New Friends

A couple of weeks ago we were in Lakewood for the wedding of some friends.
Bruce and I were photographing the wedding and because of unforseen circumstances, Molly ended up going with us. (You can read more about it here)

There were so many great friends there that we hadn't seen in a long time, and that we didn't have near enough time to catch up with. One of those friends had a daughter shortly before Molly was born and they've never met, but guess who was at the wedding?
YES. Molly finally got to meet and play with Emma.
They had a great time playing together. I wish we could have play dates more often.

And speaking of play dates...
After the reception was over, there was another reception at the beach over a bonfire.
The friends we were staying with offered to keep Molly while we went, which of course we jumped all over.
But in the midst of that, Molly made some more great new friends.
She LOVED her play date with Mark.

Thanks again Mark and Holly.
And I'm looking forward to your visit Jenny. (yes, I'm going to hold you to it!)

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Molly is 10 months old!

Molly turned 10 months old this week.

She took her first steps this week too.
Only a couple at a time, but she keeps trying,
especially when no one is trying to help her.

She still only has 2 teeth, but we can see the third one (which seems to be having an incredibly difficult time cutting through. I've been able to see it since Easter.)
It's a good thing she likes Tylenol.
I expect it will find its place any day now.

She loves having grandma (and grandma's dogs) here.
They play pat-a-cake all the time.

Molly loves playing - peek-a-boo, pat-a-cake, this little piggy.
She's not partial.
She also loves squealing and laughing (I like that too!)

(couldn't resist this one of her brother playing with her)

You're getting so big my sweet, sweet girl.
We love you!!!!

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Molly's new hobby...

Buying toilet paper is on my "to do" list for tomorrow.

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Molly is 9 months old!

Molly turned 9 months old on Saturday.



Here are some of the ways she has grown this month...

• She LOVES her brothers and wants to be wherever they are. (I can tell that this is going to be a problem in the future.)


• She is into EVERYTHING!!!! There is often a Molly trail at my house these days.

She stands all by herself all the time, and I am seeing that she has quite an independent streak about her. (She doesn't want me to try and help her stand, including holding my hand for balance.)

She loves feeding herself. (I learned the messy way to not leave the baby food jar with the spoon in it within her reach if I walk away from her while she is in her high chair - even for a few seconds)

She waves and claps.

She says hi, mama, daddy and is trying to say doggie.

She figures LOTS of things out on her own.

Here is a video of Molly playing with Maggie (one of the things she did on her own, without this kind of play being modeled for her.)

Molly, you bring such joy to our house! Happy 9 months.

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Molly at 8 months

Molly turned 8-months old yesterday. If you read my previous post, you will know that she celebrated eating dog food. She is such a joy in our lives. Yesterday morning I was washing dishes and, as she came crawling around the corner, I said "Hi" to her. She sat up right where she was and waved at me. Soooo cute. I love how she wrinkles her nose when she is happy about something. I love how she tries to make kissing noises with her tongue instead of her lips. I love how she lights up when her brothers just walk in the room. She has such a twinkle in her eye that I pray never gets stolen from her. Happy 8 months Molly!

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Dog Food - Yum!

Well, Molly has decided in the last week or so that she won't eat vegetables any more. She will gladly take cereal and fruit, but not vegetables with the one exception of sweet potatoes. I even tried seasoning the vegetables to make them more enticing, but she still spits them out. She'll even spit them out if I mix them with fruit. She's too smart for those tricks. She'll eat those gerber puffs and Cheerios. As a matter of fact, she loves having finger foods. So I thought maybe it had to do with the liquified state of the vegetables. Thinking I had MAYBE figured it out, I cut up some green beans into really small pieces that she could pick up and feed herself, and it worked - for 4 pieces. After 4 pieces she was spitting those out too. I have to say though that she WILL eat dog food - every chance she gets. If she sees the dog bowl out, she makes a bee-line for it. And my dog is the messiest eater ever. He can't just eat at his bowl. He has to carry his food around, drop it in random places and go back for it sometime during his meal, so I often find Molly with kibble in her mouth - despite my efforts to keep the dog food up when Molly is awake. Someone needs to invent dog food like kibble made out of vegetables, maybe then I could get Molly to eat green beans.

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Molly - 3 months old

I know this is almost 4 months overdue, but I just got this put together. The dress Molly is wearing is the first thing we bought when we found out we were pregnant - with Merritt. We didn't find out the sex of our first child until he was born, so we held onto the girl stuff we had purchased - with high hopes. The photos were taken by my friend Jen. She finally has her photography business officially going. Her website is http://www.jengillumphotography.com/ Thanks Jen. You're the BEST!

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Molly started on solids

Molly had cereal for the first time last week. She loves it and eats really well. It only took a couple of spoonfulls for her to get the hang of it. She was 24 weeks old yesterday - almost 6 months. I can't believe how quickly her first year is flying by.

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Molly - 17 weeks

Molly is going to be 4 months on this Sunday. Wow! Time is flying by faster with her than it did with the boys.
This month has been a fun month with her.
She loves her toes. She loves to hold them and put them in her mouth. She was getting mad the other day because she was in her car seat, which prevented her from getting her toes all the way to her mouth.

For the first couple weeks of the month, when you laid her down on the floor she would scootch all over the place on her back. Now she promptly rolls over to see what's around her first.

Last week I put her down in my bedroom at the new house (the only room with furniture in it yet). I went to the bathroom, and when I came back she was nowhere to be seen. I found her because she was squealing and cooing quite loudly, and when I looked to where the noise was coming from I saw toes sticking out from under the bed. She had scootched herself under the bed and was having a grand old time there.

This morning I put her in the saucer and she loved it.
She is growing up sooooo fast!

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Molly - 14 weeks

Here are a couple of pictures of Molly at 14 weeks old...


These pictures were taken in our new home. She has gotten pretty playful this month and is also very vocal. She doesn't roll over yet, but she moves all over the place by scooching on her back.

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Molly turned 10 weeks old yesterday!

Someone asked me how old she was on Sunday and I had trouble answering them. She is already plagued with the third child syndrome. With Merritt, I could practically tell you how many days old he was until he was 6 months old and then I could tell you his age by weeks until he was 2. With Mason, I could tell you how many weeks old he was until he was about 18 months old. Poor Molly, I had to think twice to tell how many months old she was. I think this is not only the result of already having 2 kids, but also the loss of brain cells that came with being pregnant the third time (not to mention everything else going on in our lives right now). Really, its not that the second or third children are any less important. The first one just had less to compete with. So I am going to do my best to not let Molly be the vicitim of "there are tons of pictures of my brothers, but none of me - especially by myself."

Here you are Molly on the day you turned 10 weeks old...

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