We're pretty Thankful!

Well, Thanksgiving is here, and like most bloggers out there, I decided to write a post of things I'm thankful for. It's funny how with each passing day the list gets longer, it changes, things are added, but not usually removed. With the exception of the time that I was grateful for some cool new shoes we bought for McKinley and then they broke the next day. That item was removed from the list, but the Nordstrom Rack return policy was added, so I guess it evened itself out.
Each night I'm lucky enough to be able to put my girls to bed. Robbie and I rotate who does what and which one of us puts which one of them to bed. But, every night I get to put one of them to bed. There is nothing that makes me feel more grateful than bedtime with me girls. I remember how grateful I am for little hugs, giggles and cuddles as Molly and I read books and rock before bed time. And the things McKinley is thankful for each night really put things in perspective for me as well. As a matter of fact, just last night she and Robbie watched the end of a nature show that was talking about snakes. As I took her to bed, she looked at me with very BIG, very serious eyes and said in a whisper, "Mom, are the snakes going to get me?".  I answered with a reassuring "No, snakes can't get you, there are no snakes in our house." As she got into bed and prayed she said "Thank you that no snakes can climb in my bed." I can't remember the last time I was thankful for that, but as she said I wholeheartedly agreed.
So, today as I reflect on what I'm thankful for I'm just going to give you a few things that maybe you have and maybe you haven't also thought of this year (these are in no particular order).

• I would be a bad person if, even with a very abbreviated list,I didn't list Robbie, Molly and McKinley. They are, after all, three of the most important people to me in the entire world.
• How about Jillian Michael's....her 30 day Shred and Ripped in 30 were fun and effective, thank you Jillian.
• Friends...near and far.
• Nebulizers and steroids to keep my baby breathing freely.
• My space heater, it has changed my work life and the after math of walking down the stairs for the better.
• The auto start on my car. I totally thought this was a lame-ish novelty item when it came with my car, but my babies get in warm cars and my legs get a lot of reprieve on those cold winter days when I get in and the car is warm.
• Rock climbing with my family for the first time in 4 years and I made it to the top! Holla! (yes, I just said holla and I'm not ashamed :) )
• My calling in Primary, even thought it just ended.
• The way McKinley says "lub" instead of love.
• Not being attacked by snakes in my house.
• How Molly claps each time she accomplishes something she's trying to do.
• Chocolate cake donuts covered in chocolate frosting.

There are easily a gazillion more things that I'm thankful for and many more that are more important to me than Jillian Michael's, but I'm going to save those to tell them to my family! Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Molly's Birthday Fun

Molly's Birthday was last week. I was so excited for her big first birthday! On her birthday we had brownies and sung to her and let her open a present. She was so much better at opening the present than I thought she would be.

We had her big birthday party a few days later and invited family over to celebrate with us. I made little stuffed animal owl and gift bags for the kids and we had a ball pit for them to play in.

(this was the best shot Robbie got, but I promise they were really cute! Each little kid went home with one)

I wanted lunch to be something Molly would thoroughly enjoy, it is her party after all, so we had sloppy joes, tater tots, salad and juice. I was pleasantly surprised that the adults liked it as well.

After lunch we opened presents and I have to say that our family was far to generous to this little girl. As she opened her presents she wanted to play with every single one. I had to start hiding them to get her to go onto the next gift!

It was really cute when we sang happy birthday, she got kind of shy and cuddled her head on my shoulder, I've never really seen that side of her before, so it was a cute little surprise. She enjoyed her cake and gobbled up some ice cream. I was pretty happy with how he cake turned out.

It was such a fun day and we look forward to a lot more birthdays to come!

Molly Turned One!

My sweet little Molly has turned one, can you beleive it? It seems like I blinked and now it's been a year. I'm never very sentimental, but Molly turning one has me reminiscing a lot about my sweet little baby over the last year! She was such an easy baby; cuddly and happy with a head of dark brown hair. Now her hair has lightened, she talks all the time but she still loves to cuddle with her Mom. I hope she never stops wanting to cuddle her Mom!

