A very rough week

This week was a very rough week for Mark and I. Our beloved Bella lost her battle to the brain tumor she was fighting. She had been doing so well but last Saturday begun having seizures again and by Tuesday night was having several a day. So on Wednesday we had to take her to the vet to be put to sleep. Needless to say we are heartbroken but know that it was time and we did everything that we could for her. She was loving, loyal, sweet, and gentle. We miss her terribly already. We attached some of our favorite pictures of her, and of her and her doggy family and friends.

Bella, Molly, and Maverick

Bella & Bandit

Bella sunbathing with Maggie

Mallory seemed to nap at all the right times while all of this was going on with Bella. She is the light of our life and made those sad times a little brighter with her smiles. She is growing so quickly and doing all sorts of new things. She is onto green veggies and cereal twice a day. We think she is going to be sitting soon because she can balance like a tripod with hands in front and sit there for about 10 seconds. She is also starting to scoot around. This week she even started getting her little knees under her from time to time. She is always observant and wants to be in the middle of the action all the time. The sitter even started to have to nap her in another room because she wont nap if there is anything at all going on. She doesn't want to miss out on anything.
The holidays are in full swing around here. Last weekend we put out the Christmas Decor, Christmas lights, and even took Mallory to meet Santa. She was intrigued by his beard (or she was trying to figure out how to get it in her mouth) Plus we both had our office Holiday parties this weekend. It was perfect timing and a great escape for us after our hard week. Laughter with friends is great medicine. Well we are off to do some Christmas shopping. We are making our list and checking it twice.

All bundled up ready for the cold weather (Yes we put socks on her)

Playing in the Jumparoo

Gumming on the Raspberry

Sitting with Santa

She seemed to like him.

Many Thanks.

All decked out in Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving lunch Cereal & Squash

Post Thanksgiving nap

Mallory and her Paddy

Snuggling with Aunt Dee Dee

Grandma and her cake

The whole family

Mallory and Grandma

This week was Thanksgiving week! We have so many things to be Thankful for in our lives. God has blessed us enormously. We are so very thankful for our sweet angel baby girl, our amazing family, and all of our wonderful friends. We love our life and are ever thankful to God for all he has given us.
We have been busy this holiday week. Our sitter was off this week so Mallory's Mia (Cheryl) came down Sunday night and watched Mallory during the day Monday, Tuesday, & Wednesday. They got to play and spend a ton of time together one on one. They had a blast. On Wednesday night Ric, Meredith and Matt came down to spend the holiday with us. We spent Thanksgiving together and had tons of food and dessert. We stuffed ourselves silly and had a nap. Mallory even got to have a treat. She had Squash with her cereal for Thanksgiving. She wasn't sure about it at first but by the end of the weekend she was really enjoying it. We are going to try a new veggie each week. She is even eating in her high chair now. We have to stuff a thick blanket around her so she doesn't slide over to the side but it works very well.
On Saturday we spent the day at my parents. My Grandmother was in town and we had a huge celebration for her 90th birthday. Her entire side of the family came to my parents for the event. All of her grandchildren and 2 of her children were there. She had a great time, There was cake, presents, and even a slide show with a bunch of old photographs of her. It was a great party for her and we all had a wonderful time. We have had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday with family. We hope you have as well.

Playing on the tummy.

Playing with the links

Concentrating

Naptime snuggled in pillows

YUMMY!

Cat nap with her face covered with her lovie

Sweet Bella after a very rough week.

Well I know the loyal Mallory followers were disappointed to find no posting last week. Sorry about that. It will be explained later in the blog. Last weekend Mark and I celebrated 6 years of wonderful marriage. We are truly blessed to have so much fun together and a house full of love and now with the addition of our sweet little one even more love. To celebrate we went to a wonderful romantic dinner and Mallory stayed with Nana and Pop Pop for the night. However at midnight Bella began having seizures again and by 7 AM she had had 8 of them. We were mentally and physically exhausted and devastated because she had such a great week. We called the vet who ended up meeting us and gave her a shot. The vet was not ready to give up and she helped us to get motivated to not give up as well. We have upped her dosage of phenobarbital and we have started her on a steroid regime to help reduce any swelling in the brain. The first part of the week was hard but this weekend we have seen great improvement and have had our first seizure free weekend in 2 weeks! We are hopeful that they will be few and far between for a while. And we will get to spend as much time as she has left with her happy and with limited seizures. But with all of that going on last Sunday there was no time or energy to post the blog.

