Monday, May 26, 2008

Finally French Braids!

I have been waiting for Molly's hair to be long enough for French Braids since the day she was born. I think I've been so excited about it because that's how my mom fixed my hair nearly every day when I was little. Before school every day my mom would line me and my sisters up for the morning braids; the only decision we got to make is how many braids we wanted (I opted for three one morning-I'm sure if you can picture that look in your mind you can understand why I never asked for three again). Molly seems to be almost as excited about the new hairstyle as I am, although it's probably because I gush over how beautiful she looks after it's done. She's a real trooper to sit on the bathroom counter for ten minutes while I braid, and the funny thing is she says "ow, hurts" in a very monotone voice about every ten seconds. I think she knows that it doesn't really matter if she says it hurts because we're going to press on anyway, so she doesn't bother putting much effort into it. Isn't that cruel?


Water Babies

Molly and Claire had their first pool outing of the summer about a week ago; my friend Jenny was nice enough to let us borrow her pool keys. As expected, Molly absolutely loved it. Her teeth were chattering and her lips were practically blue after a while, but she insisted on staying in. Chris even helped her get her head under water a couple of times and she did fine (to me no crying means she did fine-she was exactly excited about having her head under water). We definitely need to get her in swimming lessons soon!



Claire on the other hand was not as excited about the pool as Molly was. The water was still pretty cold so she didn't really care to have much more than her feet dipped in. I wish I would have gotten a picture of her in her swimsuit and not just the cover-up because it's pretty awesome (Chris's mom got new sweet swimsuits for both the kids-I think Molly looks like she's ready to go surfing!)

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Claire's Blessing Dress

After I spent a small fortune on portraits I realized that I didn't get any vertical pictures of Claire, they were all horizontal. Unfortunately the spots I needed the pictures for are for vertical pictures, so I had to do an extra home photo shoot. I stacked up some pillows on the ground and took two black skirts and a black dress to make the background. I took a million and finally got one really awesome one of her smiling. The rest are mostly just funny.




More of the Girls Together

Molly and Claire looking especially good for church. Isn't Molly's dress spectacular?


Molly insists that Claire lay in this "fishy" toy with her whenever it's out. If Claire starts to cry and I pick her up Molly will scream at me to put her back down with her.

Saturday, May 17, 2008

Molly's First Curse Word...sort of

I take full responsibility for that. I've never said that to her before, but I know I say it around her all the time. You never know what they'll pick up on...

Friday, May 16, 2008

First triathlon...Yikes!

It's official! Chris, my dad and I have signed up for our first-ever triathlon on October 11th. We all have a lot of training to do but I'm really excited about it. It's an off-road triathlon, so it's a 750 meter swim, off-road running for 3.1 miles, and mountain biking for 10 miles. Here's the website in case anybody's interested: http://www.redrockco.com/pbr-road-triathlon . Wish us luck because we're definitely going to need it!

Friday, May 9, 2008

More Potty Training

We've reached almost the end of Week Two in potty training, and we've made some real progress. She very rarely has accidents (unfortunately one of the rare occurrences was when Molly was borrowing Max's Pack-N-Play for a nap) except for #2 which we still have almost-daily accidents with. She just branched out yesterday and used the potty at the fire station, which is a big step for us because she previously didn't like public potties at all. Hopefully in the next couple of weeks she have it all figured out and the nightmare that is potty training will be a thing of the past!


Molly has started to feel so confident in her potty skills that she's started to catch up on her reading material.

More Pictures

Molly got a play castle from my cousin Erin and she thought she could fit sitting on one of the play chairs. She was so proud of herself when she got it positioned correctly so she could sit on the seat and not get stabbed in the bum by one of the legs!


Chris and Claire having a very serious conversation.


Molly can't get within a foot of Claire without laying down next to her and saying "Take a picture!" We have about a million pictures like this because Molly loves it. I finally started telling Molly I didn't know where my camera was, but she called me out on it and said "Mommy, in the bag!" I didn't know she knew where I kept my camera. Oops.


I can't get enough of the towel pictures!

Everybody Loves the Bumbo

I got the Bumbo out this morning to see how Claire would do, and she loved it! It looks a little silly because the seat is so huge and she's so tiny, but she seemed to really be enjoying herself. Molly spent the entire time Claire was in the Bumbo saying "Woggy's turn, Woggy's turn." So finally after she tried to lift Claire out of the Bumbo by the neck I let her have a turn. I was surprised she could actually fit her legs through the openings still!


You'll have to excuse Molly's wild appearance, but I guess I'm happy she at least she has clothes on! She's been running around in panties the past two weeks because of the potty training, so this is a step up for us.

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Portraits



















Saturday, May 3, 2008

Two Months Old!

It's so hard to believe Claire has been in our family for two months! She's already starting to grow out of some of her clothes even though it seems like she's still a newborn!