January

For the most part, January has been a yucky month. VERY VERY cold and we have all had colds! We are doing our best to have fun despite the conditions:)

Molly cheers for the LSU Tigers in the Cotton Bowl!

A great way to pass a boring, cold day: Hold a Birthday Party for Baby Dear!

Helping her Baby blow out her candle

The Birthday Girl

Molly has started to tolerate Topsy, and even plays with him a little:)

This past week Molly finally rode her bike!!! She has had ZERO interest in it until recently. The weather gave us a heavenly break this weekend so it was a great time to ride bikes!

Very proud of her new skill

My favorite picture in a very long time. Love a child's joyfulness!

Christmas 2010

We had a truly wonderful Christmas and entire Christmas season. I thought last year was a special Christmas, but this year was just amazing. Molly was SOOO into it. No matter how we counted down the days until Christmas, Molly couldn't help "When is Christmas?" at least 20 times a day! Our Elf on the Shelf, Ya YA came to visit our house again and every morning the first thing Molly did was hunt for him. Ya Ya was named last year after her friend Alexandra's grandmother, who is Greek and called Ya Ya. Needless to say, Molly loves her:) She also got her own tree this year, which she decorated herself... and all the ornaments were in one area of the tree, so it had a nice slant to it due to the weight of the ornaments! We baked up a storm this year and gave personalized cookies as gifts to classmates and teachers. Baking is a fave activity of ours so we had a bunch of fun with that. We visited the best Santa in the world at Northpark again and Molly requested a dollhouse and a Jessie doll form Toy Story 3.

Christmas Eve was fun because Molly's cousins Kate and Mary were here and they played and played and played. I don't think Molly talked to us much that entire day, she was so consumed with her cousins! We enjoyed the Childrens service at Church with the Belfs and family. After that, we were at Mimis house for their annual party which was fun. Santa visited again, allowing the kids one last chance to plead their cases:) Molly was SO excited to go to bed that night and was so stressed that we were still up- Santa might pass us by since we were up! The next morning, we did stockings at our house and opened the gifts between the 3 of us before heading over to the Hickeys for the BIG BIG Christmas morning! Molly got the dollhouse of her dreams and her Barbies and Princesses didn't waste time moving in:) We got so many wonderful gifts- we are so loved and blessed! The question has been asked several times already "How long do we have to wait for Christmas?"!!! Luckily her fave Holiday, Valentines Day is right around the corner to pacify her!

Reading The Grinch- she memorized that long old book!

Molly and Santa

Santa on Christmas Eve... Molly did express some concern over his "dark eyebrows"!

Sweet cousins

My wonderful family

You know Molly was thrilled at the chance to have her babies visit with Santa.

Proud Mother. Baby Dear got a sister from us on Christmas Eve, and she named her Kelly.

This year we has a S'mores station at the Christmas eve party- so fun!

Molly and her dollhouse on Christmas morning!

Papa refurbished Kyle's old bike for Molly. She still cannot pedal her trike, so this will have to wait a (long!) while... but it was such a loving gift!

Really, how cute is this?!?

We are so thankful for such a special Christmas, for our wonderful families, and of course for the best gift of all- a loving, forgiving and awesome Saviour!

Big Catch Up!

I just have not been in the photo/blogging mood lately! To say I have bitten off more than I can chew this year is a HUGE understatement! I am still working on my time management skills:)

We had a fun November. We celebrated Papa's 80th Birthday with family and friends and headed to Kansas for Thanksgiving.

Molly continues to grow and change. I feel like she is getting really old and big lately. She still LOVES her friends with all her heart. They are so very dear to her. She is still loving school and I think she would love to go everyday.... we'll be there soon enough! She is VERY into art still- that remains her favorite activity. She is also very determined about writing and reading. Each and every day before her quiet time she asks me how to write a sentence and then spends her hour in her room at her little desk writing. She has gotten good! For my Birthday she wrote me a card that said I love You, Mommy all on her own. Best gift EVER. She also wants to know how to spell everything and what everything says. I think she will really enjoy reading when she is older.