As for our little angel Mallory. She has had a great week. We started rice cereal 2 time a week and the sitter says she LOVES the cereal in the day too. She has always been and continues to be a great eater! She like her momma loves food. :) We have decided she is our little roly poly now. She rolls onto her tummy and then rolls back over onto her back. She plays with her toys on her tummy and then she rolls over to put them in he mouth. When she is tired of that one, she rolls over back onto her tummy and gets another toy. Her favorite are the "links" We bought a package of 25 and she thinks they are great. We have them on her floor time quilts, her bouncer, and in her pak n play. She also is very into colors and lights. If a toy has bight colors or lights it can keep her attention much longer than anything else. She has begun to really focus on items and grab them. You can see her brain working and concentrating it wonderful to watch her learn. She has officially become a tummy sleeper. As soon as we lay her down at night she rolls right over to her tummy. One night I put her right down on her tummy. She sleeps like that all night. Also when she is sleeping she has an affinity for having her face covered. When she falls asleep on her back during nap time she has to have her lovie or her taggi covering her face. She has taken this liking to her crib at night. She rolls over and gets up close to the bumper until her face is up against it. By the morning time she is up in the corner of the bed all snuggled into the corner of the bumper. At first I panicked but have realized if I flip her over or move her I am getting bad sleep and she doesn't like it anyway and is going to be up against the bumper before I even get back to bed. So I have learned she is mobile enough to move her face if she cannot breath and she will sleep better snuggled up next to the bumper than not. Since becoming unswaddled and mobile all at once she sleeps through the night but usually wakes up about 3:30 or 4 AM and needs her paci. We are working on that. Sometimes she fusses and goes back to sleep and sometimes we need the paci. Hopefully as she gets more comfortable with her ability to move around this little wake up call will go away. We get lots of laughs now and tons of smiles. She smiles with her whole body so we love getting them because they make us laugh. Her smile is infectious.

Good times and Sad

Yummy Rice Cereal

Playing with Brady

Brady playing with the toys

Sweet Hailey!

Mark was a beat up Cowboy

Meet the Flintstones! (AKA The Williams)

This week we had a lot of great things happening with Mallory but some not so great things happening with Bella. For those of you who know us well, you know our sweet Doberman Bella is our first Baby. On Thursday morning at 3:45 AM we were awakened to Bella having a very long and awful seizure. She has never had them before and we discovered that she had one the day before during the day. We had some clues the day before that something happened and when we saw this seizure we realized what it was. So Mark took her to the emergency vet to make sure she was OK for the short term and then I took her to our family vet that afternoon. After blood work and long discussions with the vet. She believes that at her age in life it is probably something in the brain such as a brain tumor. She was given some medication in the short term but we have to stop giving it to her in order to observe any potential seizure patterns. Then she can be put on anti-seizure medication. We are hoping for the best. It could be that she doesn't have another seizure or exhibit any other symptoms for months or it could be only days before we see another one. We are taking it issue by issue and day by day. But we are saddened by the news none the less. Needless to say she is getting lots of extra treats and loving.
In other family news, Halloween was last Sunday and we had my whole family over to go trick or treating. Mallory did not have a costume instead she wore a very cute Halloween outfit. We did carry her around to go trick or treating with Hailey (who was Pebbles from the Flintstones) She was in awe of all the people, and Halloween decor. We had a visit from Brady (and Amber) and got to play with him. She is intrigued by other babies, she just kept watching him as he played. Friday we had our 4 month appointment and shots. She did great and the Pedi is very happy with her and her skin. We also got permission to start rice cereal. However thanks to her eczema, she has to use a special kind of cereal. I was not excited about that because I had already purchased the box of Gerber for use on Friday night and had to take it back and get the "Happy Bellies" cereal. So once all of that was switched out we tried the rice cereal. It was funny for sure. She wasn't sure how to eat it but she did seem to enjoy it.
New things for Mallory this week she is up to 13lbs even! She rolls over all the time (even in the middle of the night, which doesn't go over well yet) She plays with her feet whenever possible. The sitter (Ms Jessi) wants us to put socks on her but she pulls them right off. She plays on her tummy a lot these days. She cannot get the toys on her tummy yet but she is sure trying. We spend a lot of time on the floor with her on a pallet or she plays in her pak-n-play with all of her toys hanging around her. She is very mobile and is only still when she is napping or sleeping. But when something catches her attention she is a quiet observer. We have smiles all the time now and laughs at least once a day. She is a very happy baby and we are having so much fun with her.
In other news our good friends Brock and Tiffany Harlow welcomed their baby girl on Monday night. Mia Brooke Harlow. We are very excited for them. Mallory finally has another girl in the mix to hang out with! Congratulations Brock and Tiffany we cannot wait to meet your sweet little girl.

