March 2011 Project: Quiet Book

At the beginning of the year I decided to choose one project every month to work on during Molly's nap.  For January I chose to catch up on Molly's scrapbook, in February I made fun Mr. & Mrs. pillows for our bed and in March I started a quiet book for Molly. 

Growing up we had a quiet book that my mom made and I've always planned to make one for my kids.  I've been filing away ideas for years and Molly is at the right age to really enjoy something like this.  The initial book will have 12 pages that are fun and will hopefully teach something.  I'm making it so that I'll be able to add pages as Molly grows and is ready for more advanced quiet fun like braiding a girls hair and a tic-tac-toe page.  These are my first 4 pages:

Molly loves airplanes so I had to include one in the book.  It opens up so she can load and unload the suticases.  This page doesn't really teach anything, but Molly likes to count the button windows, so we'll call it a counting page (1 airplane, 3 suitcases, 4 wheels, 5 buttons...)

This is big enough to tuck in a bag of fruit snack with the luggage.

The balloons have velcro on them so they can be removed and matched with the right color.

Flower Pot: Button the flowers onto their stems

Noah's ark: unzip the ark to find the animals

Please, Thank You and Amen!

Here are few more words that Miss Molly has incorporated into her vocabulary.  Maybe she's been using them for awhile, but it's taken us until this week to "get it".  It's amazing to see the connections Molly makes between words, actions, and signs.

Amen = usually said after the prayer.  At church on Sunday Molly figured out that it's also appropriate to say this after a talk (much to the amusement of the 3 teenage girls sitting behind us).

Please = Molly's starting to figure out that if she says "peas" I have a hard time saying no.  It's just so cute and she uses her little hand to make a circle over her chest when she says it (we've taught her signs for a few words).

Thank you = "gank-oo" is especially cute when she says and signs it because it looks like she's blowing a kiss.

Chair = Can mean either chair or, if you're sitting, "I want to sit on your lap".  This is often accompanied by Molly patting the chair or your leg.  Speaking of chairs, Molly conquered the climbing of the kitchen chairs today.  These were the only chairs in the house that she wasn't able to get on by herself.  How long do I have before she uses the chairs to get on the table?  Boy are we in trouble!!!

Molly and I made cupcakes this week.  They were delicious!

Princess and the Pea

Our sweet baby has a little cold and had trouble taking a nap yesterday so we cuddled up and watched Elmo on this fancy bed of pillows.  She loved it!

Bag of Treasures

The last few days Molly's been carrying around this bag.  It's filled with everything from books to stuffed animals and cars to bracelets.  All of her little treasures.  Today she put the bag on her arm like a purse and said,"bye, bye" as she started to walk away.  Halfway across the room she turned around said,"kisses" ran over and gave me a kiss before waving and walking away again.

My heart melted.  I'm the one with the treasure!!!

We've started eating dinner outside this week.  Molly loves it!

Super Moon.  We drove out away from the city lights to get a good look at the super moon this weekend and we got clouds. 
Oh well.  It was still pretty!

Hello Sunshine!

This 80 degree weather is really nice.  We like to wake up and go walking before it's too hot (in my book) for exercising outside.  Today after our walk I got Molly dressed for the day and she immediately said,"Go! shoes! Go! Shoes!" She loves being outside!

The other day Molly found this vest that Shane made in high school and she insisted on wearing it for the rest of the day.  I love that it hooks at the top and looks like a cape.  Super Molly!

18 Months Old!

Little Miss Molly turned 18 months this week and has become quite the little chatterbox.  She  loves to be part of our conversations, talk on the phone, and read her books aloud to herself.  Her favorite new word is airplane (a-play) and when she hears one flying by she points and runs for the nearest window repeating,"a-play, a-play". 

 Molly's favorite song is "once there was a snowman". She puts her hands up like this when she wants to sing it.  She does all the actions including sinking to the ground when the snowman melts.

Molly loves shoes.  Today when I went in to get her after her nap her legs were sticking out of the crib and she pointed at her shoes saying,"shoes, shoes".  She wouldn't move until I put her new shoes on and then she tried to stand up and her feet were stuck.  It was so funny!

Shane's parents came to visit for the weekend and we had so much fun with them.  They are so cute with Molly playing with her toys, reading her stories and going for walks. 

 Her favorite thing was taking a book to Grandpa's room, getting on his bed and having him read the story over and over again.  So sweet!  Thanks for coming Grandma and Grandpa!

No, No, No...

It's hard to imagine our sweet little girl has decided, practically overnight, that she loves to say no.  This is how a typical conversation with Molly goes at our house these days:

Me: "should we play with the toys?" 

Molly:  "no"

"do you want to color?" 

"no"

"Let's read a story." 

"no"

"Do you want to go outside?" 

"No.  Shoes?" and she runs to find her shoes.

She cracks us up!

Shane and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary this week.  He surprised me with these beautiful roses that Molly helped him pick out.  And I made these fun pillows for our bed.

Happy Anniversary to us!