Sweetest girls I know! How blessed we are to have Kate and Mary in our family!

Papa's 80th B-Day party... note that Molly's eyes are fixed on that cake!

My pumpkin. The day she gets too big to be held and snuggled will be a sad, sad day for me.

Ninny and Molls working hard on a story

Molly was SO into pumpkin pie this year! She just insisted we have it, even though none of us are big fans of it!

My brother continues to be a very devoted uncle. So proud of him.

I even hunted with Kylie!

Molly reading How The Grinch Stole Christmas. She has it memorized.... the whole thing!

Halloween 2010

After a lot of debate and soul searching... Molly opted to be Tinkerbell for Halloween! She recently saw Peter Pan for the first time and she is NOW obsessed with all things Peter Pan, so Tinkerbell was a great pick. About a month ago, Milam also told her she looked "as beautiful as Tinkerbell when she ran"... so I know that didn't hurt, either! I had a lot of fun making her costume this year- I hope to continue to do that in the future. Molly has a great Halloween this year, but I think she enjoyed the fun surrounding the Holiday more than the actual Trick-or-Treating. She was scared by the dark and all the scary costumes! We did about 5 houses and she was satisfied with that!

Molly's class Halloween party. ALL of the boys were super heroes this year!

Molly and her dear friend, Alexandra as Minnie Mouse. These 2 are already panicking about being in different classes next year! They were in class together last year, as well as this year... and they do ballet and art together!

At Will and Hanks Halloween bash before Trick or Treating. AA and Hannah could not have been cuter!

Joined at the hip, as usual!

RARE shot of friends!

All of our precious kids about to venture out and get some candy. I adore these children!

I thought this back view was so cute!

Molly is already talking about next Halloween's costume. She has it narrowed down to about 25 choices:)

Rangers, Rockets and More

We've had a really fun couple of weeks. I LOVE the Fall, so I am so excited to finally be in the thick of October- most days feel pretty fall-ish, with a few hot Texas days thrown in! Molly has changed her mind so many times on her Halloween costume but I *think* she has finally settled on the Tooth Fairy. She is really into kids losing baby teeth, and she HATES that they are called baby teeth, but she is clearly a Big Girl and not a baby! So I have been working on creating a tooth fairy for her! We'll see if this one sticks!

Lucy and Annie came to play one afternoon and the girls had a Big time. They made lots of crafts, put on princess shows and were just plain cute!

Make your own tiaras!

Painting pumpkins- Annie was SO happy about this. She is a little pumpkin herself.

Goofy as anything

Proud Molly with her rocket. Kyle got this rocket a while ago "for Molly". Ha! He worked on this thing every chance he go for a week! Then Molly got to decorate it with stickers. They have shot it off a few times and Molly thinks it is pretty cool.

Molly and Mimi

Hannah, Molly and Alice Anne at the fair. They had so much fun! The big girls rode on some pretty wild rides! A few times we would bump that big ol' bow up to give her some inches so she could ride!

Cotton Candy was a hit!

Woo Hoo! On our way to see the Rangers play!

Molly and Mimi cheering for the Rangers!

M's fave part of the games- unlimited food in our suite! Pringles in particular...

The Rangers didn't pull this one out, but did on Tuesday sending us on and one step closer to the World Series- we are so excited! Molly loves going up to the games. She really loves meeting all the people up there. This last time, she had a pen and notebook and made her way to every single person on the suite to "interview" them. She would record them in her notebook for "research". Questions included: "what is your favorite type of house: regular or castle?", " What is your favorite type of dolphin: blue or sparkly?", "what is your favorite type of chair: regular or comfy?". She then ended by telling them she would draw them with another type of body... which would they prefer: Turtle body or mermaid body?!?! She is so funny. So bold and brave and confident!