Sweet Blessings

Happy New Year!

2012-01-01T18:32:00.000-06:00

The girlies still love watching our "2009 Year in Photos" video (ok, ok, I do too!), so I decided I HAD to make one for 2011. Maybe someday I'll get ambitious and do 2010 since I missed it. :)

For now, here's 2011:

Christmas Part 3 - The Bittles

2011-12-30T10:45:00.003-06:00

Another installment of Christmas photos! Brad made another of his now-famous turkeys (the Alton Brown brine can't be beat), and we had all the holiday trimmings at Nonny & Poppy's Christmas Day in the afternoon.

These just make my heart melt. My girl. :)

Christmas Part 2 - The Pulleys

2011-12-29T21:40:00.003-06:00

Josh and Carolyn hosted our Pulley Christmas gathering again this year. We always have fun at their place - plenty for the kiddos to do, and they always have new changes in their house for me to admire! :)

The kids had fun ripping into their stockings to find ornaments chosen with care for each of them by Oma as well as gold $1 coins - and candy. Gotta love the candy. :)

Christmas Part 1 - Ohio

2011-12-29T20:49:00.003-06:00

We made our annual Ohio Christmas Trek early this year, but that didn't stop anyone from being in the Christmas Spirit! We even were able to go to the big Fanning Christmas party, something that we're never around for. It was lots of fun seeing the Fannings (and Ranks, of course!) and visiting Tom & Janel's gorgeous home. Try as we might, we were not able to get any photos with all of our kiddos smiling - or actually, even just LOOKING at the camera. Such is life. I just had to post this one to show what could have been! ;)

Oh, and at least THESE cuties smiled and looked at me! I'll be getting these to Charlet soon! :)

Opening gifts at Mammy & Pappy's couldn't have been more fun for the kids if Santa himself had been there! :)

My fave! :)

Cool Yule!

2011-12-29T20:40:00.003-06:00

Again, I'm late on the upload. Here are my favorite photos from Natalie's Christmas dance recital "Cool Yule," and a video to boot! :)

I was SO proud of our little snow princess. You can tell she has matured and changed so much just since June in her Mary Poppins recital. She's really trying to learn the routines and follow Miss Jesi!

Thanksgiving . . . a little late

2011-12-29T19:49:00.005-06:00

So I'm uploading and going through Christmas photos to post, and I realized two things:
1. I haven't uploaded or posted photos from Thanksgiving!
2. I haven't posted anything at all on the blog since August 22!

Bad, bad blogger mama!!!!

Sooooo without further ado, here are Thanksgiving photos - with Christmas ones soon to come!

Gram & Mollie | Kindred Spirits :)

2011-08-22T15:02:00.001-05:00

I was uploading these photos and realized that Gram and Mollie share a love of dolls! :)

And here's another sweet one of Gram & Nat

Happy Monday to you!

JBF Goodies

2011-08-22T14:00:00.003-05:00

It's that time again! The JBF Fall/Winter sale! I tried really hard to limit myself this year, and Natalie has laid down the law that she.wants.to.wear.dresses. She already has a couple pairs of jeans, a few long-sleeved shirts, and a ton of leggings (bought on deep sale with the intentions of wearing under all.the.dresses.), so I tried to mainly buy dresses for her, and not a ton. It's harder to get super cute awesomely-priced stuff at JBF when you're looking for specific items. I may pick up a couple more dresses at Target or something. I did get her some brand new Children's Place rainboots. She's been begging for some every time we go to Target, so when I saw these, I had to get them. She's positively thrilled and has been wearing them all day.

For Mollie, she's pretty much already set, but I got her a few cute tops, some simple canvas Mary Janes, and a couple of dresses.

Shoes & Tutu skirt (part of Natalie's Halloween costume)

Mollie's Dresses (Avg $5 each)

Mollie's Tops (Avg $3.50 each)

Natalie's PJs (Avg $4.50 each)

Natalie's Tops (Avg $3.75 each)

Natalie's Dresses (Avg $5.50 each)

I also got a TON of books. Last year, we did a new book every day during December for Advent, and I wanted to do it again this year. I got 21 books for $46. Pretty good, I think!

Mollie Pretending to Sleep

2011-07-23T11:10:00.001-05:00

This pretty much speaks for itself. Except that you have to know when she says "that," she means "there." :)

Mollie's Very Hungry Caterpillar Party

2011-07-17T14:10:00.002-05:00

I had so much fun planning Mollie's second birthday party. She probably didn't have as much fun as I did working on it, but she did seem to really enjoy her day. :) It's hard to believe that she's now TWO!

We had ALL of the food that the caterpillar ate! I took photos of each thing, but I'll spare you. Here are some of my favorites.

The cupcake cake. It wasn't quite what I had envisioned because Wal-Mart totally messed up my order (gave me WAY more red ones than I asked for), but it was kinda cute.

Mollie enjoyed it, anyway!

Brad's brilliant idea for the kids to eat - since it's hard to "seat" a dozen kiddos under the age of 4, we let them have a picnic on a Very Hungry Caterpillar made from posterboard.

And some other random party pics. :)

Happy Birthday Mollie!

2011-07-14T07:18:00.000-05:00

Today marks my littlest little one's second birthday. We went out for a real live photo session to mark the occasion.

Happy birthday, my sweet, funny, loving, feisty, adorable, mischievous, beautiful baby!

Happy Birthday Zane!

2011-07-11T14:02:00.003-05:00

Just wanted to share some photos from Mr. Zane's first foray into the big world of SWEETS! yesterday! If he's anything like his dear ol' dad, though, it won't become an obsession. ;)

A New Adventure

2011-07-11T13:55:00.003-05:00

So this may or may not be news to some, but I've decided to dip my toe cautiously into the world of professional photography. I've been hard at work on a new website and blog and all kinds of good stuff. I'm starting small with not much in the way of expectations, but if it takes off, that will be thrilling! I'm anxious and nervous and excited all at once!

Here is a link to my main page:
http://www.sarahbillheimerphotography.com/

From there, you can choose if you'd like to go to my new blog, my full site (please check it out! I've worked hard it!), or my photography Facebook page. If you'd "like" me on Facebook, that would be awesome!

Thanks to everyone who reads this for their continued love and support! :)

Cousins . . .

2011-07-03T22:15:00.005-05:00

This photo makes me smile and warms my heart. Here's to many more family gatherings where these 5 girls laugh and love this much!

Matching Dresses & Hats, Courtesy of Deb. ;) Thanks! :)

In the Summertime

2011-06-28T23:17:00.002-05:00

I must get myself to bed, but I wanted to post these cute little videos of the girls at the pool in Ohio this past weekend.

Mollie is VERY cautious about most everything, pools and water definitely included. She barely wanted to wade in the baby pool until all of a sudden she saw Natalie going down the slide all by herself. Then she said, "My tun! I side!" So I kind of ignored it for a bit, but she persisted, so Brad took her down. The first time, the sounds she made were less than enthusiastic, but that little thing trucked herself right back up and wanted to do it again - and again - and again - and AGAIN. I am not exaggerating AT ALL when I tell you that Brad took her down about 30 times, I took her twice, and Sheila took her probably 15 times. I think Mollie went down the slide more than anyone else!

Here are a couple clips of Mollie sliding and RUNNING back to the stairs.

Natalie had an absolute blast and has no fear of the water. In fact, I wish she had a little more fear, but we're working on it. :) She keeps her trusty Puddle Jumper on (as does Mollie), and she's good to go. I was proud of her sliding all by herself with her cousins. She (like her dear old mom) is not quite as coordinated with the sliding and ends up completely dunking herself at the bottom, but it doesn't phase her one bit!

Newborn TWINS

2011-06-20T20:48:00.003-05:00

About two weeks ago, my friend Jesi (who is also Natalie's dance teacher) gave birth to twins! So exciting! Even more exciting (for me, not for her!) is that I got to photograph them with our friend Heather! We had a blast, and the babies were amazingly squishy and bendy and sleepy and sweet. I'm finally ready to share some of my favorite images from our session. :)

Potty Training 101

2011-06-14T12:23:00.003-05:00

So my whole idea of posting every day hasn't been perfect, but I have posted a LOT more than I was, so that's good! :) When I wrote HERE, I was more than frustrated with attempting to potty train Mollie. We gave up the 3-Day Potty Training method later that day (which, as I said, was day FIVE). We went directly 100% back to diapers and decided to try again maybe after her birthday. End of story.

Fast-forward 8 days, and who is showing MAJOR interest in the potty? Mollie. All of a sudden, out of the blue, after 8 days of ZERO interest. Yesterday she spent the entire day in panties and had no accidents. She even woke up dry from her nap and overnight. She's not initiating it every single time, but we're only suggesting going at the "usual" times, like before and after naps and bed, before we leave the house, the same times that we would tell Natalie to go, with maybe an extra "before mealtime" thrown in. We are just in shock that it could possibly be this easy (although those five days were H.A.R.D., still not as bad as months or even weeks of accidents).

Tomorrow, she'll wear panties at daycare! We're really hoping that she does well there! Fingers crossed! I can't believe my baby may have just basically potty-trained herself! :)

Oh, and in case you're wondering what's been taking up a lot of my time, get a load of these sweeties:

More to come SOON!

It Was a GOOD Day

2011-06-09T22:17:00.002-05:00

I think I missed another day yesterday, and I'm exhausted now, but I wanted to say today was a GOOD day. Most days are good days, but today was an especially nice one. No one big particular reason. Just good stuff in general.

Night!

Little Miss Observant

2011-06-07T18:33:00.003-05:00

So after I noticed how dirty Mollie's face was on the way home from work today, Brad said that that when he picked her up, she had a rock in her mouth. I said,"You put rocks in your MOUTH?!" and Mollie replied,"Yeahhh." I said,"Oh Mollie, we don't put rocks in our mouth!"