Fun with Family

My Halloween Cat shirt

Swinging

Hanging out during the Rangers game (notice the TV)

Playing with Aunt DeDe

Love and hugs from Rex

Naptime with Paddy

Snuggling with Uncle Mike

I know, I missed a week on the blog, but we went out of town and got back Sunday too late to do the blog and get ready for the work week. So this will be a summary of 2 weeks! Last weekend we went to Longview for a family gathering. All of the McNulty family was there, even Michael (who I believe is a bit smitten with our little Mallory) She was showered with love and kisses. It was truly a wonderful weekend filled with lots of love. We had a wonderful time and I know her Mia and Paddy really enjoyed seeing her again. She did great on the drive. It was 6 hours and she was a trouper for sure. She only lost it on the way back and only about 30 min away from home. Pretty good for 6 hours 1 way and 6 back. We will call that a success.
This past week we had a great week. We have switched to entirely formula. Her skin thanks me! It is soft and smooth so we are going to be grateful for the 4 months of breast milk she was able to take and move forward with sweet baby's skin. However towards the end of the week she kept waking up at 4 am fussing and trying to get out of her swaddle. Yes we were still using the swaddling blanket. So Friday night Mark and I sucked it up and agreed to the possibility of no sleep and put her in some footed pj's and a sleep sack and put her to bed. Friday night she fussed and cried a bit before falling asleep and then woke up at 3:30 AM, fussed a bit, went back to sleep and then she slept until 5:30. She got her paci then and slept until 7:30. Last night we had no fussing or crying before she fell sleep. She even went back to talking herself to sleep (Mark and I still crack up it is funny to listen to) and didnt wake up until 5:30. She got her paci and went back to sleep until 7. Such a big girl. We were prepared for much less sleep than that so we are very happy with how it has gone so far. Obviously she was ready for the swaddling blanket to be gone. Saturday night we went to dinner with my family to celebrate. My sister got a promotion and they are expecting "Nugget #2" Mark and I are so excited. We love being an Aunt and Uncle and cannot wait for this little one to arrive. On a side note, it has required me to come to the realization that I have to give up my last couple pairs of Maternity pants I have been wearing. They are really too big so I have packed them up and Tiff will be getting them.
This week Mallory has had a couple of new things. We got her to laugh!!! She has a very quiet laugh, and a funny little sound to it. It matches her perfectly, and makes us laugh! We also hung the swing up in the yard and she loved it. We are also soooo close to rolling over from our back to front. She gets almost there and then jerks back. I think it will be any day now. She also started buzzing her lips together and spitting bubbles at the same time this week. I think she likes the way it feels. Well, Happy Halloween to everyone. Next week we will have Halloween pic to post :)