Backyard Photo Shoot

Cardinal's baseball is a pretty big deal around our house. In fact we often 'joke' the Molly was named after Yadier Molina, my favorite player. Mike counts down to opening day of baseball season like most people count down to Christmas. When we found out Molly was going to be a girl we went shopping at Babies R Us and Mike found the girl baseball clothes section and immediately bought some things. Fast forward to baseball season and the cutest little Cardinal fan around. I had a great idea for a do-it-myself photo shoot (who can afford professional pictures) and they turned out pretty cute. I wish I had found something better than a bath towel to set under her, and I also wish I was better at lighting. But...until I take some professional photography classes these will have to do. Thank goodness I have such a perfect model who makes up for all of the photographer's flaws!

Enjoy, and Go Cardinals!

Visit to Wichita/Easter

For Easter weekend we drove down to Wichita to visit my family. It was wonderful to be able to stay there for almost 5 days. Highlights were getting to spend lots of time with my Grandma Duck, Molly's first haircut, play time with Cousin Oliver, a Taylor Swift concert, seeing Molly in her Easter Dress, and lots of time for Molly to spend with Gammy, Lumpy, Uncle Charlie, Aunt Amanda, and Aunt Annie (we missed you Unce David)!

Here are some pictures from the weekend. Annie took a bunch of cute ones of Molly and Oliver dressed up together, I'll try and post those on here too.

Hanging out with Aunt Annie and Uncle Charlie before the 6 hour dirve home in which Molly was fairly unhappy!

Family picture after church

Walking with Gammy. She liked walking in the grass, but sitting in it was a different story.




Playing with Aunt Annie's dog, Murphy. Molly really liked him and he was great with her.

Snuggling with Gammy on a grumpy evening.

Molly's first haircut, Casi did a great job!

"This isn't so bad!"

Lunch at Larksfield (Duck's retirement community) with Cousin Oliver and Great Grandma Duck. The babies were a huge hit with all of the residents and everyone thought they were twins.

Loving on Lumpy.

Sweet Oliver.

Oliver checking out Molly and Molly checking out Oliver's toys.

Just being cute.

Great Grandma Duck took Molly for rides all through the halls of Larksfield on her scooter and Molly loved it!

It was a fun weekend and we miss everyone tons already!

Dear Molly

My dearest Miss Molly Jane,

Thank you for waking up in the midst of a poo-splosion at 4:00am. One that required changing your clothes AND your sheets. Thank you for then deciding that you would need a little somthing in your tummy before you would even consider going back to sleep. And finally, thank you for laying in your bed and having a VERY LOUD conversation with yourself until approximately 5:25am, (not that I was watching the clock praying for sleep or anything). I'm sure whatever it was you were discussing, (most likely railing at the injustice of being put back to bed) was extremely important. I was especially thankful when my alarm went off at 5:45.
I'm sure that when you are 13 and want nothing to do with me I'll yearn for the days when you were completely dependent on me, so this morning I am choosing to be thankful.
Love,
Mommy
p.s. This post was written without an ounce of sarcasm.

Almost 8 Months

Hello there! So it's been a while since I got around to posting an update, but things have been quite busy around here. Molly got tubes put into her ears, then she got really sick with a respiratory infection, then we had some major ice damming and our house has been under construction for 2 weeks.

I'll post a more detailed update on what's going on with Molly these days when she turns 8 months next weeks, but for now here are some pictures I've taken recently. Oh yeah, and she's still really flippin' cute!

Finally, a good shot of those pearly whites.

Daddy picked out her St. Patrick's Day outfit, it says I'm a McCutie.

She has lots of fancy toys, but really likes tupperware lids.

Important talks with Daddy.

She's big enough to hold her own bottle, and will stop mid meal to smile for the camera.

Yucky breathing treatments!

Excuse me Molly, you're supposed to be sleeping!

Watching Harvey provides hours of entertainment. No one can get her to giggle quite like he can.

The little monkey likes to climb on everything.

My fancy Juicy Couture outfit from Uncle Tom.

Cool Cousin Stephanie

These pictures are a few weeks old, but too cute not to share. Mike's niece Stephanie came over a few weeks ago to visit while her Mommy was getting a hair cut. Molly loves watching Stephanie and Steph was is patient and sweet to her. She may not be as patient when Molly is old enough to follow her around and really be a pest.

Steph learned the hard way about Molly's fascination with hair.


Excuse us, we're trying to watch cartoons!

There, that's better.

Our Weekend

We had a nice weekend, didn't get a whole lot accomplished but we had some fun family time. Yesterday we did some shopping and Molly had a great time because she is now big enough to sit in the cart. She loved being able to look around and smile at anyone who would give her the time of day. She also like chewing on the cart, but that's something we don't talk about as it grossed her germ-o-phobe Dad out!

After shopping we headed over to the Y for open swim time. This was Molly's 2nd time in a pool (the 1st was in Jamaica) and she LOVED it! She showed no fear and had so much fun splashing and kicking. At one point Mommy accidently dropped her little face in the water and she just looked at me like, "That was great, lets do it again!" I think we may have a little fish in our midst.

Don't you think her horizontal stripes are slimming?

We were so surprised to run into my cousin John and his wife Lindsay and their baby Jack at the pool. The kids aren't quite old enough to care about each other yet, but it won't be long until they are chasing each other around.

One unfortunate side effect of our trip to the pool yesterday was that in her bath tonight Molly remembered how to splash and made a huge mess in the kitchen. I think it may be time to move her into the bathtub!

Happy Girl

Miss Molly has been so much fun lately. She loves to laugh and smile and play with her toys. We went to the ENT this week and found out that she will be getting tubes in her ears on Feb. 22. The doctor said her ears are full of fluid and if we don't get the tubes put in it could affect her hearing and speech. So, even though we aren't thrilled with the idea of anesthesia, we decided this would be the best course of action. And hopefully this will stop the ear infections (She's had 6 rounds since October!).

Here are some recent videos that show some of this little lady's personality.