Fifteen minutes later when I was getting her out of the car seat, she said,"Wocks in a mouf. No NO! Wocks in a mouf. No NO!" I started giggling and repeated to Brad what she said. Then her eyes got big with this puppy dog look, and she said,"Hi laffeen? Hi laffeen? (Why laughing?) I just told her it's because she was cute - which is TRUE! :)

06/05

2011-06-05T21:03:00.003-05:00

It's been a long day. Hmmmm I feel like just stopping there. :) I'll have fulfilled my daily blog commitment, right?

Here's an interesting tidbit:

I've been doing monthly meal plans for a few months now, and I love it! We save money, eat out less, eat healthier, and throw less food away! Win, win, win, and WIN!

These were on tonight's menu:

Baked Lump Crab Cakes with Red Pepper Chipotle Lime Sauce
http://www.skinnytaste.com/2010/04/baked-lump-crab-cakes-with-red-pepper.html

and
Baked Seasoned Fries with Skinny Garlic Aoili
http://www.skinnytaste.com/2011/02/baked-seasoned-fries-with-skinny-garlic.html

and
Sweet Corn on the cob.

YUM!!!! Everything was so yummy! My crab cakes looked nothing like the photo, but they were still good. :) My fries looked very similar to the photo and they were amazingly yummy!

Now I'm trying to remember if anything happened today that was especially noteworthy for any particular reason . . . OH! For the second time, Natalie helped hang up clean laundry on hangers! This is SUCH a HUGE help, and it makes her feel like she's SO BIG! I told Brad we need to make it a Sunday night tradition for everyone to help with laundry that I've washed over the past few days. Mollie's not too helpful yet. She tries - with washcloths. She holds them up like we do, then says "FOWD IT. FOWD IT. FOWD IT." While she attempts to fold it, and it's just about the sweetest thing you've ever seen. I pretty much died from the cuteness. Then she started stealing all the socks and tossing them in a corner. ;)

Mary Poppins Dansical

2011-06-04T19:17:00.003-05:00

The end-of-year recital this year at Victory Dance was Mary Poppins Dansical (similar to a musical ;)), and that - along with the fact that my friend Jesi teaches the girls in Natalie's age group - really clinched our decision to start Natalie in ballet there this year. She LOVES Mary Poppins. So her class' song isn't one that you'd recognize from the movie or anything, but she got to dress as a baker and it was super cute!

We'll start with the video - this is from the Thursday dress rehearsal. They were cuter today with the audience to oooh and ahhh over them, but you can't record during the actual show. :-/

And then photos at home after she got ready:

Then waiting to go on at the church:

And then afterward:

Oh, and LOOK! TWO posts in ONE day! How impressed are you? ;)

Popsicle Time!

2011-06-04T09:31:00.003-05:00

Thursday when Brad took Natalie to her dance recital rehearsal (video of THAT to come soon!) Mollie and I played in the backyard. She enjoyed her first outside Popsicle of the summer and kept asking to go in the "wa wa," so we put on a swimsuit and she never did even dip in one toe. Can anyone tell me why a 4T bathing suit fits my 23-month-old (whose 24mos/2T pants fall off!) better than my 3.5yr old? Answer: swimsuits are crazy!

P.S. I've posted something on the blog 4 days in a row! I'm on a ROLL!

Zoo Day!

2011-06-03T17:37:00.006-05:00

Brad took the girlies to the zoo today while I was at work and sent me these pics from his cell phone of the girls with all of the different bronze animals. Made my day! :) Then they picked me up at we had lunch together! The girls were sweaty, sunscreen-smelling, and happy. :)

When I got in the car, I asked Natalie if they got to see the new baby elephant. She said, "Yeah! But I didn't get to ride it." :) :) :)

Oh, and here's a quick video too:

Untitled from Sarah Billheimer on Vimeo.

Miss Allie

2011-06-02T19:42:00.002-05:00

I recently got to take more fun newborn photos of a sweet new little one whose mama is one of my good friends, Kristin! Her firstborn, Kate, was actually one of the first newborns that I ever got to photograph HERE. Miss Allie is a total doll - such a sweet, laid-back baby already at two weeks! She really didn't want to sleep for us, she wanted to just observe, so I got lots of shots with her big pretty eyes!http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

Congrats Kristin, Beau, and big sis Kate! :)

Memorial Day Week

2011-06-02T14:33:00.003-05:00

Here's how we've been spending our Memorial Day week. It's like a weeklong event in our household since daycare is closed this week for teacher training. :)

Oh, and before we get to the pics, I wanted to say: we are DONE with the three-day potty training thing with Mollie. She.is.not.ready. Although, we've created a lot of potty interest because now her babies go potty all the time, she is starting to tell me when she pees in her diaper, she's a bit happier to sit on the potty (before bed, naps, leaving the house, etc), and she wants to wear "moush pannies" AKA Minne Mouse panties. :) So it's a work in progress, and that's a good thing.

Now the photos...

OK I know they don't look thrilled, but I think it's because I was attempting to make them stand still for a photo before they could get in the pool. :)

This little blow-up pool? May very well be the best $10 we've ever spent. :)

Who says you can't wear a nightgown and fairy wings in the front yard after breakfast? Not us!

I'm kind of dying with the cuteness of this last one. I could not for the life of me get Mollie to stand right next to Natalie, but it's pretty endearing like this I think. :)

New Month, New Idea - June 1, 2011

2011-06-01T10:11:00.005-05:00

In attempt to get back on track with blogging more regularly, I'm planning to post something every.day. in June about what's going on with us. We'll see how it goes! Not promising photos every day necessarily, but hopefully a little tidbit.

We'll start with a fun, good thing. Last night a friend said that she'd started reading chapter books to her 3.5-ish year old and it was going swimmingly! I've been giving this a lot of thought and have been dying to start with Natalie but wasn't sure how she'd like it. She's still incredibly involved in the pictures in her books. Not to say that she doesn't listen to the stories, but she's VERY interested in the people's (or pigeon's or dog's or whatever-you-have-it's may be) expressions and actions. We have to dissect the pictures many times over. So I wasn't sure if she'd enjoy the experience as much without that. I happened to have Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (free!) on my kindle (LOVE!), so I decided to start there, since she loves the movie (Disney, NOT Tim Burton, we haven't gone THERE!). Well it was wonderful! She listened attentively, didn't complain about the lack of pictures, and even giggled at appropriate places! Win win win! :) Can't wait to really get further into the book with her! :)

And the not-so-great . . .

So today (and ever since this past Saturday - meaning this is day FIVE) my mind is preoccupied with potty training Mollie. We've been trying the famed "3 Day Potty Training Method" (now remember, today is DAY FIVE), and it's going - well, um, what's the word I'm looking for? Oh! How about we relate it to a book of Natalie's? Horrible, Terrible, No-Good, Very Bad. Yup. She's supposed to be completely and totally trained in 3 days with no accidents, even at naptime and bedtime. HA. HA HA. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. YEAHRIGHT. She had two huge successes on the morning of Day 3, and over the course of 4+ days, she's had roughly 30 accidents. Yes, 30. I'm not kidding. You read that right. 30 puddles on the tile or wood floor - or sometimes even on the carpet! Oh, and 3 pairs of panties full of poo. I'm not even going to lie, I threw away yesterday's poopy pair. It was too horrible to explain. So yeah, Woo hoo! Potty training! Thankfully, I'm actually not knee deep in it today, I'm at work and Brad's at home. The girls' daycare is closed this week for teacher training, and we're taking turns staying home with them, so we thought it was the PERFECT time to potty train Mollie! We had 9 days with no daycare (including weekends before and after) and she's 22.5 months. The book says 22 months exactly is ideal. Ideal, she says! Baloney, I say!

So I'm ready to throw in the towel. Try again in a couple months. Brad hasn't given up hope. We'll see what tomorrow brings. Today, I'm just thankful that no one in my office is likely to stand in the middle of the breakroom floor, begin to pee, spread their legs into a wiiiiide "V" and then flip their head down to WATCH -and then expect me to mop it up and find them dry panties. Yes. THAT HAPPENED. Last night. Good times!

Just to clarify - I am NOT alone in this. Brad has been an equal partner in crime when he's home, and does more running a peeing child to the potty than I do when he's there. I couldn't have made it this far without him!

OK OK OK I have to end on a high note about Mollie since she's totally awesome and wonderful and this potty thing has nothing to do with her being ornery - it's just a lack of understanding. I'll keep it quick - my new favorite thing that she's been doing is calling everyone "Honey." As in, gently telling Natalie, "No no, Honey." when she's doing something MG doesn't think she should. As in, handing Brad her sippy cup and saying, "Here go, Honey." Cracks me up!! She's just too cute! :)

Introducing Baby W

2011-05-23T21:45:00.003-05:00

So this little man has had a lot of excitement in his short three weeks of life. After spending some time in the NICU, my friend Sarah and her family are thrilled to have him home. He's a doll and a sweetheart and I had so much fun photographing him this morning! I know I should probably narrow these down, but I can't. I'll begin and end with my favorites. :)

Kansas City

2011-05-21T08:30:00.003-05:00

Last weekend, we had a mini vacation in Kansas City with some good friends JoAnne and Chris and their kiddos Amelia and Norah. Their girls are 22 months apart, just like ours, but they are 4 months younger than our girlies. They were fast friends, and didn't want to part from each other after just three short days!

While we were there, we did some shopping, lots of eating, watched and fed animals at the Deanna Rose Children's Farmstead (SO fun!), and swam and played at CoCo Key (indoor) waterpark. We only wished the weather had been a bit warmer, but we managed. :)

I didn't get nearly as many photos as I wanted to. The cold weather and just enjoying hanging out together stopped me, I guess. Here are a bunch of the ones I did get.

Little Mamas

2011-05-19T23:13:00.002-05:00

Trying to take MORE PHOTOS! Here are a few I captured of our girlies playing with their dolls tonight while we were working on dinner. :)

I am seriously loving these good photos of Mollie that I've gotten lately, by the way!

