Birthday highs and lows

So after an exciting birthday start last Thursday of opening a few presents and blueberry pancakes, I decided it to ramp up the birthday fun by, yes, running errands all morning. Poor Molly quietly protested from the back seat. All she wanted to do was to see if Teddy was home and wanted to play. After two stops I felt so guilty that we quit and came home to see if Teddy was around. We eventually tracked him down, as well as our little friend Rose, and Molly spent a delightful afternoon playing with her friends.

I don't regret this turn of events even though:
a. I didn't make it to the grocery store all day, meaning I didn't have the ingredients to make Molly's special request birthday dinner of broccoli soup. In fact, I didn't want to make her leave her friends a minute before it was necessary, meaning we weren't home in time to make any dinner at all. Molly didn't want to go out, so we ended up eating nasty canned soup out of our emergency supply stash for dinner. Worst birthday dinner ever.
And more importantly,
b. Yesterday morning we woke to the sound of Molly retching in the hallway at 5 a.m. The poor kid didn't keep down a speck of food all day, and hardly any liquids. I just found out today that Teddy also had a stomach bug yesterday, which apparently is going around his and Rose's preschool. That birthday play date must have been where Molly caught it. Awesome.
Fortunately Molly is back to her old self today and we're still on track for holiday travel.

On a brighter note, we did manage to have quite a bit of birthday fun this weekend before the stomach bug caught up to us. Oma and Grandpa came on Friday and we had loads of fun opening presents, going out to dinner, eating ice cream cake and more homemade pancakes. We did eventually make the birthday broccoli soup, too.

Here's Molly rocking out to her musical gift from Kim (wearing her new purple dress from Beppe).

General birthday happiness.

The funny looking ice cream cake I made on Friday.

We can't wait to see everybody for Christmas!! Just a few more days!!!!!

Birthday morning

Just a few presents this morning before blueberry pancakes birthday breakfast ...

Birthday party

We celebrated Molly's birthday yesterday with Lex and Eve at the candlepin bowling alley, then back home for pink cupcakes and party hats. Molly was so excited before the party about what she was going to wear, the party plates, the hats and all the details. Once Lex and Eve got here, it was all about playing with them. What a perfect party!

The holiday season begins

We had our Christmas tree decorating mini celebration last night. Here she is playing with one of her Daddy's childhood ornaments. It does not, she discovered, fit on her foot.

Today she put on a Christmas dress in the morning and kept it on all day. Here she is this evening, playing with Harry and avoiding the camera, in the pretty dress (thank you, Eve).

Molly is definitely more aware of and excited about Christmas this year than last year. Tonight we got ready for Sinterklaas. She remembered from last year that Sinterklaas brings animal crackers and was so excited about this that a little last-minute elf work was required. 

She's been going to bed really smoothly lately (knock on wood), but tonight she called out "Mommy, I need to tell you something." I was busy so Jim went in. Molly told him, "I think Santa Claus is on his way right now." That was all.

Here's another thing she was way into last year that she has rediscovered, The Twelve Days of Christmas.



She also has large portions of Twas the Night Before Christmas memorized -- not surprising, considering how many times we've read it in the past week. Our Christmas book selection is somewhat limited now since the nativity story made Molly cry the other night. She got deeply upset about the idea that Mary and Joseph had to sleep in a barn. Now she doesn't want to read those stories anymore. That's only the third time a book has ever upset her so much (the others being the time she got upset that the mother changed into a tree in Runaway Bunny and the time the characters had to leave their family members at the end of a trip to Africa in a library book). Poor kid. I never see it coming and I'm always surprising that seemingly benign ideas in a story can be so upsetting.

And lastly, as Molly gets closer to turning 3 her play has become even more involved and fun to witness -- isn't this so much fun?? One morning she told me this was a baby monkey and spent a long time putting him to bed. I'm glad we still have time to just hang out a lot, even when the holiday craziness is upon us.

Decorating the tree quote

"This is Santa's magic sock" - Molly
"Does it give him magic powers?" - Julie
"No he puts it on his foot." - Molly