Two Years Old

Little Miss Molly is two years old.  We celebrated her birthday in Texas (though technically her actually birthday was spent driving home from Texas).

She's thrilled and STILL thinks its her birthday and will get upset at anyone who tries to say otherwise.  It was a great day for her.

She wanted a "Happy Snowman birthday" or in other words an "Olaf birthday".  All my pictures of our (not so exciting) Olaf cupcakes are on Tyson's phone and I haven't gotten them from him.  But its really nothing too exciting.  But she loved it, which is all that really mattered.

Things Molly Says:

• "No.  I'm not a _____.  I'm a puppy."  Usually this response is after someone says calls her "Molly" or "cute" or "nice" or pretty much anything other than a puppy.
• "Sheesh Sheesh."  This is her common comeback to anything.  Mom: "Molly, can you put this in the trash for me?"  Molly:  "I can put it in the SHEESH SHEESH."  Mom: "It's time for bed."  Molly: "It's time for SHEESH SHEESH.", etc.
• "Good morning!"  Almost every morning I am greeted with a smile and a little sunshine!
• "Read this one." or "Now this one"...book after book after book after book.  She enjoys most any book but she does have a particular love for Arthur books and Curious George...but really, most any books she loves.
• "No, I do it."  She's very independent....
• "I want to play with Playmobils."  She has an undying love for playing with the Playmobils.  I hear this phrase many times a day and it keeps her busy for quite a long time.

Other Quirks about Molly:

• I can probably list off her favorite to least favorite people.  Mom is her ultimate favorite, then Eden, then dad, then Leila.  Outside the family she has a special love for her cousin, Millie, Nana, our neighbor and daughter Kirsten and Addie, and a friend from gymnastics, Paige.
• The girls love to sit in their carseats and hold hands during long car rides.
• She loves to dance.  She can swing those hips pretty good!
• She's very selective about her hugs and kisses.  Almost always she'll let me kiss her, even smother her with hugs and kisses, and she'll often let Eden smother her as well.  But most anyone else she'll get really upset and protest getting hugs and kisses unless she decides its OK first.
• She loves animals, especially dogs.
• She loves movies, especially Baby Signing Time.
• She doesn't eat much.  It's hard to get her to eat unless its treats or candy.  Although she does love vegetables, fruit, rice, noodles, beans (like black and garbanzo and kidney), peanut butter and honey sandwiches, quesadillas, oatmeal, muffins, and she's sometimes OK with chicken.  But they need to be separate, she doesn't do dinner and casseroles much.  But even things she loves she doesn't often eat a lot.
• She loves "naked time".  It's quite important to give her this time.
• She also loves dresses.  The only times I don't need to highly persuade her to wear clothes is when a dress is available for her to wear.  She has her favorites ones of course...and she pretty much wears them over and over again.

Thanksgiving in Texas

Tyson was able to get the week of Thanksgiving off...so we drove ourselves down to Texas to visit Tyson's sister and family.  Macie, KJ, Eva, Millie...you guys are a party!

The girls just LOVED having cousins as full time playmates.

And the weather was AMAZING.

We played at the park.

We put together our very first (and rockin' awesome) Thanksgiving feast.

We had a mini "gift exchange" since we won't see each other Christmas.

We relaxed.

We had a great time.

I took a surprising lack of pictures.

 Molly and Millie deserve a post all on their own about how cute they were together.  Occasionally it was a sad time with sharing and caring...but generally they were fun buddies.  It was just so much fun to hear them interact with one another and play with one another.  Two year olds are funny.

Gymnastics

The girls have been taking gymnastics for a few months and its been a lot of fun.  The girls have really enjoyed it.  They definitely don't seem to be on their way to becoming professional gymnasts by any means...but I definitely appreciate the exercise they are getting.

The class is an hour long and then they get an hour of free play after, which is awesome.  There is even a little kids area that they let Molly play in during class and free time.  She is loving it just as much as Eden and Leila!

The girls are JUST BARELY become a bit better at hand stands and cartwheels.  But in the end, its not a competition but simply a fun way for them to strengthen their muscles, get out of the house, socialize, exercise and have fun.

Beds...er...at Least Mattresses..

Since we moved in the girls have slept in "blankie beds".

Granted, they never complained.

Actually, we did have ONE toddler bed set up, they switched sometimes who would sleep it in.  Eventually they both wanted to be on the floor...so we moved the toddler bed out.

But we decided it was wise to get them AT LEAST mattresses.

The girls are THRILLED to have "new beds".

Even if they are just mattresses on the floor.

Some day we'll get real beds, but for now the girls don't seem to mind at all.

Especially Molly who was upgraded from a pack n play to the toddler mattress.

I admit it does make nap time harder for Molly but overall she's pretty good about going to bed at night...and sometimes during the day.  Its OK, I admit that we never had a real "set nap time" each day anyway.

Family Walk...Back When It Was Nice Out...

A while back, we had a fun family outing.

It was a lot of fun...not gonna lie.

We biked.

We had a picnic.

We played in the water.

The kids collected shells and rocks.

Good times.

Dad even showed us how to collect, smash, and dry walnuts that fell from walnut trees to eat.  The girls thought that was pretty awesome in and of itself.

 (Side note:  Molly will often "pop" her hip when posing for a picture.  You should see her dance...those hips have a mind of their own!)

Unfortunately, it feels a little more like THIS outside now a days...

Goodbye warm weather.

Winter's a-comin'.

Goodbye Corolla, Hello Sienna

There's not much more to be said...

My beloved Corolla had to leave our family because there's not much practicality in a car that only 5 people when we will soon have a 6 person family.  Man, will there really be that many people in our family?  Its kind of hard to believe, I keep counting it over and over and over again to make sure "Really?  SIX?!?  Maybe I'm wrong...let's see...3 kids, 2 adults, add 1 baby...6.  Yep, six!"  I'm still a little in shock I guess.

I was truly sad to lose my Corolla...but after driving my Sienna, it made it pretty hard to not fall in love with the smooth drive, roominess, automatic sliding door, and storage space in the back.  There were less tears in the end than I anticipated.

Pumpkins and Costumes

Halloween was lots of fun.  We carved our pumpkins.

 The girls dressed up (WAY too early to start trick or treating...so I had to take lots of pictures to try and stall)

 Leila, my princess.

 We saw a tutorial online (she originally wanted to be a fairy) and someone put this little "whimsical" eye make up....so we did a mini version of the make up...she was thrilled and felt so beautiful.  Her cheeks are extra pink because the bright pink face paint from the day before wouldn't completely come off...I tried my best to hide it and make it look normal.  At least it was pink, right?

 Eden the doctor. She originally wanted to be an Egyptian princess but then changed to a nurse that turned into a doctor.

 She was obviously thrilled to start trick or treating!

 Molly the monkey, cute as ever.

She ZONKED out right before trick or treating started.  She missed our neighbors but woke up in time for the rest of the trick or treating around the townhomes.

 Even Tyson and I dressed up...sort of.  Me, Juno.  Pregnancy seems to limit your Halloween costume options.

 Tyson's every-Halloween-I-wear-this-shirt-and-call-it-dressing-up costume.  For how much he dislikes dressing up for Halloween, I'm happy to say that he at least wears this shirt...its a big deal.