With one whopping year behind her are her stats:

Weight: 20 lbs 3 oz. (36.64%)

Height: 28 1/2 inches (59.85%)

Molly has been doing a lot lately. She got her first tooth when she was 11 months old and it was followed quickly by two more. She started walking at about 10 months and is now totally proficient. She loves to play with McKinley and they can get rough housing pretty good. She loves to hold/cuddle anything soft from stuffed animals to clothes to blankets. She is passionate about the things she wants and doesn't mind making a fuss if she doesn't get what she wants. She says "Mama" all the time and the occasional "Dada". Her favorite book is Galoshes. She is very adventurous; climbing on everything and getting into all of the cupboards. She refuses to come down the stairs backwards. If it's a lot of stairs, she'll sit at the top and yell until we come get her; if it's 3 or less stairs, she tries to walk down them which usually ends up in a fall, but never crying. She loves to play chase and also loves puzzles. She often wonders around carrying something, the item doesn't matter, she just loves to carry things. She's a ball of energy, that doesn't often stop moving unless she's asleep. She laughs all the time and it is the cutest little giggle I've ever heard!

Molly is such a special girl that brings so much fun to our house! We love you Molly!

Halloween

This is a post I wrote a while ago and forgot to publish!

Halloween was so much fun this year. We've been very busy enjoying some fun Halloween activities. A couple of weeks before Halloween we went to the local pumpkin patch and picked out pumpkins. It was a lot of fun. The patch has a little corn maze, lots of tractors and of course pumpkins. We had a good time going up and down the rows of pumpkins trying to find just the right one. Molly was more than happy to smile and pose for the camera, but McKinley was less willing. It was an oddly warm day for October which was really nice too!

My brother and his family were in town about a week before Halloween and we went to Cornbelly's at Thanksgiving Point. It was a lot of fun. I had never been before and even though it was a windy and cold day, the kids had a blast!

Grandma and Grandpa were nice enough to end the day with churros and hot chocolate for all of us, so we could warm up on the way home!

The day before Halloween, we drove up to have dinner with Nana and Papa. Papa had to leave town, but we stayed to carve pumpkins with Nana and had a great time carving and then showing her the girls costumes. Apparently we didn't take one picture of the actual carving, or one with Nana, but we did get shot of the pumpkins.

Then came Halloween. McKinley had a program at school and was SOOOO excited that Nana could come with Robbie and I to see her. They dressed up in their costumes, paraded in and did a program of a bunch of Halloween songs. It was really cute and McKinley did a a great job.

I brough the girls to trick or treat at my work and then there was trick or treating that night. It was such a fun day. McKinley enjoys giving out the candy as much as getting it! Here are our cute little black cat and witch:

Molly's "First" Haircut

Molly's hair was so out of control. The top of her hair is growing in so much quicker than the sides...McKinley did the same thing, but not quite as drastically. Here are some really awesome pictures of her super cool hair. These are what lead me to getting her hair cut!

I've cut it a few times when it started to look particularly homeless, but decided it was time to have a professional fix it up for her. Ruthie was kind enough to cut Molly's hair on the last Friday in September and it turned out so cute! It was fast, Ruthie was awesome...maybe 7 minutes and she looked like new little girl. She was so good too, she just quietly sat there trying to figure out what was going on.She looks so much better. Her hair is starting to get long again, but looks great!

Conversations With a 3 Year Old

I was driving to work today and McKinley and I had some funny conversations, they went something like this:

McKinley: Mom, you are my special girl.
Me: You are my special girl! Did you know that I have two special ladies? You and Molly.
McKinley: I have two special ladies!
Me: Who?
McKinley: Mommy and Daddy!
Me: (giggling under my breath) Daddy is your special lady?
McKinley: Well, no he is a boy.

Then I missed my turn because I couldn't merge over in time.

McKinley: This isn't the way to school.
Me: I know, I missed my turn, so I have to turn here and then flip a U-ey and go that way.
McKinley: This is not a U-ey Mom, this is the store.

Then I accidentally got in the turn lane instead of the straight lane (I know, not my best driving day).
Me: Darnit, we have to go the long way, I got into the wrong lane.
McKinley: Dad doesn't have to turn around because he doesn't miss his turn or go in a U-ey. Because Dad is a grown man.

Oh how I love talking with my 3 year-old!

Soccer Anyone?

McKinley joined a soccer team this year of 3 and 4 year-olds. It has been an interesting ride so far. We've had several practices and now a few games. The first game, McKinley basically refused to go in. She sat on the side enjoying her comfy chair and snacks. She did go in a couple of times and there was a fleeting moment of joy, but when she didn't get to kick the ball, she got sad and came out.

The second game brought Robbie and I to our game plan....bribery! We told her every time she went in she would get a Pringle, every time she chased after the ball she would get a Pringle, if she kicked the ball she got 2 Pringles and a goal would get her 3 Pringles. It worked like a charm! She went in the game and even kicked the ball a lot, we just need to work on turning it.