Things That Make Me Smile

2011-05-09T14:46:00.003-05:00

Little feet . . . especially when they sneak high heels out of the closet and make their way into the kitchen.

Funny, the pink heels are bridesmaid shoes from Lisa's wedding, and the champagne ones are from Sheila's! :)

My sweeties coloring happily together on the kitchen floor while I prep dinners for the week.

This might be one of my favorite pics of Mollie to date - smiling and looking RIGHT.AT.ME! Yahoooooooooooo!!!!!

You Learn Something New Every Day

2011-04-23T15:24:00.003-05:00

There are two reasons that I haven't used watermarks on my photos before. 1) I feel like it makes me seem uppity - as if I'm a pro or something and 2) I wasn't sure how to do it. But I got started thinking - I really should probably use watermarks because I put my photos out here on this blog, and I don't want anyone stealing photos of my sweeties and using them for purposes that I have not sanctioned or that I know nothing about. So today I learned how to create and use a watermark. Holy buckets! It.is.easy. And kinda fun. :) So here's a little something showing what I've learned. :)

Mollie's First Haircut

2011-04-22T19:34:00.002-05:00

This week, Mollie had her first haircut! You can't tell all that much, but I definitely think it looks healthier and fuller. We're not doing bangs with her because they are such a pain to keep trimmed and we ended up growing Natalie's out anyway. So whatever "bangs" Mollie appears to have - well, it's just how her hair is growing in.

My sweet friend Candace at Shear Perfection who does my hair (and like everyone's I know, apparently) trimmed the tresses of both of our cuties this past Thursday.

Natalie's glamorous after photo:

Mollie in progress - not EXACTLY sure what to think of the whole ordeal, but definitely compliant. :)

Natalie getting into a tiny bit of mischief

Voila! Look at the sweet curls!

Catching Up . . . Yet Again

2011-04-22T19:19:00.003-05:00

Here are a few pictures from the past week.

Morning snuggles with Casey. :)

Mollie decided to give me lots of funny faces one evening while Natalie was watching a movie upstairs. :)

And they got to play outside in the sandbox for the first time at the new house! Natalie loves it, but Mollie won't actually step in. She refuses to get sand on her feet, so she just plays from outside . . . and makes a gigantic mess! I got a few snaps of my two beauties.

Natalie

LOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOOOOOOOOOVE this one!!!

Mollie-who-refuses-to-look-AT-me

And get this!!!! After I took these, I realized that I have pictures of Natalie at the SAME age in the SAME hat and the SAME shirt playing outside!! Here are a few vintage Natalie pics

One of my very favorites of Natalie EVER!

I {heart} JBF!

2011-03-20T21:13:00.003-05:00

I didn't volunteer at the Just Between Friends (JBF) Sale at the Fairgrounds. I did decide to consign a little bit, though, so I could go to the presale. Since I didn't volunteer, I didn't get to go until 5:00, and it had been open since 12:00, but there were still great deals to be found!

I got TWO pink Miracle Blankets for my friend Josie for $5. Yep, BOTH for $5 total. They are $30 EACH new!

I got a "baby" swing for our swingset for $10 and it's like new! We already had one, but both girls want to swing at the same time and Natalie's just not quite steady enough on the "big girl" swing, so they argue. Now they can both swing at the same time! :) Brad actually hung it up as soon as I got home (at 7:30!!) and they both got to swing for quite a while! :)

I also got 5 Aiden + Anais muslin blankets (3 "original," 2 "Target") for $15 today. They retail for $30+ for four!

I did not let myself even walk into the 24 month section. Mollie has plenty of clothes. That was my mantra. I'm proud of myself!

Natalie, on the other hand, has NOTHING. OK she has some swimsuits, a coverup, 3 pairs of shorts and 3 hand-me-down t-shirts that are not in the best of shape. That's it. So here's what I picked up for Miss Nat. I got everything below for $100.50 before tax! I didn't pay more than $3 for any shirt/skirt/top, and the dresses were $4-6 each. She LOOOOOOVED the dresses. Her eyes lit up with every single one. Glad I splurged and got more than I knew she would really need. Maybe this will make our mornings easier since she is officially 100% boycotting jeans or any type of pants with a zipper and button or snap!

SUPER cute outfits! One of these was only $2 total!

Couple more cute outfits with skirts and then some single tops.

Dresses! And the bathing suit.

More DRESSES! :)

Jammies

I think we are now SET for Spring/Summer! :)

MOLLIE!

2011-03-20T14:40:00.003-05:00

OK so if you wanna know why I can't get totally awesome and amazingly beautiful pictures that truly capture the essence of Mollie, here's why:

Perfecting the POUT

Looks like she's gonna be our brown-eyed girl!

Downward-Facing Dog, Anyone?

*SIGH*
The other night, she would sit in my lap, and I'd ask if I could take her picture, then she'd stand up, face me, say cheese, then plop back into my lap, all within about 15 seconds. Then she would say, "I see it!" Yeah . . . I could barely even raise up the camera, much less take a photo. So for now, these are what I've got. :)

Pigtails

2011-03-20T14:36:00.002-05:00

I'm doing a bit of catch up here, but these photos aren't too old. We determined that we could do REALLY good pigtails in Miss Mollie's hair, which of course made Natalie want pigtails too. Now she's pretty much obsessed with them and has been for about a week. They are cute and fairly quick to do in the mornings, so I can't complain.

Our TREE!

2011-03-20T14:31:00.002-05:00

Ever since we've owned a home, I've wanted a PRETTY tree. Brad isn't all too keen on them, being that he's the one who does the mowing and most yardwork. But with our new home came . . . a tree! Since we moved in in October and I know nothing about trees, we didn't know what kind of tree it was. It was all bare branches and dried-up looking berries of some kind. Well, lo and behold, I still don't know what kind of tree it is, but it's PRETTY! Natalie goes so far as to say that it's BEAUTIFUL! I looked up one day, and it had pretty white flowers ALL over it! We love it!

Spring Fever & Football?

2011-03-20T14:28:00.002-05:00

These pictures crack me up because even though Brad is an avid football fan, I'm not sure that he's even tossed a football around with these little sweeties yet, and he was nowhere in sight as they were playing what Mollie calls "CHATCH!!" as she tosses the ball in the general direction of a sometimes unsuspecting recipient. :)

Twinkle Twinkle & More

2011-03-19T21:35:00.002-05:00

This is long and random, but I wanted to capture some of what the girlies are doing right now, especially Mollie because I feel like we don't have any videos of her! This was actually taken about 6 weeks ago, on my birthday!

Girlies from Sarah Billheimer on Vimeo.

Mollie Sings Backup

2011-03-19T21:01:00.001-05:00

I took this back in February, but never posted it. Mollie will still sing the "Hey!" part of Jingle Bells. It cracks us up! :)

Jingle Bells from Sarah Billheimer on Vimeo.

More Ballet!

2011-03-17T22:36:00.002-05:00

We have been so excited and impressed with the strides Natalie has made in her ballet class lately! She's one of the youngest, and she still enjoys playing around a bit, but you can tell she's really paying attention to Ms. Jesi and trying to learn some real ballet! Yay Nat! She has SO much fun, which is honestly the most important thing to us! I took a ton of pictures last week and I just can't pare them down any more than I already have, so here are a BUNCH! Enjoy! :)

Comparison Pics

2011-02-23T15:14:00.003-06:00

A friend was asking me today if Mollie's hair looked like it was going to be like Natalie's (you know, long, thick, wavy, GORGEOUS), and if Mollie's looks like Natalie's did at this age. I decided to look back HERE at the 'ol Blog and see for myself! The answer is, YES! Aside from the color, their hair is SO SIMILAR at 19 months. Well, we'd cut bangs for Nat, and I'm determined NOT to do that with Mollie, but the back looks almost just the same. Mollie's might be a tad thinner, but it's so much lighter that that might be the difference. And, since I LOVE to do these comparision pics, LOOKEE here! OH MY GOSH MY #1 BABY is SO NOT a BABY anymore, people!!

TODAY:

19 MONTHS:

And here's a good one of Miss Mollie's hair, although this is almost 2 months ago. It's the best one of the back(ish):

Oh, and for anyone following the story, Natalie and her Ungraffe are once again happily inseparable. :) :)

The Ungraffe

2011-02-17T10:16:00.004-06:00

For Valentine's Day, we got the girls a super cute little stuffed animal. Natalie got a giraffe, Mollie got a monkey.

See? Super cute, right? Well, Natalie LOVED the giraffe. She calls it an "un-gr-aff" I don't know. I don't get it. I know she can say giraffe. Anyway, that's how she's decided to say giraffe. So she's been more attached to this little thing than maybe any other toy that she's had. She's never been one to be super attached to one toy. She has to sleep with a blanket and a baby, but she's usually not picky about WHICH blanket or WHICH baby. So she decides that she'd like to take Ungraffe to school to sleep with during her nap. OK, fine. We've never had an issue with her leaving her sleeping buddy at school, so I didn't think twice about it. That was my first mistake.

Yesterday when Brad picked the girls up, Natalie wanted to get Ungraffe out of her backpack to carry it separately to the car. Brad let her. They stopped at the front desk to buy some bake sale goodies. Natalie wanted to carry them to the car. Brad said no. A FIT WAS THROWN. (By the way, she hasn't been napping at school this week - YAY! NOTE SARCASM.)

Fast forward to last night, and Natalie MUST sleep with Ungraffe. MUST have it. We can't find it, Brad looks in the car, then he remembers THE FIT and determines that she must have left it there at the front desk. We manage to make her happy with the usual baby. Good. Well, this morning, she's asking about Ungraffe again. I tell her I bet we'll find it at school.

