Easter 2011

I hope you had a wonderful Easter!  At church during Primary (Sunday school class for children ages 3-11) the most beautiful book was shared about a treasure hunt for the true meaning of Easter called Easter walk by Deborah Pace Rowley.  The pictures and message are beautiful.  It really touched me and is a book I want to share with my family not only on Easter, but throughout the year.

We had a quiet afternoon including naps and a silly photo shoot.  It's hard being away from family on holidays and being new to the area we haven't yet found "family" to spend our holidays with when we can't be with our relatives.  We were blessed to have that in Chicago and hope to find that in Arizona.

 Molly loved the Mrs. Potato Head she got for Easter!

 Cheese! Who's got the biggest grin?

 Seriously, those eyes just make me melt!

Salt Lake Half Marathon

We were in Salt Lake City, UT over the weekend to cheer on Shane, his sister and sister-in-law in the Salt Lake half marathon.  We met them at the half way mark to cheer as they ran and again near the finish line.  Great job Shane!

 Here's Molly collecting an egg from a little Easter egg hunt at one of our family parties.  

We love spending time with our families!!!

 My sister had a baby last week and we had so much fun holding him.  Molly was really sweet!

Quiet Book: A Few More Pages...

There are still a few pages that I'm working on and I need to do a cover, but I wanted to get what I had put together so we can start using it.  I'm really happy with how the quiet book is coming together and I've had fun practicing my sewing skills.  Yeah for sewing!

Learn to tell time

 Practice counting and phone etiquette

(Molly's favorite page so far)

 Shapes, colors, and learning how to snap things together

Learning to lace and tie.  I could have done a shoe for this 

but since we're such big football fans a football was a much better fit!

Random Photos of the Week...

Here are a few pictures of our sweet and active Molly from this week:

Molly's favorite new find?  A plastic stool she can carry and climb on to investigate each of the kitchen drawer and find new treasures.  The measuring spoons are a favorite!

I've been spending a lot of sewing during Molly's nap.  When she wakes up she likes to see what I've been working on and play with the buttons and thread.  And yes, she likes to taste the buttons before throwing them on the floor!

First job: Molly loves to help us empty the dishwasher.  We have a pretty good system where she hands things to us so that we can put them away.  She works really fast and if we don't keep up she drops dishes on the floor so that she can move on to the next dish.

El Tour de Mesa

Shane rode in El Tour de Mesa, a 72 mile ride around the valley.

He rode hard and made his goal of finishing under 5 hours.

Great job Shane!  We're proud of you!

Riding by as he's about to cross the finish line

 Our hero with his medal

Wow!  Check out Daddy's medal!

Lucky girl!  Not only does she get to wear the medal,

she gets some of the neapolitan shake from in-n-out.

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!