Cheerio Disaster

I told Molly she could get some Cheerios out for Claire while I unloaded groceries from the car. They went all the way down the entry way and into the kitchen. At least she was helpful cleaning them up, although Claire looked pretty disappointed that her Cheerio haven was disappearing almost as quickly as it had come. She probably knew it was too good to be true.

Playing Outside

Last week the weather was so beautiful that we had to soak up as much time outside as possible before the sweltering heat takes over. We spend a lot of time in the grass belt next to our house.




Claire thinks the best part about this car is turning around, standing up, and trying her hardest to fall overboard.


Chris and I haven't been able to get much use out of the longboards since the kids came along, so we're getting creative.

Crazy Claire

Claire is definitely getting to be a handful to keep up with. She is pulling herself up on everything, including the most unstable objects. She doesn't like to be held, and if it's a time where I need to be holding her she just spins circles in my arms trying desperately to get down. She is also getting too fast for me to keep up with. My dad thinks we need to attach a dustmop to her clothes so she can get a little work done while she's moving. She (like most babies her age) puts anything and everything in her mouth. Her worst finds lately have been a piece of glass (she didn't even cry, the only reason I knew it was in there is because her mouth was bleeding) and a dead horsefly. Luckily when I fished it out of her mouth it was still in tact, so I don't think she managed to swallow any wings or legs.

Lollilocks

Molly went to Lollilocks this week for her first official haircut. I thought it would be so fun, but I was definitely wrong (as usual). The place was really fun, but Molly still cried 3/4 of the way through. They have fun animal chairs to sit in, but we sat in a regular chair because she insisted on sitting in my lap. The haircut was pretty mediocre. It wasn't any better than a haircut my mom gives at her house sitting in her highchair, and that would have been free. Probably a lot less crying too. These pictures were taken after the haircut was over, when the elephant chair suddenly didn't seem so intimidating.

Disneyland!!

For Christmas my parents took all of us (8 adults, 7 kids, 6 of them under 2) to Disneyland. We took a day each way for driving and two days Chris couldn't get all of the time off work, so he met us there for the second day of Disneyland. I was pretty nervous about all of the traveling and dealing with the kids at Disneyland by myself, but the kids did great. Molly had a great time and Claire was a real trooper.

Loaded up and ready to go!






Yes, I wore my pink Crocs to Disneyland. I know they're not exactly "in" but are they so far out of style that I was really the only person at Disneyland wearing them? Hmm, I suppose I just answered my own question...


The highlights for Molly were when she and Amelia got to ride on their own bench together. They did that on the Winnie-the-Pooh ride and Small World.



I was so glad to see a smaller version of the classic Disneyland sucker. They are a Disneyland necessity, and these ones are probably a 1/4 the size of the regular ones. Molly still ended up throwing well over half of it away.


Claire's Disneyland souvenir was a little boat with kids from the Small World riding in it. It kept Claire entertained during the long wait for the parade.

Christmas Festivities

Since Chris was working on Christmas, our festivities got spread over the second half of the week. We celebrated at my parent's house on Christmas day, then we had our own family Christmas the Saturday after, and Chris's family was nice enough to hold off on their festivities until Saturday too so Chris could be there.


Round one of gift opening. Everybody wasn't gathered in the living room yet so the kids drove the presents around on this car until it was time to open.




Even though there was a ton of toys, the kids all wanted to play with the same toy at the same time (shocking). This is the kids huddles around Max's doctor kit.


The next round was at our house Saturday morning. I don't know how many years we'll be able to pull this off if Chris has to work Christmases regularly, but we certainly had no trouble this year. Molly finally got to open up the 25th on the advent calendar on the 27th.

Santa brought the girls a bounce house/ball pit, but he brought us a lemon that won't fully inflate. I'm still trying to decide what to do about that one. According to Amazon (apparently Santa is a bargain shopper) I can return it but they don't have anymore in stock to replace it. I'm afraid Molly would be devastated if we returned it, so we might have to tough it out with the saggy walls. We'll see.





I wasn't totally excited about getting Molly this Thomas, but that's what she said she wanted. I'm pretty sure it's because Max wanted a train, and Molly latched on to the idea too.


Third and final round: Christmas at the Blacks.




The marshmallow guns were definitely one of the highlights.


So was cousin Lexi's chalk.

Too Much Noise

The other day Chris went into Molly's room while she was asleep and found this. I guess Chris and my usual bedtime routine of watching Seinfeld and the Simpson's got to be a little too loud, forcing her to cover her head with a pillow. And yes, she has WAY too many animals, blankets, hats, etc. in her bead, but my hand has been forced; I am willing to do almost anything to bribe her to stay in her bed these days.

Christmas Mumus

Every year my mom gets everyone in the family a new pair of pajamas for Christmas. But this year she decided that was played out, and there was not nearly enough fabric involved in a pair of Christmas pajama pants. Enter the new tradition of the Christmas mumu. Yowza.

Incidentally, the children and men did not get involved in the Christmas mumus, only us lucky women.

More Comparisons

Claire is on the top and Molly is on the bottom. I think they look so similar! But I suppose a lot of the similairty can be attributed to my strange interest in taking pictures of Claire to duplicate pictures I have of Molly. Unfortunately my mom didn't have any Cheerios when I took the pictures of Claire so the Goldfish had to suffice.

Special Day With Nana

A couple of weeks ago Chris's mom took Molly for the day to have some one-on-one time (and a little break for me - thank you Kathy!). They put up Christmas decorations, baked cookies, and she took Molly to see her first theater movie, "Bolt." From what I understand she was pretty mesmerized at first, but Molly let her know she had enough partway through. They tried out "Madagascar" instead, which lasted a little longer, but she wasn't too interested in finishing that off either.

Singing in Church

Our whole family sang in my parent's ward Christmas Sunday. The focus was on the kids, which was pretty tricky with three two-year olds and a four-year old. The whole thing was looking pretty frightening every time we practiced, but apparently those kids are performers because they all sang incredibly when it came to showtime.

This is the kids practicing before the big day. You can see Jessie's hand holding up a chocolate, which we were using to bribe the kids to sing.