I usually carry Mollie into the building and into her classroom, and she has to be handed over to one of her teachers in order for us to all leave without tears. Today I had my hands full, it was SUPER windy, and Mollie was in a good mood, so I thought I'd attempt to let her walk into the building after carrying her to the door. She thought she was big stuff. We usually have to drop Mollie off first (Natalie's orders), but today, Mollie headed toward Natalie's class, and Natalie was (surprisingly) ok with that. So Nat's walking into her room, and Miss Mollie is eye level with the kids' cubbies. All of a sudden, she squeals with glee and grabs a giraffe - YES QUITE POSSIBLY THE UNGRAFFE - from ANOTHER little girl's cubby. Chaos ensues. Natalie remembers that she lost her Ungraffe, there it is, YAY! Um, no, actually THAT is L's giraffe, but yes, it does look exactly like Nat's. So her teacher goes up to the front to see if Natalie's is at the front desk. It's not. Natalie does not want to hand it over. She can't fathom that anyone else could possibly have another giraffe that looks exactly like hers. Little does she know that the Ty corporation has sold probably hundreds of thousands of them. So I finally manage to convince a tearful Natalie that it's not hers and we'll find hers. "Later?" she asks me with a tear rolling down her cheek. I assure her that we'll definitely find hers later, envisioning myself spending my lunch hour scouring Oklahoma City for another one. Luckily my mom had the idea to check Amazon, where, lo and behold, they had the same giraffe for $6.28+$3.99 OVERNIGHT shipping.

If we can make it through tonight and tomorrow morning, a new Ungraffe will be waiting for Natalie Friday afternoon. *INSERT HUGE SIGH OF RELIEF*

OH! AND! Lesson learned: EVERYTHING GETS A LABEL. This might not have solved the initial problem, but it would have helped in the end. Maybe.

Natalie

2011-02-16T12:00:00.002-06:00

Natalie is 3 years, 5 months, and 4 days old today. How can it be that she's almost halfway to FOUR already?! It doesn't seem possible, but as I watch her lately, I am starting to think she looks like she could be a 4 year old AND - as usual, I hesitate to say this - I'm starting to see some glimpses of what I hope might be more of a 4-year-old mentality. I thought it was probably a good time to share them so I don't forget!

- Natalie has been EXCITED about helping me fold clothes. Truly excited and OFFERS to help! She's a washcloth folding MACHINE, that girl! I wish she was tall enough to do towels! :)

- The other day, she asked Mollie if she was done eating, got a wet cloth from the counter, wiped Mollies face and hands, unbuckled her from her booster seat, and gently helped her get down from her chair! It was adorable!

- Mollie is a pest. Really, she is. She just wants attention from Natalie because she loooooooves her so much, but if Nat's not giving her enough, she pulls her hair. All.the.time. with the hair pulling. Natalie definitely whines and often cries about it, but I just realized that she really doesn't reciprocate. You'd think she might hit her (they're both hitters, ugh) or reach out and grab a handful of Mollie's locks, but she doesn't. She's gentle with her.

- We go through phases with the hair issues. I somehow got out of the braiding routine (honestly, it's just so gorgeous to see the natural waves she has when it dries on it's own!), so some days are rough with the brushing, but honestly, for the most part - it's better! She doesn't react as strongly if it pulls and we talk about what a big girl she is! :)

- She's doing better with her ballet class. She's always had fun with it, but I can tell that she is trying to pay better attention now. Monday night, after class, she had to show us "First A-sishen" (position). Too cute! I asked her if she could show us Second Position, and she said no and asked me what it was. I told her I was sure Ms. Jesi would teach her. Then she went over to Mollie, kneeled down on the floor, and she got herself and Mollie into some goofy position (which most definitely was NOT Second Position) and proclaimed it to be "Sekin A-sishen!" We just clapped anyway. :)

- Background: Mollie is just as strong-willed as Nat, and we've been attempting to do some Time Outs with her when she misbehaves. Story: The other night, we were in Natalie's room getting her PJ's on, and Mollie walked right over and pulled Nat's hair (SEE?!). I told her that wasn't ok, and tried to redirect her. Once Natalie was changed, she stood up and said, "Mommy, there are corners in my room there and THERE. And you can probaly use that one too." and pointed at all of the corners in her room, for Mollie's next Time Out. hahha

I'm sure there are many more that I've missed, but there are a few. :) It's so funny how things change so quickly! I was JUST telling a friend how Natalie's the one who's in a difficult stage right now, but it's always changing, blah, blah. Pretty much the next day Mollie became Difficult Child #1 and Natalie instantly appeared more mature. They have to keep us on our toes!

I wish I could say I had forty gazillion adorable pics to post, but I don't. I do have some from the snow that I need to get to. SOON! :)

Happy One-and-a-Half to Mollie!

2011-01-24T20:11:00.003-06:00

I'm about 10 days late in posting this, but better late than never, right?! Mollie had her 18 month well-child appointment today, and she's doing great! We are all THRILLED with Mollie's language development over the past month or so. Getting tubes in her ears has been the best decision we've made with her! She is adding new words to her vocabulary all the time, and it's SO much fun to be able to really communicate with her. Natalie asks her things all the time, and for some reason, Mollie ALWAYS either nods yes to Natalie or gives the typical Mollie "Yah." Which prompts Natalie to run in telling me things like, "Mommy! Mollie says she LIKES piders!" or "Mollie says she wants to watch Elmo!" and I'm sure Mollie doesn't have a clue what she's agreeing to half of the time. :)

The girls were apart all day today, and it warms my heart to see how excited they are to see each other at the end of days like that. They were kissing and hugging, which then turned into kissing Mommy forty bazillion times, which I certainly cannot complain about! :) They really seem to be the best of friends already.

Mollie is still a huge fan of baby dolls, and with Natalie's help, she's becoming a big fan of tea parties as well. It's so funny to walk into their playroom and see things like this:

Mollie's also become fairly adept at making funny faces. I wish I could catch the REALLY good ones on camera. Here's one from today when she was being silly:

And I just thought this one was cute:

And finally, here's the obligatory pic in the chair with the pink bear :)

Oh, and I don't want to forget (because I have no clue which box her baby book is in! EEK!) that she weighs 22.8 lbs and is 32 in. tall! That's kinda on the small side for weight, and she just took a pretty good leap length-wise putting right at average. :)

Figuring things out

2011-01-07T20:37:00.006-06:00

So I realize that I'm probably tempting fate by posting this at all, but I feel like I've grown as a mommy in the past few months, and I wanted to share that. It's happened gradually, and it relates to getting out the door in the mornings on workdays.

****Pause. I started this post last night after the girls went to bed, but then I got side-tracked. I did, indeed, tempt fate. Natalie's behavior today has been horrible, terrible, awful, no-good. Very bad. I'll still venture to say I've dealt with it better than I used to.****

Sooooo like I was saying I know everything about how to deal with my preschooler now. HA HA HA. What I was actually saying was that I've learned SOME things about how to interact with her. A few months ago, every morning presented something on a scale from REALLY.BAD.TANTRUM to the worst meltdown I've ever seen in my life prior to THAT morning. I was about to lose my mind. Natalie was grumpy when I woke her, didn't want to get out of bed, didn't want me to pick out her clothes, didn't want to pick out her own clothes, didn't want to dress herself, and are-you-serious?-use-the-bathroom-first-thing-in-the-morning-mommy?!-you-have-GOT-to-be-out-of-your-mind. And don't even get me started on the hair. You know, those lovely, thick, beautiful, caramel-y golden waves? Yeahhhhhh try brushing that every morning and attempting to get a clip in it to keep her bangs out of her eyes (the exact reason I'm not cutting bangs for Mollie in the foreseeable future). Goodluckwiththat.

So I enlisted the help of mommy friends. I asked - nay, BEGGED - for advice. I got lots! I was excited to try new things! The common thread in all of the advice that I got was that you just have to keep trying different things to see what works with your kid. Isn't it sad that probably nothing I've learned with work with Mollie? *sigh* EXCEPT! That I did learn THAT - that you just gotta keep trying new things.

The first thing that we tried was the Marble Jar here. It has been a HUGE help. We've slacked off on it a bit, and I know I need to get back on it, but it has definitely served a great purpose. I highly recommend them!

So I tried having her pick out her clothes at night. This didn't make much difference. She was just as apt to change her mind in the morning, so I stopped wasting time on this. The best thing I did regarding picking out clothes was this: Make sure there is NOTHING in her closet (or at least that she can see) that she can't wear. I started a box in the back of Mollie's closet and now I toss anything that doesn't fit or isn't the correct season in there as I come across it. Works like a charm! Out of sight, out of mind. Period.

A friend suggested letting her hold a special doll and count to twenty while we brush her hair in the morning, for distraction. Nat was unimpressed. I asked her if she wanted to sing a song instead. She was game, but it didn't work. Someone suggested to me that we braid her hair at night. That didn't seem to be the perfect solution because I'd still have to brush the day's tangles out at night. So our new solution is that we wash her hair in the bath about every other night. She is well aware that our routine now consists of her watching Curious George while I brush and French braid her wet hair. She sleeps on it, it still looks pretty cute, if a little messy, in the morning, and she wears it in braids on day #1. The braids stay in until the next morning. At that time, we take them out, and I do not brush, I just run my fingers through it gently, and voila! It's all good for day #2. That night: lather, rinse, repeat. There is an occasional tear here and there, but we have an understanding that Mommy doesn't intend to hurt her, and it's ok to say "Ouch!" but tears are really not necessary and they don't help the situation. The bad thing is that I don't routinely get to see her pretty natural waves, but I'll take it over the daily hair fight any day!