Now we don't even have to bribe her to go in, it's awesome! She loves to go in and last week she even scored a goal! Grandma, Grandpa and Uncle Jon and Uncle Ty came to one game and Nana and Papa came to another, McKinley LOVED having them there! But this person right here is her #1 fan, for sure! (yes, this is Molly's hair before her first haircut, another post on that is coming)

The funniest thing about soccer so far is 1-how HUGE their jerseys are and 2-that parents run on the field with their kids to get them used to it....yes, we do this with McKinley. I think by the end of the 8 game season she may be willing to do it on her own!

Cartoons

So, many (most) of you know that I have two brothers that are quite a bit younger than me. One is 13 and one is 15. Well, when these guys were younger Robbie and I used to tease them about how weird the cartoons they watched were. We would laugh and talk about how the ones we watched when we were little were soooo cool!
Well, just the other night we found a channel that plays cartoons we used to watch. We found them in the middle of the night when we were up giving Molly a treatment. They had He-Man and She-Ra. We were so excited and nastalgic about getting to watch these cartoons again.
After making through nearly half of an episode of each we determined that our cartoons were totally weird as well.
Seriously, did any of you like those shows when you were kids and think they were cool? If you watched them again, I think you'd be surprised at how weird they are!

Molly is 9 Months Old

This was a draft I kept meaning to post.....here you go a month later!

Molly is already 9 months old and she just keeps getting busier and busier. Here are some things we've learned about our little miss:

* She loves to play the "chase" game. She'll be down on the floor crawling all around and we'll get down and say "MOOOLLYYY" and then she looks back, giggles and takes off. It is so funny. When we catch her we tickle her, but if we're taking too long to get to her she'll stop in the middle of her speed crawl, lay on the ground, look back and us and giggle with anticipation!

* Molly is always happy, but knows what she wants. If you take something away from her that she was enjoying she'll yell at you and then immediately go back to smiling.

* She climbs up the stairs, she can get to a standing position with no help if she feels like it and she loves to hold my fingers and walk.

* She's a real Mommy's girl. In Molly's book, there is nothing better than Mom. That's the opposite of McKinley when she was a baby, so Robbie and I joke that now we each have one!

* When she gets tired she like to rub the hair on the side of her head.

* One of her favorite things to do in the morning in crawl into McKinley's room, over to her bookshelf and pull all of the books off.

I took her in for her well-child check up on Wednesday and she's 18 lbs 8 oz (48%) and she's 24 inches long.

We love having her in our family, it just wouldn't be the same without her!

Raspberry Days

As usual, we spent some time in Bear Lake for our family reunion over Raspberry Days at Grandpa's cabin. We had a great time. We tubed, we skied, we swam and whole bunch of other stuff.

We arrived late Thursday night in time to go to bed. Friday started the day with some golfing for Robbie. He said he had a great time. Rumors have it Andy lost a club, Christian was nearly killed by a tree, Robbie had a great time and Jon golfed Happy Gilmore style on a couple of holes.

Friday afternoon we visited the craft fair, had some delicious roasted corn on the cob and swam at the pool. In the evening McKinley and I worked on our cupcakes for the competition. We made a lemon cupcake with lemon frosting and Raspberry filling...it was delicious.

Saturday we ran/walked a 5k. Robbie tried to beat Jon, but unfortunately did not and this time it was not the fault of an old man in front of him! Truthfully, I have not run or walked in any sort f race since I suffered from bi-lateral femoral neuropathy. I work out and I run sometimes, but it doesn' feel the same. But, I decided I would do the 5k to prove that I could...even pushing the girls. I mostly walked it the 5k, enjoying the company of my sister who was pushing her baby and my dad and the occasional cousin, uncle and aunt. The girls were pretty set up with books, drinks, sunglasses and a blanket. The terrain started out mild...making me feel totally comfortable, then it became a little rocky, then really rocky and then up the side of a foothill on a dirt path! Needless to say, it was work and fun for Mom. Molly ended up falling asleep and McKinley didn't get too restless until the end. After the race they handed out ribbons and had a raffle. Robbie got 5th in his division and I won a purse that McKinley quickly claimed as her own!

