Happy 9 months Molly

Don't think you're going to get my complexion

Now we see where the red comes from!

We can't believe you are 9 months old already! You are a busy girl and into everything. You can get yourself into a sitting position and crawl  (still on your belly) everywhere. You pull up occasionally--we had to lower your crib mattress on Christmas Eve because I was worried you'd take a header overnight.

You love to wave bye-bye and hello. Your new favorite way to communicate, however, is a really obnoxious high-pitched screech. You do it for all reasons--happy, sad, and in between.

You're not eating a lot of solid foods yet--you do some finger foods and some purees and cereals, but mostly your appetite just doesn't seem that big. You're still a peanut.  Your 9mo checkup is on Tuesday, so we'll see how big you are.

You had hand surgery on your trigger thumb last week and are doing great. You weren't happy coming out of the anesthesia, but once we got you home and you had a nap, you've been fine since. We can't keep you off of your hand or keep you from putting it in your mouth, but the nurse said that's to be expected. You go back to the surgeon's next week to have the bandages removed.

You are mostly a really happy gregarious girl and hate to stay still. It's hard to keep you entertained, but you can also entertain yourself when we find enough Molly-safe things to give you.

We love you sweetheart,

Mama, Papa, and Leo

Merry Christmas

Molly's presents are almost as big as she is!

Happy elf!

Sorting presents

Helping Molly open her presents

Another Transformer!

His very own watch

A white Christmas

Christmas Legos--his first

We had a lovely quiet Christmas at home. The kids were both up by 5:45am and we had opened presents, had breakfast, and shoveled the 4.5" of snow we'd gotten overnight by 9am.

Leo loved all of his presents--with the hits being the Legos, the watch, the Transformer, the castle reusable-sticker set, the handmade tool belt from Aunt LL, and the remote control cement mixer that Santa brought--pretty much all of it. Molly got lots of nice things too--my favorite was the taggie blanket I got her on Etsy, and she looked really cute in the pink Gap outfit that Leo picked out.


We wish we could always see all of our families at all of the holidays--but it is nice to be on our own sometimes too.

Molly's big day

We didn't take the camera with us, so we don't have any pictures of Molly in her supercute hospital gown with pink animals all over it. Here she is once we got home. She still has iodine on her fingers, which is why they look yellow. She screamed and screamed after waking up at the surgical center, but slept for two hours in the car and once we got home. She woke up happy and chatty and has continued to be a champ.

Molly with Daddy this morning--a happy smiley girl who would really like to be crawling around now thank you very much!

The surgical center gave Molly and Leo balloons to take home.

PS Blogger, why do you insist on rotating some pictures and not letting me change them back?!?!?!

Toothless Joe from Hannibal, MO...

... with my apologies to Richard Adler and Jerry Ross.

Leo's loose tooth just wasn't getting any looser, so he and I made a return trip to the dentist this morning. Boy, having teeth extracted costs a bundle!





He did very well -- better than I did for the many of my teeth that needed help. He's not sure how he feels about leaving them under the pillow tonight, but it's an ongoing discussion.

Day in the life of a superhero

Molly smiles pretty!

Shy reindeer

Crazy super reindeer!

Even superheroes need to eat

Instructing Molly in the way of presents. He's wearing goggles because he insists he needs them to crawl under the tree to plug in the lights.

Getting and losing teeth

Leo's tooth still hasn't fallen out, but you can see that the new one is already coming in.

Jeff had to get Molly to laugh so you could see her tooth coming in.

Housecleaning

No, not literally--haha fooled you. You don't know me very well if you thought that meant my house was clean. Whew. Thanks for a good laugh.

What I meant was, it's been awhile since we've done a post--busy busy, etc. so here's a recap.

We got a huge snow Dec 1-2. Something like 9". Leo couldn't wait to play in it and after playing in the morning complained later in the day that he'd been cooped up in the house too long and wanted to go out and play again. That's my boy!









Leo very excited about getting his first real Transformer (Nightbeat) for St. Nicks. He doesn't really know the Transformers, and I finally found one that wasn't evil/battle oriented.










Leo's been wearing his backpack around lot lately because he says he's ready for school. He has his 5yr checkup earlier this month and was 3' 7 1/4" tall and 39.6 lbs.
















There's Molly! She can combat crawl well now--and we think she does it so she doesn't have to put weight on her left hand, because her thumb likely feels uncomfortable then. She has her trigger thumb surgery on the 22nd. Jeff told me today that she'll have to wear a mini hospital gown and will get an IV.







Leo is sooooo excited about Christmas and couldn't wait to decorate the tree. He bounded out of his room at 6:30am this past Sunday morning because we were going to put up the tree and decorate it (that means to trim it Mommy).

Happy 8 months Molly!

Yeah, we're late again. Time flies and all that jazz. We've been very busy, and so have you--learning and growing. Well, not growing much, since you're still a peanut.















You are almost crawling, and in the last few days have been scooting or command crawling on your stomach. You really don't like being in one place any length of time, whether on a lap or on the floor or in your bouncer, you want to be moving and doing.








You love to be read to, but it's a toss-up whether you'd rather be read to or would rather eat the book. You're babbling alot and tonight at dinner we thought you almost waved and said bah bah.

You don't seem to like eating purees all that much and would rather have small chunks of well-cooked veggies that you can feed to yourself. I feel like we missed a stage!

We love you, Mama, Papa, and Leo

Thanksgiving

We went up to Wausau for Thanksgiving this year and had a lovely time. It was too short a trip--we went up on Tuesday (because there was snow forecast for Wednesday) and came back Saturday.

Leo and Grandpa Ervin














Leo watching TV with Grandpa's headphones while GramGram wraps Christmas presents











Molly taking a break from trying to crawl














Leo helping GramGram tear the bread for the stuffing












Leo impatiently waiting to go outside to shovel snow--we got 1.5" while we were there!

















Molly's eager to read the ads to prepare for Black Friday












Leo loved washing dishes