General silliness

Looking through our photos from the past few days, I realized that most of the time when I grab the camera lately it's because Molly has put on an interesting article of clothing.

Hat from the Netherlands -- yay, it fits already!!!

The elusive pigtail shot.

This is how Molly "helps" Daddy read his book.

Accessorizing with stickers (fun until it's time to take them off ... the worst was the one stuck to her throat ... eeeks!)

More hat fashion.

Yet another fashion statement. I have about five of the exact same shot because she struck this pose and didn't move.

Standing on a hay bail maze at a nearby farm stand that turned out to be the field trip capital of the universe this morning -- 11 buses and swarming with kids in neon yellow and orange shirts. Ugh!! We didn't stay long.

'Do it, self'

Molly in the kitchen:

She's been very chatty this week. Just now she asked for a sheet of address label stickers ("thank you please") so I gave it to her. She folded it up and put it in the basket of her grocery cart and said "grocery store," then pointed to the stickers and said "grocery list."

She likes the concept of "right back," as in 'you wait here, I'll be right back.' Yesterday she said "right back" so I asked her where she was going. She said, "grocery store, buy bagels."

She's into the 'monkeys on the bed' rhyme lately. The other day she said "bump head." I thought she actually bumped, but it turns out she was talking about the monkeys. Today in the car she was saying "one monkey" and I couldn't figure out what she meant. Then she said "one monkey jump bed."

Hangin' out

Not much going on here, just the routine.

Now that all the older neighborhood kids are back to school, there's a ton of the neighbor moms are taking their toddlers to just about every week day -- story hours at various libraries, daily free classroom-type programs put on by the Family Partnership, extracurriculars like Kindermusik. Mostly we're trying to avoid it. That last thing we need is an over-scheduled one-year-old.

We have been getting out, though.

Here are some pictures from a trip we took to a wildlife preserve in Concord with the next door neighbor last week. Molly had a good time playing around with Teddy and the path was just one straight trail between marshes that ended at a river, so it was toddler-friendly. I think her favorite part was riding in the neighbor's minivan. That's what she keeps talking about, anyway.

Photos

Photos from the weekend can be found here.

These are photos from today, playing with our new tie-dye shirts (for anybody who happened to be at the tie-dye event and cares to see how they came out). Anna's method is awesome!! The colors came out so bright.


The blue shirt Molly is wearing was a spiral fold. The purple one was made by bunching it up (which worked great, except there's a big white spot on the back).

The wing shirt is my favorite -- made by picking up points all over and tying rubber bands on them. The long-sleeve shirt Molly is sitting on is the one where I twisted it and tied the whole thing in a knot -- it didn't get much color.

Anyway, Molly likes her shirts. She said "purple pretty" when I was taking these pictures and much later, as we were walking down the stairs to go outside, she said, "new shirt like it." Me too!

Wing Fung

We have way too many good photos from the weekend to fit into one post. If I have to pick one that sums up the experience, it would be this.


I'm putting pictures on Shutterfly tonight. I promise.

More play

We had some crazy fun visitors this weekend. Here we have an "Eve sandwich."

Kids at the table. What happened to our babies? They're growing up so fast!


Molly is really looking forward to the chicken wing party this weekend. She was blurting out "drive. Oma. Grandpa. house." this morning at various times when she was playing with Rhys. This is a video I took when I noticed she was talking to herself about Grandpa and Oma and Grandma and drive while painting. When she says "cheep" I think she might be saying she drew a bird. She drew a bird with bathtub crayons in the bath the other night (really just a dot) ;) and then pointed up to the ceiling and said "bird fly."

Fashion sense

Lovin' this outfit...


So lets see, what's the silly girl up to? It's been a very quiet week. Why go anywhere when playing at home is so much fun? Molly has gotten very good at playing by herself while I cook or clean or read a magazine, so once in a while it's fun to make a point of sitting down to play with her. She's been pretending to cook a lot. She likes to serve drinks and snacks. At the library the other day she made "iced tea" and walked around saying "some? daddy?" The other night she served me "cheese" (yellow Post-it notes on her toy plates). I wandered over and saw her doing this the other day...





She is constantly talking about people she knows. We get a lot of "Rhys. Heidi. Monday." (We get together with our neighbor Heidi and her son Rhys most Mondays and Molly seems to be constantly thinking about it). Out of nowhere she'll say "ocean, Grandma" or "Bo-bo, Grandpa" or "Teddy, vacation." She talks about Lucy all the time. Today she's been saying "Eve." In one of her books says "you can have a party in your dreams tonight." The other day we read it before nap and I asked her if she was going to invite Oma and Grandpa to her party and Grandma, etc. She fell asleep listing names, almost as if she was sleep talking.

Speaking of naps, we've had a big leap forward in our nap routine. We are no longer nursing to sleep. Instead we read three books in bed, take some deep breaths, sing a few songs and then just lie there until she (usually we) fall asleep. That puts us down to nursing just two times a day, first thing in the morning and as part of the bedtime routine (not the last part, either -- she's usually awake when I put her in the crib). She doesn't even really seem to be thinking about milk at other times of the day, which is such a dramatic change from just a couple months ago. If she does ask now, I ask if she wants cow milk and usually she does. Phew!! She didn't even nurse at bedtime Tuesday because I was out getting my hair cut and she chose to rock with Daddy rather than wait for me to come home. We went 24 hours without nursing and she didn't even seem to notice.

And speaking of hair cuts, I got my hair completely chopped off and I'm not happy about it. I gave my hair dresser a picture of a messy chin-length bob and she gave me more of a shaggy, poofed hair helmet. I don't think the hair on the top of my head has ever been this short. Wah!!

So I've been wearing a lot of headbands. Molly thinks this is an exciting development. She really likes headbands.