I had been getting Natalie up and then letting her play around while I get Mollie ready. That was kind of a hit or miss thing. Some days it worked fine, other days it didn't. So I decided that she needed a little more sleep. We put her to bed earlier, and I let her sleep while I got Mollie up and dressed. Still not really the answer (although the slightly earlier bedtime helps in general). More and more often, she told me that she wanted me to "dress her like a tiny little baby-haha-isn't-that-funny-Mommy?!" I found it (more than) a little annoying, but it did seem to make things go pretty quickly, so most mornings I "gave in." Then I feel like I had the biggest epiphany yet after a friend experienced a similar thing with her three-year-old son. She realized that it wasn't about him being difficult or grumpy or not getting enough sleep or him "winning" and her "giving in." It was simply this: he wanted some extra attention and TIME with her. She related it to the extra attention and time she likes to have from her husband some days. It totally clicked with me. I know that Natalie CAN fully dress herself while I get Mollie dressed. However, if I wake her before Mollie, only FIVE minutes earlier than I used to, spend a little time cuddling with her, and help her get dressed while just the two of us talk, giving as much help as she wants that day - get this: IT.WORKS. We are both happy and the day starts better for both of us!

And here's the final word of advice that I have about this situation. If your kid doesn't want to pee first thing in the morning and you're familiar enough with their habits that you know they can hold it like some kind of freakish camel? Just let them go at school. No harm, no foul. Seriously, the difference that has made in the past few mornings is immeasurable! :)

Christmas in Oklahoma

2011-01-04T19:12:00.002-06:00

We had a late Christmas with our Oklahoma family this year, but it was still lots of fun! I made Pioneer Woman's Drip Beef (OH.SO.GOOD.) for the gathering at my mom's, and Josh & Carolyn made a yummy spiral ham for a gathering at their house. YUMM.

Here are some photos from both days:

Christmas in Ohio

2011-01-03T22:03:00.003-06:00

See, what'd I tell ya? Another Christmas post! Although I think this will be the last one for tonight . . . stay tuned for one more tomorrow!

We were seriously nervous about a 14+hour drive with Mollie after our last drive with her. However, she's a LOT older now, plane tickets are REALLY expensive, and Decemeber weather in Ohio is VERY unpredictable, so we decided to press our luck. We planned to drive halfway the first day, spend the night at a hotel, let the girls run around and swim, then drive the rest of the way the next day. Well, thanks to the weather, we had to leave early and decided to do it all in one day. Great decision! No, seriously, I'm not kidding! Mollie was almost as good a traveler as Natalie! It went so well and we made such good time that we decided to do the same thing on the way back - and it was even better!

We had a fun time visiting family in Ohio. The girls have SO much fun together now, it's ridiculous. They spent a lot of time playing pretend, and it was adorable. At one point, Aubrey was Santa and all the other girls were taking turns sitting on her knee and telling her what they wanted for Christmas. :) For the most part, they love Mollie and think everything she does is cute . . . but then there are times when they don't want her messing up their stuff and she gets yelled at. It's par for the course. I'd say for 5 little girls, they get along amazingly well! They just better look out for Caleb! That little cutie is going to give them a run for their money, I'm sure. And then another boy (Levi?) is on the way, due in March!! Exciting stuff!

Lisa hosted the Rank Christmas party this year. I have to say a good time was had by all! :)

The cousins, minus Kara & Elizabeth who had to leave early for another party.

Christmas morning at Mammy & Pappy's. Love the kiddos in their matching PJs! :)

This CRACKS me up. Mollie's "EEEEEEZE!" face:

Christmas at Home

2011-01-03T14:55:00.003-06:00

OK, as promised, here's another Christmas post.

We had another wacky Christmas at home again this year, leaving early to beat the weather for our drive. So, again, we didn't get to do the whole wake up and open gifts early in the morning thing. Hopefully next year, since we'll be in OK for Christmas. We went out to Chick Fil-A for dinner, played Christmas Bingo there and won a kid's plate/bowl/spoon set. :) Then we came home and opened gifts. Not fancy, but it worked for us! :)

It was so funny, we really expected Natalie to be super excited about opening gifts and then about what was inside. She was pretty subdued about it, and kept going back to the ($5) Ariel Barbie. lol Mollie, on the other hand, squealed with delight at the tearing of paper on each gift, and got excited about everything, no matter if she understood what it was or not. It was so cute!

Reading the Christmas story in a Kid's picture Bible.

Opening gifts:

What Natalie wanted so badly - an Ariel Barbie. :) She just wanted to open it and play with it without opening anything else!

Mollie, misunderstanding her gift. ;)

The girls love their food cutting set!

Mollie is more interested in Nat's Scribble & Write than she is!

Here's Mollie singing to her baby:

Then patting her back, just like Mommy:

Christmas Cookies!

2011-01-03T13:03:00.003-06:00

OK here's the first in a long series of Christmas posts. :) Slowly but surely, people. We made two batches of super-cute, fun cookies this year. The first were "Melting Snowman Cookies" for Natalie's class party and the second were "Rudolph Cookies" for the kiddos and their mamas at Jordan's Crossing (a rehab facility that our church partners with - moms can actually have their children live with them, which rocks!).

Then, here's Mollie, excited about the gift that her daycare teachers gave her! :)

And, both of the girlies with their "Hands for Aubrey" photos - showing their support for sweet baby Aubrey who had leukemia and is going through a stem cell transplant. A bunch of friends got together and made a book with 148 little kids and their hands for Aubrey and her family!

OK . . . off to fold some laundry. More pics to come, promise! :)

MOLLIE!

2011-01-03T09:06:00.002-06:00

OK so I have approximately one million photos from Christmas to go through, 10 loads of clean laundry to fold, 3 loads of dirty laundry to wash and dry (THEN FOLD), 1 very messy kitchen to clean, 4 suitcases to fully unpack, and a massive pile of stuff in one corner of the kitchen floor to put away. Let's just ignore the fact that the playroom is a crazy mess and there are still (MANY) Christmas decorations up. We'll worry about those last two things later.

But before I tackle my huge to-do list, I NEED to say a few things about Mollie. She had tubes put in her ears before Christmas, and I don't know if it's just that or that coupled with her age, but she's all of a sudden got a much larger vocabulary, and her comprehension is sooo great - and so much fun! :) She's even putting 2 words together here and there! I'm not bragging by any stretch of the imagination - I'm just excited to be able to communicate with our littlest one. And, seriously, it's just plain adorable.

Here are her words:
Mommy
Daddy
Na-ee (Natalie)
Bup (Cup)
Dis/Ish (This)
Baby
Casey
Puppy
Shusss (Shoes)
Sosss (Socks)
Kitty
Fish
Peeeese (Please)
EEEEEEE (Cheese)
Day OOO (Thank You)
E go (Here you go)
No
My!!! (Mine)
OOOO (Moo)
AAAAA (Baa)
Woof Woof (the highest pitch, sweetest version you can imagine)
OWWW (Meow)

She's still a huge fan of her babies, so her Christmas presents (stroller, pack'n'play, bouncy seat) were right on target! I'm so glad because I thought long and hard and tried to get something she would for sure play with! She also got a few new babies and stuffed animals that she's having fun with. :)

She's big on giving hugs and kisses too! A few days ago, when I got her up out of bed, she laid her head on my shoulder, then leaned back quickly, put her hands on my face, and gave me a huge kiss right on the lips! hahah! I love it!! She's a great hugger and has started making a "kiss" noise when she kisses you or has her baby kiss you or vice versa. Adorable!

While we were in Ohio, she started using the word "no." Good times. But actually, it was just so cute, especially the first time. Everyone had gone to a movie except Brad, Mollie, and me. We walked in the door, and I said, "Well, Mollie Grace, are you ready for your nap?" She stopped walking, her face fell, and she said, "Noooooo." lol I let her stay up a bit just because she was so sweet about it. :) When Brad tickles her, she says, "Nooooo, Daddy!" Another really *FUN* word she's using is My!!!! Ugh. If I could delete even just one word from a toddler vocabulary, this would be it. I am not looking forward to the big "MINE!" arguments!

Possibly Mollie's favorite word right now is "Bup," which Brad figured out means "Cup." This is a great word for us to know! I'm calling this the Holiday Season of the "Bup" because she's kind of obsessed with it. When we sit down to eat, she'll often go around the table, starting with herself, "dis BUP!" and point to her cup. Then "Na-ee BUP!" and "Mommy BUP!" and "Daddy BUP!" It's too cute. I love the way she says it too. It's like "BBBBBB-UP!"

I don't know if she's truly getting interested in potty-training, but lately, she seems to be aware of when she is going. She grabs herself, and if we say, "Mollie, do you need to go potty?" she takes off toward the bathroom! hahahah! It's like she's on a mission. Then she'll sit on the potty, but nothing happens. I'm actually not really ready to start potty training her, but if she's showing lots of interest, we're certainly not going to ignore it!

Mollie LOVES music! She loves to sing, and she loves to dance. When she hears music, her little body just starts moving. We love the inhibition that she has. It's so cute to watch her dance, and it's so neat that she's not embarrassed about it in the least. She loves to sing and bounce her babies before she lays them in their beds. She loves to sing the "ABC's" and she has the tune down pretty well, but not really the letters. :)

She's pretty ornery - just this morning, I was saying for the millionth time how tired I am of CHASING her. She loves to run from us when we're trying to get her to do something (this morning, it was putting her coat on). It's not even that she doesn't want to do the thing, she just likes to make it difficult. UGH!

Well, I think I've covered most everything I wanted to say about Miss Mollie, here at just about 17.5 months. I guess I better go tackle some laundry. Pictures to come soon - hopefully later today! :)

Christmas Dresses

2010-12-12T18:27:00.002-06:00

I got the girls dresses that I am LOOOOVE with for Christmas this year. I could resist taking a few photos when they tried them on to make sure they fit. Unfortunately, Mollie was in the midst of a horrible ear infection and even medicated, she wasn't really into the whole smiling for photos thing. I got a few cute ones . . . and a few that should go straight to the outtakes bin. :)

And then . . .

