book of the series and I loooooved it.  I also read Sparkly Green Earrings and that one had me laughing out loud.  Any mom must read it!  Now I am looking for my next read.  Any recommendations?

- Shelac manicure.  So I just got my first one this past week.  I normally just get normal manicures.  But I was so tired of them chipping and I am terrible about taking my polish off.  So I am kind of obsessed. I know shelac manicures are old news but I am loving it.  It still looks great and I don't see why you wouldn't get it again.  But I have heard it is really hard on your nails almost like tips. (old school!) I am really hoping that is not true. I did decide to do a really light color because I like lighter colors on my fingernails but I might decided to do something more fun for summer next time.  

- Video on Instragram- Mind blown.  I love Instagram so hard.  I love seeing pictures of people's meals, their kids, their concerts, their dogs, anything! Lately, with Elle and a new town and work and just life, Twitter is hard for me to check.  I will open it up on my phone and have 400 tweets I need to read and that is overwhelming. Facebook is just kind of lame lately.  I never could get into Vine.  I honestly told myself I wasn't allowed myself to have anything else that I had to "check" on my phone. But now with the video capability on Instagram I can have the best of all the worlds.  Yay!  I haven't posted a video yet and don't know if I will.  Videos seem more personal and I hate the way my voice sounds on camera.  Will you be taking advanatage of videos on Instagram?  Oh, and feel free to follow me on all social media.  Instragram - mallorylacey Twitter- Mal_C_Lacey

- Elle and I had such a great week.We were just busy enough and I tried to get her outside a little more than normal. It was kind of one of those weeks where the things that I pulled out of the hat to entertain her with worked.  It just makes my mama heart happy when she is happy and we are spending quality time together.

A total Pinterest win! Finger paint, plastic bags, tape, window.  So easy, mess free and she loved it!
Picnic at the park after our music class. Peanut Butter yum!
Took her for a much needed haircut.  Was so worried we were going to lose those curls but she has my hair.  Meaning it will always have some curl to it if you get the slightest bit warm.  She doesn't quite grasp the whole haircut concept. The last couple days when I am washing or brushing her hair she will cry "No mommy! My haircut!"  She thinks it can be rinsed or brushed out.  So funny.  I just tell her that washing or brushing her haircut makes it prettier. Which she believes and is still true, right?
Chalk drawings in our condo's parking lot.
Pulled out the water table yesterday.  She didn't really care all that much about it last summer but this day she loved it.  I got a good hour and half out of it.  That is epic!
Lena appreciated the kindess on this hot summer day!








Wednesday, June 19, 2013

CONQUERING FEARS


So you might remember a few years back I thought it would be fun to take Kenny to Chattanooga for our anniversary.  He never went white water rafting on the Ocoee or anywhere for that matter and I did it a few times growing up with youth group and thought "hey no big deal."  And then. I almost died on that little rafting trip.  No really.  If you don't recall you can read about it here.  Looking back on that post I didn't even go into much detail about the ordeal.  But it was so scary.  When we fell out one of the guides landed on top of me and I was under the boat and couldn't come up for air.  

So now that you are caught up.  I have not been white water rafting since then.  I can be fairly dramatic and I am dead serious in that I was really scared and never thought I would EVER get back in a boat. Kenny however LOVED it and has been on numerous boys trips and they do seriously hard rivers!   I can promise you that this will be the only river I do unless its one of those fun ones out in Montana I have heard about. 
Kenny and I getting ready for the rafting.

Last week, I was invited to a client trip for some of the guys I work for in the Tennessee territory for Ashley.  They wanted me to meet accounts.  Kenny was invited to go along and be a guest.  Which was funny, because this was his old territory and he used to call on a lot of these accounts.   So off we went to the mountains to relax in cabins and soak in hot tubs and enjoy being without phone service for a couple of days.  The first night our group just had a catfish fry that was a lot of fun.

The next morning, it was time for WHITE WATER RAFTING.  I originally planned on skipping out on the excursion but decided at the last minute to give it a try.  We weren't going on the part where we fell out in and Kenny was being so sweet and giving me some major pep talks.  I was fine when we were at the outfitter and then we got ready to load the boat into the water and I just lost it.  I have never really dealt with a fear like this that was out of my control.  Well, except maybe roaches.  Not to mention all the people had heard my story and were a little freaked to.  It was a little tense.
Me with two other wives.

Madeline and me.  Probably talking about how scared we were.  Ha!

If you have rafted the Lower Ocoee the first rapid is the scariest one because it is big and there is just a lot going on and the guides have scared the crap out of you right before and you get in the water and just have to paddle because your life depends on it.  No really, it totally does.  The first rapid for our boat went okay.  We hit a rock and I was bumped into the center of the boat but I didn't fall out.  I cried after we were through it which I am sure everyone in our boat just wanted me to fall out at this point ha!  But after a few more rapids and holding on for dear life.  I started to calm down a little.  I actually managed to laugh a little bit during the calmer parts. And I did it.  I rafted the Lower Ocoee.  I was completely terrified the entire time I did it and pretty much hated it.  But I was proud of myself for facing my fear and getting back out there.  

While we were there our guide told us about this new river in Georgia they just opened up and Kenny and his friends are already planning a trip there.  Want to know more?  Google Chattahoochee River Pile Up and thank me later.  It is a pretty crazy video.  Needless to say I won't be making that trip.

After the rafting trip God rewarded me with an afternoon thunderstorm that I got to enjoy while sitting in a hot tub on a covered porch. We all just barbecued that night.  

It really was a fun trip and it was nice for Kenny and I to have a little adult time all while knocking out some serious fears!