Before the Race:

After the Race:

This is everyone who ran the race from the family. All wearing our matching family t-shirts:

I really hardly took any pictures at all. But, Saturday afternoon we rented a boat and this crazy tube was tons of fun. Robbie and I almost got it in a full barrel-roll a few times, my brothers were successful at least twice. The tube was so wild I nearly lost the bottoms to my tankini during a crash that left my elbow burned and my knee and arm bruised! I was grateful to catch them at my knees and for the boat to take a minute to get back to me floating in the water!

Saturday night was Cupcake wars, which were a lot of fun. The overall winner was a raspberry shake cupcake, which was awesome. Although, even outside the winner, there were a lot of delicious and good looking submissions.

Sunday was a day of church, family home evening, food, playing, cleaning and traveling. All in all it was another great trip to Bear Lake.

Swimming Lessons

If you've ever been swimming with McKinley then you learn one thing real quick: she is crazy in the water! She really believes she can swim and has no fear. It's a bad combination that leads to a lot of chasing, running and saving on the parts of Robbie and myself.

So, this year we put her in swimming lessons. She just started last week and has done a great job. She puts her face in the water, jumps from the side, kicks and moves her arms in a manner similar to a free style swim (with someone holding her of course), she's learning to float on her back and also do the arm motions for the back stroke. Obviously she's only 3, but I think she's doing really great for her age.

My biggest problem at swimming lessons is keeping Molly out of the pool! And yes, this day I did take her in her pajamas hoping that just MAYBE she'd fall asleep there or on the way home. I was wrong!

Family Pictures

We finally had new family pictures taken this week. Embarrassingly enough, the last ones we had taken were when McKinley was 6 months old. So, ya, if you do the math...that was just over two-and-a-half years ago!

We went into a place called FotoFly (www.fotofly.com) and I really liked how they turned out. Of course the day pictures came were crazy. McKinley had a fever of 102 and Molly was refusing to take a nap before hand. Our clothes didn't go together quite as I had hoped and Molly's hair was insane! All in all though, I think they turned out well. Here are a few of my favorites:

There are so many others that I really loved. I think I won't let two-and-a-half years go by before the next ones!

What Have We Been Doing?

A little bit of everything! We've been to South Jordan Days, a triathlon, 3 baby blessings (a niece and two nephews, a family reunion, the lady bug release, bowling, the zoo (more than once), the aquarium, a few birthday parties, fireworks, a carnival, a bounce house, Cherry Hill, the Aquarium, the doctor several times and Bear Lake. Robbie and I also celebrated our 8th anniversary and saw Harry Potter.
Everyone is growing and changing around here lately. Robbie has taken to calling Molly "Evil Kenevil" because she is so wild and adventurous. She crawls, she climbs, she cruises, she eats like crazy and she has no fear. She is also cuddly, really loves her mom, smiles all of the time and follows her big sister to the best of her ability.
McKinley has decided that making up words is the coolest thing ever. She's also learned all of the words to a few Taylor Swift songs and the Lazy Song. She picks up on music so fast. She likes to teach things to Molly and still prefers her Dad.
Life has been busy, but I'll post something fun soon, I just need to find the time! :)

McKinley Turned 3!

How did this happen so fast? How did my sweet little baby go from being so small to being so big!

On May 6th, McKinley turned 3 and she is so excited to be three. McKinley is doing a lot of fun stuff lately. She's learning to ride a bike, she can do most letters with their appropriate sound. She spells her name, she loves play dough and puzzles and Candy Land. She talks all the time and sings even more than that. Robbie and I joke that her life is a musical! She's a great big sister and loves to tell jokes. She recently found an imaginary friend too. His name is Brother and he only appears when we are in the car. He apparently tells the funniest jokes and often she accidentally kicks him in the head and has to apologize. She has such as imagination. She still loves the water and recently she decided she's old enough to take showers instead of baths.

These are some pictures from McKinley's actually birthday. We gave her a big cupcake and let her open all of her presents, she had a great time.
The next day we had a birthday party with all the family that is here it town, it was so great of everyone to come, she had a blast with everybody at the party! McKinley wanted a "Woody" birthday party, so first we made alien cupcakes like the aliens from the movie.

Then we played pin the Badge on Woody/Put the Symbol on Buzz.
We opened presents next and I'm happy to report that McKinley didn't throw any of her presents to the side this year like she did with the clothes last year. :)

Here are the girls getting ready for the cake to come out.

Blowing out the candles!

Molly was a great sport through all of the festivities and even wore one of McKinley's birthday presents for the pictures. Doesn't she look cute in a little crown.

Happy Birthday McKinley we love you!