Kinda sweet :)

I took some family photos for some friends today, and Natalie wanted in on the action:

Decorations & a Photo Day

2010-12-10T19:34:00.003-06:00

I still need to get on the ball and take some GOOD photos of our kitchen and its new look, but you can at least see the paint color in a few of these photos. SUCH a drastic improvement over the weird-attempted-faux-red that was here when we arrived. Anyway, here are some pics of some of our Christmas decor and then a bunch of photos of the girlies. :)

A wreath that I made out of coffee filters. I am in love with it!

Another wreath that I made out of lima beans. Also digging this one a lot. Can you tell that I am trying to decorate on the cheap? :)

Early morning feet that have just padded their way into Mommy's bed.

Sisters!

Dance party at breakfast!

Mollie LOVES black bean tostadas. :)

Our afternoon activity . . . (foam) Gingerbread House!

Ready for ballet!

Ready for the Yirah Christmas Party!

The One Where We Host Our First Thanksgiving

2010-11-30T22:00:00.004-06:00

There are more photos here than just Thanksgiving, specifically a couple from the day before and a couple from the day after (and then a few from a few days later), but I'm behind in my blogging (as usual), so I'll just put them all here. :)

We had a wonnnnnnderful Thanksgiving, and it was SO awesome to host in our new home that we are in love with! Brad did his first turkey, and it was a great success!

Here are some photos that I was able to snap here and there in between making and then eating the yummy food! :)

Pre-turkey pic :) My Loves!

Our fancy table! ;) :)

Well, what can I say about this photo? ;) It's Kim. :) Love you!

Brad's first turkey! YUM!

The kiddos playing with Oma in the new playroom

Mollie was obsessed with graham crackers!

LOOOOOOVE these of Gram and Zane!

Josh & Mr. Gavin

MMMMMMmmmmm.....

More MMMMMMmmmm.....

The FAM!

The FAM from the other direction :)

Sweet Zane

Day after Thanksgiving . . . attempting to decorate the tree (of course, we had lots of issues with burned-out lights that thwarted our plans)

Too cute! She is not sleeping, she's "reading" to herself. ;)

So, Monday I planned on taking pictures of the girls all day long and doing a big post . . . here's Nat right after she woke up.

Then helping me make breakfast while Mollie snoozes

Mollie wakes up . . . not too happy :(

And they stop there because Mollie was insanely fussy, we ended up going to the doctor, finding out she has a persistent double ear infection - #7 - (meaning she never got rid of the one she had 10 days ago), so we now have an appointment to see the ENT for her, and most probably she'll be getting tubes SOON. *Sigh* Hoping it's a GOOD thing!

Christmas Cards!

2010-11-19T17:41:00.004-06:00

So, as you know, I love photography and displaying beautiful photos, especially of my sweet family! Since getting such cute holiday photos done by Jane Photography, I've been dreaming of super cute Christmas Cards to send out. I am finally going to order some 5x7 matte paper ones from Shutterfly this year instead of the photo-paper kind. That's what I want to do every year, but something always gets in the way. I've always had great service from Shutterfly in the past when I actually had enough free time to put together photobooks of Natalie's first year, so I'm excited to order and receive our holiday cards from them! I'm a huge dork and love addressing envelopes and getting cards ready to be mailed, so I'll even enjoy that process! :)

So you'll have to wait until you get one in the mail to see what I actually chose, but these are a few of my favorite styles . . . Merry Blossoms, Pretty Poinsettia Print, and Berry Cascade.

I think my favorite type of card they have this year are their "Story Cards" like this Most Wonderful Story one. How cool is that?

I think I'm actually going to splurge on some custom address labels this year too. We'll see! :)

Exciting options! Hopefully the girlies will go to bed at a decent time tonight and I can get started designing our 2010 card! :)

If you have your own blog, you could even get some free holiday cards from Shutterfly this year! Check out this awesome deal - Bloggers get 50 free holiday cards from Shutterfly http://bit.ly/sfly2010

Mama Mollie ;)

2010-11-16T20:24:00.003-06:00

Here are some photos to go with my Mollie update below. :)

A LONG Overdue MG Update

2010-11-16T15:12:00.002-06:00

I feel terrible that I haven't really updated much about either of my girls, but especially Mollie lately! I keep meaning to, and I keep thinking that she's going to grow up thinking that we didn't care about her as much as Natalie because every line in Natalie's baby book is painstakingly filled out (accurately!) and honestly, I don't think I've even filled in the day that Mollie cut ANY teeth - and she's got at least 12. *sigh* But I hope that someday I can truly convey to her that the reason I wasn't able to be so thorough in recording every detail about her (or Natalie, after Mollie was born) is that there is simply no time leftover - and it's not ONLY because I'm a harried working mama of two (although I am at times), but it's also because I like to spend time ENJOYING them. That doesn't give much free time to write down how much I enjoy them, but trust me: IDO!

Currently, I am absolutely LOVING Mollie's little language explosion. It seems like overnight she went from only saying "Dada" and "Uh oh" with the occasional "Nan-ye" (Natalie) thrown in (yes, you read that right - she did NOT say "Mama") - and now she's saying all of those things, PLUS Mama (still not often) as well as "A-see" (Casey, who she has a HUGE obsession with) "Baby" (Another HUGE obsession), and all kinds of other words here and there. It's honestly like she has a whole vocabulary now overnight!

If that weren't enough, the child obviously understands pretty much everything we say and do, which is obviously great, but it's also really funny. Yesterday, when I was getting Natalie ready to head out the door for dance, Mollie grabbed her jacket and went on the hunt for her own shoes. She was upset when we left (sorry, I am just not mentally stable enough to handle Mollie in a teeeeny tiny dance studio for 45 minutes), but luckily, she and Brad went out to get some dinner for themselves, so she got to go somewhere too. I have no clue why, but close to bedtime the same evening, she brought me her jacket and shoes - oh yeah, she says "SHUSS!" - so I put them on her, just for kicks. What I didn't realize was that I inadvertently played into her idea by going out to the garage to get something I left in the car. She totally thought we were leaving together - and when I realized what she was thinking and brought her back in, she threw a FIT. I'm talking laying on her side on the floor, scissor-kicking her legs, yelling, FIT. She's officially a toddler now, folks. The fits have arrived.

MG is so different from Natalie, but they have at least one thing in common: their stubbornness. What a thing to share, right? Mollie has been obsessing over standing in the kitchen chairs lately, and also getting into basically anything and everything she shouldn't. We give her quite a few warnings, but we've had to resort to attempting Time Outs. She gets really mad, and definitely isn't as obliging about them as Natalie was when we first started - Nat would sit on the TO stool, get bored, and take all of her clothes off. Mollie just cries and tries to run away.

On a really sweet and fun note, Mollie is really enjoying her baby dolls. It's so much fun to watch her comfort them, sing to them, feed them, and her favorite - put them to bed, which entails totally covering them with anything that resembles a small blanket. We find babies all over the house, just laying in the middle of the floor covered by blankets and we just smile. I finally figured out what to get her for Christmas - a super cute doll stroller, pack'n'play, bouncy seat, and diaper bag! I'm soooo excited to see her reaction to all her new little mommy stuff! But SHHHH - don't tell Mollie (or Natalie!) that's what's she's getting! Of course, I knew a riot would ensue if Natalie didn't have a doll stroller too, so I got them matching ones - Natalie's not getting all the other stuff, though, she's getting her first scooter and helmet! :) (AGAIN: BIG SECRET!) :)

I took a bunch of pictures of Mollie playing with her baby the other day, and I'll post them soon!

Marble Time!

2010-11-02T09:38:00.003-05:00

Parenting a three-year-old is proving to be life's toughest challenge. We have had some seriously rough mornings lately, and I felt like I'd reached the end of my rope. I turned to some good mommy friends who had an awesome idea - along with getting things ready the night before and few tricks for a more pleasant hair-brushing experience - a reward system, specifically a marble jar!

So the idea is that Natalie will get a set # of marbles in her jar for specific things she does that are positive. We will not ever take marbles out for punishment - this is strictly for rewarding good behavior. I had fun making up a cute poster to show how many marbles she gets for different things - like being a good listener, using a pleasant voice (aka NOT WHINING), being respectful of others (sharing with Mollie, saying please/thank you, etc), staying in bed until her OK to Wake! clock light turns green at naps and in the morning, picking up toys, and the biggie - getting dressed and ready with no tears or fits! Once her marbles reach a certain point in the jar, she gets a "Marble Party," which isn't necessarily a party, but just a prize that she gets to have a lot of say in choosing.

The marble thing has gone swimmingly, to our delight! My friends suggested to make the first marble party happen fairly quickly, and then move the line up little by little. Knowing what the prize really means goes a long way toward motivation. So after about 3 days, Natalie reached Party status. I guess I should have just called it a "Marble Prize" though, because to Natalie, Party = cake. Well, that's not so bad, but whereas we'd envisioned a Marble Prize being a trip for ice cream, picking dinner that night, having a movie night, picking out a small toy at the store, or something of that nature, Natalie chose to bake a cake with Mommy - specifically an Apple Cake - that takes a lot of effort and that we JUST made last week (I'm sure that's why - it was fresh in her mind). So I was flattered that cooking with Mommy = prize in her mind, so we make a run to the store for more apples. It's kind of important that the prize happen fairly quickly, so I told her we'd make the cake yesterday - after dance and after dinner. Which means that we were peeling apples at 7:45 last night. ;) I'd already told her that the cake wouldn't be in the oven by the time she needed to be in bed, so she could help until bedtime (cutting and snacking on the apples is really the part she likes anyway), and then I'd finish the cake after she went to bed and we could have cake after dinner tonight.