Monday, June 17, 2013

FATHER'S DAY 2013


Kenny and I arrived home from a work trip on Friday (more on that in another post) in time to take Kenny and his dad out for an early Father's Day dinner.  Mrs. Ann and Mr. Ken came to keep Elle so we were so happy get to celebrate.

Saturday we hung around the house and played with Elle and said goodbye to Kenny's parents.  Then it was time to watch Phil Mickelson play in the U.S. Open and our Bulldogs take on the Oregon Beavers in the College World Series.  Phil did great and our baseball team won their first game.  So exciting. Saturday night we watched a movie and relaxed. We actually watched that Dwayne Johnson movie Snitch.  Kenny had seen it before and liked it and I have to be honest I really liked it.

Sunday morning Elle and I got up and let Kenny sleep late.  Or at least try to sleep late.  We can't sleep late anymore.  So while he was "sleeping," we worked on coloring and writing in cards. When he woke up we gave him some happies for an upcoming guys trip he has.
Helping Daddy open the gifts.
Opening a big one.

Kenny was happy with the new shoes and backpack we got him for his trip. Then we headed upstairs to get ready for Father's Day brunch.  Elle always comes upstairs with us while we get ready. She is rarely up there so she always finds things to keep her entertained ha!
Trying on Mommy's running shoes.

We went to Restaurant Tyler for brunch and it was amazing! I definitely did not count calories for this meal. Sometimes it is just better not to worry about it.
Chicken and waffle.  I am a sucker for savory sweet combos.

After brunch and a stop for coffee at 929 (our favorite local coffee shop) we headed home to take naps. No really we were so full we took naps.  Elle made Kenny lay down on the floor in her room while she played and I am pretty sure he was asleep some of the time.

Then it was time to park ourselves in front of the U.S. Open.  We were majorly hoping for a Phil win.  Unfortunately he took second for the sixth time.  But we still love him.  We convinced Elle to keep bringing her toys in the den so we could keep on an eye on the tv.  Parents of the year but she happily obliged.
 Reading some books in her rocking chair.
 Daddy daughter time watching the tournament.
Sporting her Daddy's hat on Father's Day.

It was a great weekend spent at home with our family.  I hope Kenny realized how much we appreciate him every day.  Not just on Father's Day.  We love you Kenny!

Thursday, June 6, 2013

BEACH PART 4- DON'T MAKE US LEAVE!

Well this is my final blog post about vacation. Sniff sniff.  As the vacation was winding down I longed for 3 or 4 more days. There were still things I wanted to do.  I wasn't ready.  We did manage to take advantage of every last minute though!

On Thursday night we met up with some friends who planned their vacation at the same time as ours.  We reserved a big table at Bud and Ally's and just had the best time eating and drinking and talking while the kids played.  After dinner of course we headed over some ice cream.  
Harper, Thomas and Elle before dinner.  This picture cracks me up.

Friday morning we drove over to Great Southern for breakfast.  Their breakfast is just as good as their dinner.  
Elle hamming it up while we waited on breakfast!
Afternoon at the pool.
Last night after dinner (sushi at Crush) and we had to get a little more ice cream!
Elle on the way home.  Totally exhausted.  She had so much fun!

Other Vacation Highlights:
-Seeing the guy from Lady Antebellum (the cute one) riding bikes with his wife in Rosemary Beach
- Naptime dates to Seaside and Rosemary Beach with Kenny
- Annie's totally weird sunburn from the first day 
- Riding bikes home in the dark
-The epic melt down on the first day 
-Getting yummy seafood from Goatfeathers
-Accidentally overdosing myself on AlevePM(I didn't know it was PM medicine) and having to go to bed immediately at 5:30.
- Mom giving Elle "Sam" the big stuffed monkey on the first day.  See above picture.

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

BEACH PART 3-ROSEMARY BEACH AND MORNINGS BY THE WATER

Yep another post about our beach vacation.  But we are midweek now and I am still sad we are not there.  So I am going to relive a couple more days here on the ol bloggy blog!

There was a little restaurant called Cowgirl Kitchen about 3 minutes from our beach house that we went to for breakfast a few mornings.  The food is phenomenal and they had a great porch that overlooked the ocean.  It was a favorite of Elle's because she could watch everyone riding by on their bikes and they had grilled peanut butter honey and bacon sand which.  And bacon and peanut butter are her faves!
Enjoying a big piece of bacon slathered in peanut butter.Messy but delicious.
Slathering up getting ready for another morning in the sun.

One of the mornings we took Elle to the pool instead and she really warmed up to the pool. We are happy about this because she isn't crazy about water overall.  But she got to where she was jumping off the edge into our arms.  And we eventually decided to just take off the swim vest off because she wasn't in the water without us anyway.  
Lounging by the pool.
Wearing her new little Seaside hat we got her.  She never wears any kind of hat.  But after she learned she had to wear a helmet when we rode the bikes she was pretty accepting of this hat because it kept the sun out of her face.  We were thrilled!
Playing sand castles with daddy. Mid high five.
Relaxing with daddy.
My view.
My favorite picture from the week.  Taken by my mom.

One night we heard the same theatre production that did the James and the Giant Peach were doing a different play in Rosemary Beach.  Since Elle enjoyed James so much we drove over for dinner that night and then the play.  The play was well, uh...interesting.  But once again Elle loooooved it and could tell us the whole story line even though we were all totally confused.  We loved the Rosemary Beach area and are considering doing a vacation there later this year to try it out and see if we like it.
Family picture waiting on the play to start in Rosemary.
Elle with....uh...I dunno after the play. Maybe she was some sort of princess. I have no idea what the play was about. Elle asked to have her picture taken again though.

After the play we walked down to the beach to look at the pretty house and the sunset.