A few steps into the cake, I realized we didn't have enough eggs. So Super Daddy went out to get eggs at 8:00 pm, and I got the girls to bed. I was up until 9:00 making a cake (BY MYSELF!) that takes at LEAST 1.5 hrs to bake. And I wonder where the Marble Party Fairy is that's going to clean up the mess from said cake? But Nat's excitement over her pretty cake this morning was worth it. I just hope that Brad's not right that she's going to want to do this for EVERY marble prize. I think we'll encourage something a little different next time, but it may include snacking on some apples. ;)

Here's the recipe for the cake - Mom's Apple Cake from the Smitten Kitchen blog (love her recipes!): http://smittenkitchen.com/2008/09/moms-apple-cake/ I don't know what happened the first time I made it, but it took over 2 hours to cook, it spilled up over the top, made a huge mess in the bottom of my oven, charred a bunch of the apples on top, and was rather dry. This time, the only real difference was that I sifted the flour (like it says) and I tried not to mix very long at all after each egg. It turned out perfectly (in the same exact pan) after only 1.5 hours. It looks amazingly moist, and I'm pretty excited to sample it myself. Oh, and our house smells WONDERFUL!

Halloween 2010

2010-10-30T20:49:00.007-05:00

So this is pretty much Natalie's first year to truly see what Halloween is like. It's the first time she's Trick-or-Treated in the neighborhood, been able to really eat candy, and even pass some out to ToT-ers that rang our bell. By the way, after a while, when our doorbell rang, Natalie would bellow from her little perch on the floor surrounded by candy, "Daddy!!! Some more people is wanting candy!" :)

Mollie actually seemed to enjoy having her costume on, surprisingly. After the first couple times walking up to people's doors, though, she decided she didn't want anything to do with that, so she waited with one of us in the wagon at the curb. :) I'm sure she'll be right in there with big sis next year!

Here are our lovely little bugs . . . ;)

Oh, and HERE is last year's post . . . and the year before is HERE.

Ballet!

2010-10-17T22:48:00.002-05:00

Here are some photos from Natalie's ballet class. She is really enjoying it, although she doesn't always totally participate. I think she gets shy. She always does the individual things, it's when they are doing something as a group that she tends to just watch the others. Or get distracted by the mirror. ;) Either way, she really is having fun, and her teacher (my friend Jesi) assures me that she's doing great.

New Home!

2010-10-14T21:21:00.001-05:00

I'm dead tired and don't have a single photo to share, BUT I just wanted to announce that we are officially in our new home! We're currently sharing it with lots of boxes, but we're here (and so is all of our stuff). YAY!!!

Gulf Shores - Take 2

2010-10-08T06:33:00.003-05:00

OK I have like one million photos from our vacation, and I really want to post them all, so I will! :)

Here goes!

Here's the house we rented. Somehow, I never managed to get any photos of the front, so these are all of the backyard, covered porch, and pier.

Oh, and this is pretty much how I saw Mollie most of the vacation: RUNNING AWAY FROM ME - FAST!

Sunset from our back patio.

Deb & Caleb watching the sunset.

I so wish I had a video of this, but the girls were singing, "Ala-BAM-a!! Alabama! Ala-BAM-a!!" and doing their own crazy dance. Hilarious and adorable!

Mollie & Elizabeth, destined to be the best of pals!

Kara

Elizabeth - this cracks me up because I asked her to smile for me, and she grabbed some random "props" from the yard to pose with. hahahah!

Mollie on a mission. LOVE that Mollie loves carrying things over her arm, and always keeps that arm up so it doesn't fall off. ;)

Mollie relaxing in the baby swing. She enjoyed it more as a toddler than she did as an infant, I'm pretty sure.

Aubrey & Natalie playing with the princess computer.

Here are a few of all the girlies together.

The first local beach we visited. Pretty, but it had biting flies. NOT.FUN.

See what I mean - running AWAY!

Orange Beach. MUCH better. Beautiful, clear water, clean sand, and not nearly as many flies. We hung out at this beach twice.

Our cruise director. ;)

Mollie loved digging in the sand. She was SO excited to find a shell!

Sheila, Kara, & Elizabeth

Building a sand castle.

Two words: WORN OUT.

Natalie hanging out with Caleb. She claimed he kept smiling at her, but I'm not sure if you could really tell with the pacifier. She was happy about it though. :)

Miss Aubrey

Me & the chickadees. It was nice to snuggle with Mollie, but unfortunately, she was getting sick and we didn't quite know it yet.

Nat

Brad & Mollie - really figuring out that she didn't feel good. We went home soon after these pics.

Kara

Elizabeth

I just love the way the sand looks. I didn't have time to capture it that well, but I tried!

Gulf Shores - Take 1

2010-10-02T21:45:00.002-05:00

I keep wanting to say Florida, but we actually went to Alabama! Who knew there were parts of Alabama that could easily be confused with Florida? Not me!

So I have tons of pics, but I decided to just post some of my favorites real quick for now. Here is a cute photo of each cousin...

Miss Nat

Mollie Mollie

Kara

Elizabeth (or Lib-ba-bets as Natalie says)

Aubrey

The newest addition - Baby Caleb (or baby K-love as most of the girls say)

More to come!!! :)

Natalieism

2010-09-14T23:27:00.002-05:00

This is a quickie . . . but every day when we walk into daycare, Natalie says, "We are tossing Mollie first, right? We are gonna toss Mollie first, right?" The first time I didn't really get it, but I finally figured out she means "drop." Drop, toss, it's all the same, right? Well, maybe not when you're talking about babies! Anyway, it still cracks me up every day, and I'm a little bit ashamed that I didn't correct her for a few days because it makes me laugh. I tried to quickly tell her today that she means "drop," but I'm not sure that it got through. We'll probably be "tossing" Miss Mollie again tomorrow morning! :) Thankfully, in related news, Mollie is doing super great now with her "toss" aka drop off - no more tears from either girlie anymore! Praise Jesus! :)

Sold!!!

2010-09-14T23:18:00.002-05:00

Our house is officially under contract, which means soon we'll be on the move!! The story is actually long and kind of interesting, but it will have to wait for another day! The fact is that we were able to settle on an offer that makes us happy, we are excited not to have to do any more open houses or showings or website maintenance (or or or hee hee!), and we are THRILLED to be moving into our new home, hopefully in mid October! Woo hoo!

Thanks to everyone for their prayers and positive thoughts for us! It really seems like it was a God thing that it has all worked out like it did!

I'd also like to give a special shout-out to my wonderful hubby who made selling this house and (very successfully!) negotiating the offers on both houses pretty much his second job. It's almost like he's got real estate in his blood or something! ;) ;) ;)

Expect to see not much of me for a while - and then lots of new house photos and probably fretting over design ideas! :) Fun stuff!

Natalie's Third Birthday Party

2010-09-13T16:38:00.004-05:00

It's so hard to believe that Natalie is now three years old - she's officially a preschooler (as opposed to a toddler)! We had her birthday party yesterday, and despite the weather (a huge downpour of rain off and on all day), it was a great success! :)

Here are one million and one photos to commemorate the occasion: ;)

The birthday girl getting ready for the party (see how dark it was in the morning?)

Miss Mollie

Decorations

Party Time!

Bashful while everyone is singing to her ;)

Blowing out candles - she got them all on the first try!

Oma (Sylvia) & Zane

Zane with his Daddy (Josh)

Baby Z ;)

Three Generations (thanks for the pic, Sylvia!)

Mollie & Uncle Josh

Uncle Brad's first time to meet (and hold) Zane! He's been busy with Open Houses every weekend!

Aunt Kimme & Zane

Zane's Baptism . . . & Stuff :)

2010-09-08T22:31:00.002-05:00

So I know I haven't had a really good post in forever, and it's late, so I'm not going to stop to write much, but I wanted to post a few photos from Mr. Zane's baptism, and then a few other random ones. :) His day went well, and boy was he a trooper! :)

Mollie has developed a fascination for Zane. It's so adorable! She watches him intently and attempts to share toys with him. We caught her trying to figure out how to pick him up out of his bouncy seat, and here she was obsessed with giving him hugs. :) :) :)

And just a few cute random ones :)

Natalieisms, Take 2 (and 3 and 4)

2010-08-31T11:55:00.003-05:00

OK I have another few minutes, so here's another (well, three more actually).

TWO
A little over a week ago, Natalie and I went to her dance studio to get her leotard, tights, and shoes. When we left, it was lunchtime, so I asked her if she wanted to go to lunch with just the two of us or if she wanted to get lunch and take it home and eat with Daddy & Mollie. She thought and thought and thought, finally deciding that we she wanted to stop and eat "there" so, she wanted just Natalie & Mommy. So we went to Chick Fil-a, and she has a bad habit of getting out of her seat once she decides she's done and kind of dancing around the table. So I had a brillant idea to sit at the TALL tables. I thought she'd think it was fun PLUS she wouldn't be able to slip out of her seat easily. So, for once, my plan worked. She giggled when I sat her up on the big chair, and instantly said, "Mollie could not reach me up here!" Success!

On the way out of the parking lot to go home, she said, "Mommy it's two. One, two." and held up two fingers and counted them. I said, "Two what?" She replied, "Two girls! Me and you! One, two!" I told her that she was exactly right.

THREE
After visiting the doctor for the second time in one week, I told the girls we'd go meet Brad for lunch. Natalie kept telling me, "I want the two girls." I said ok, not really knowing what she meant. I figured she was talking about a song or something. She kept repeating it though, so finally I told her I wasn't sure what she meant, and she'd have to explain. Finally, she hemmmd and hawwwed and said, "I want the two girls. One, two (holding up two fingers). Just Mommy and Natalie. To eat." Ooops! It took a few minutes, but I finally convinced her that we'd go again sometime, but it would also be fun that day to go with Daddy & Mollie too. :)

FOUR
After Natalie's ballet class last night, we got in the car, and she said, "Mommy, I want the two girls. One, two (holding up two fingers). I wanna eat a chick-a-way, have chichen nuggets and lemonade and a TOY. And sit at the biiiiiig table." What can I say? She got her wish. :)

Natalieisms, Take 1

2010-08-31T11:48:00.003-05:00

Me(watching Natalie dancing around the living room): Natalie, come here a minute. I want to tell you something.
Nat (comes over): What?
Me (whispering): You are beautiful!
Nat (eyes light up, HUUUGE smile): Like Ariel?
Me (laughing): Sure. Like Ariel.
Nat (completely satisfied): Prince Eric tells Ariel that she is beauuuuuutiful!

What's Going On

2010-08-30T10:12:00.003-05:00

So I've been a horrible, terrible, no good, very bad blogger lately. I know this. I'm sorry. I find that on top of the "usual" life stuff - being wifey, mommy, and working outside the home - I can only handle a few other things thrown in there. So when you add in more than occasional sickness (Mollie's ears) and buying and selling a house, I can barely fit in time for anything else! I miss taking more photos and blogging about the girlies, but if I have to choose between enjoying them or recording them, I'm going to have to go with enjoying them. :)

I don't know that this will be a super thorough update, but today marks a pretty big change for us, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to record it. The girls won't be going to in-home daycare with our friend Katie anymore - they started at a daycare center today. They visited the center about 6 weeks ago and did great there for two days, so we all feel like it's going to go really well. Mollie's such a big girl now - walking and allllmost running, not taking morning naps, no bottles at all, no bedtime milk, and even getting pretty darn good at using utensils by herself - that I think she'll do super great! I think Natalie's going to really enjoy the preschool aspect of her new class. So as much as I know they'll miss spending so much time with Katie and her girls - I think we're all still in a good place. We will always hold their time with Katie in a special place, and we're of course we're all still great friends and we're excited for their new adventure as well!

Natalie also started ballet class at Victory Church last week, and she had more fun than I could have even imagined! Her teacher is my friend Jesi, and I think knowing the teacher got Natalie off on a really great foot. I have a few photos (they have to wear a bun - EEK! How adorable is that?), and I'll try to post those soon. She goes once a week, and her class basically follows a school year, so she'll have a Christmas program before a winter break, then at the end of the year they are doing a "dansical" of Mary Poppins, which Natalie LOVES, so I think she'll be thrilled about that!

We're still hard at work selling our house and praying that everything works out so that we can actually purchase "the new house" that we have under contract. Brad has been holding an Open House every single Sunday, and this past Sunday was our most promising one yet. Having Open Houses every week is pretty tough, especially when the "usual" time for them is about the exact same time as Mollie's nap. It makes things interesting, for sure! I have to say, it'll be nice when we have our Sundays back, but we'll keep on having them pretty steadily until we have a contract.

I've got about a million Natalie stories that I need to add, but I better go for now. I'm going to try to do better about blogging, but if you're not seeing me here, you can assume that I'm cleaning house and enjoying life! ;) :)

More Excitement!

2010-08-13T12:15:00.002-05:00

Well, after countering back and forth all weekend, they accepted our (counter)offer! YAY! It's a contingent offer though, so we're still hard at work selling our house - and it really is a lot of work!

Just thought I'd post a quick update and ask for prayers and good thoughts for someone to LOVE our house enough to buy it - SOON! :) :)

Exciting Stuff!

2010-08-04T20:30:00.003-05:00

Our house is officially on the market, and we are in the market for something with a better location and a little more room. Well, what we found was something with a LOT more room, but it's just an amazing deal, and we cannot pass it up! We're putting an offer on it tomorrow, but it's all kind of up in the air because we don't have an offer on ours yet. So we can use any prayers or good thoughts that you have to spare! :)

View when you walk in the front door. There is one room upstairs. I don't have a photo of that, but it's a really good-sized game room or theater room - or whatever room! :)

View from the stairs of the formal dining/front living room.

Same area, but this view is from the kitchen:

Front Room/Study:

Kitchen - not fond of the wall color, but it's just paint (we thought it might be wallpaper) and paint's easy to change! :)

Back Living Room. See that built-in bookcase? It's actually a storage area . . . or what I affectionately refer to as a HARRY POTTER ROOM! How awesome is that, you guys? What little girl wouldn't LOVE a little room like that? Sorry didn't get a pic!

View of the stairs from the back living room:

OK back to the front of the house . . . here's the laundry room - nice and big! :)

The Hallway

Front bedroom:

Middle Bedroom:

Master Bedroom:

Master Bath:

Apparently they had a thing for red. I don't care for it here either. At least alllllll the other rooms are neutral! :)

Master Closet:

Hall Bathroom:

So there you have it. Certainly not officially ours, but we're really excited about it, and it's looking good so far! EEEK! :)

Walking

2010-07-30T12:10:00.003-05:00

OK I lied - I found a super cute picture of Mollie walking that Katie took at Summer's birthday party this past weekend. :)

Here ya go! :)

We have a Walker!

2010-07-29T22:04:00.002-05:00

So I don't have any cute pictures, and I'm pretty sure that I already mentioned that Mollie's been taking steps, but this past Tuesday, it's like a switch flipped and she walks a LOT more than she crawls. She still loses her balance and falls from time to time, but she gets back up instead of crawling instead - most of the time. It's so cute! She's still really proud of herself every time. It's funny because we're getting used to it, so it's not that big of a surprise to see her walking to us, but you can take one look at her little face and see that SHE still thinks it's a pretty huge deal. So much fun - and so much fun to come!!

Twelve Months!!!!

2010-07-20T11:54:00.005-05:00

OK, I'm a little late on the post, but I've been mulling it over in my mind for a while and just enjoying life with TWO toddlers. How did that happen?

The past month has been a HUGE one for Miss Mollie. It seems like just yesterday (and really, it wasn't that much farther back than that) Katie and I were trying to remember exactly HOW and WHEN our big girls dropped their evening feedings. It just seemed like there wasn't an easy way to do it or to know when the babies were ready for that. Well, fast-forward just a few short weeks, and get a load of this:

- Mollie is 100% on table food, and couldn't be happier about it!
- She hasn't had a bottle in about a week, and hasn't looked back!
- She doesn't have to have any milk before bed.
- The girl is no longer taking a morning nap.
- She sleeps without a sleep sack and uses a light blanket in bed.
- She's got a great nighttime sleep schedule and isn't waking at the crack of dawn anymore!
- She's taking lots of steps!
- She's babbling all the time, and we're starting to recognize more and more words.
- She says "Dada" but it seems to be directed to me or to Brad.
- Last week, she heard Natalie talking in another room, looked at me, and said, "Nan-yee?" I was so excited to hear her using a word for Natalie! Now I think she's been saying "Nana" for Natalie!

Mollie is still just as sweet and joyful as always. We're also seeing more of her stubborn side, though. It can be frustrating, but it's also fun to see her assert herself. I tell Brad that she knows what she wants all the time, we're just lucky that most of the time, it happens to coincide with what we want her to do. :)

Watching Mollie and Natalie together is so much fun. They really enjoy having playmates and spend lots of time playing together! Natalie's excited that Mollie has started calling her "Nana." Mollie is thrilled to go into Natalie's room when she wakes up in the morning. I hope their friendship stays strong! :) Of course, as Mollie gets older, we're starting to see more disagreements too. Natalie's used to Mollie doing whatever Natalie wants her to do, and she's complained to us a few times lately that "Mollie not LISTEN a me!" to which we gently reply that she doesn't have to. ;)

We had Mollie's 12-month doctor visit this morning, and it was great! She weighs alllllmost 20 lbs (19 lbz 13 oz) and is 28.75 inches tall! It's crazy that she seems bigger to me than Natalie was at this age, but Natalie was shorter and weighed just a bit more!

So without further ado, here are a few photos of Mollie (they were actually taken last week, right at 12 months). :)

On her actual birthday, the first time I've had to wake HER up in as long as I can remember! Sleeeeeepy girl!

And here with the pink bear. Check out the sweet pigtails! :)

And one sneak peek of some photos yet to come . . . ;)

Baby Z

2010-07-16T07:08:00.002-05:00

Here is just a teeny, tiny sneak peek of the photos I took of Zane earlier in the week. I can't wait to get the rest of them all ready to go!!! Zane was sooooo sleepy and bendy and sweet when I was there! He made the job even more fun than usual!

With big-bro Gavin. :)

Mollie is ONE!

2010-07-14T22:55:00.003-05:00

Mollie is ONE today! It's totally crazy. I will do another post with some details about the past month, but let's just say Mollie has changed by leaps and bounds over the last few weeks! She's still wonderful, and we still love her more than we can describe!

I'm sitting here uploading and editing pictures, thinking about how late it's getting, and the thought crossed my mind that exactly ONE year ago, we were in the hospital, just me, Brad, and Mollie, and everything was so new. We were trying to get some sleep, and not having much success with that. I'm glad that I'll be able to go to my own bed (not a hospital bed), not be hooked up to any machines, and get good rest here in a few minutes. But there's just something so special and sweet about those first few nights, though, no matter how sleepless they are!

Mollie's party was so much fun! If you weren't there, you were missed! We took a ton of photos at Mollie's party, and I'm posting a ton of them, but there are many, many, many more. I tried to narrow it down more, but I gave up. I'm just posting them, and this isn't even all the ones I liked.

I made two banners with one photo from each month since she was born. I loved how they turned out! :)

Yummy cupcakes!!!

Brad made yummy pulled pork!

My little shadow, documenting the decorations before the party. :) Some of her photos actually were really good! :)

The Birthday Girl!

Natalie just HAD to wear the belt that Josh & Carolyn got her for Christmas (because she looooooved Carolyn's so much). ;) I didn't intend for her to wear the pettiskirt either, but she was pretty jealous of Mollie's tutu, so I gave in. ;)

It's a Boy! Again! :) :)

2010-07-08T10:13:00.002-05:00

Last night, Josh & Carolyn welcomed sweet baby Zane into the world! He arrived at 8:08 pm, weighs 5 lbs 8 oz, is 18 in long, and has a good amount of wavy strawberry blonde hair. Of course, he's absolutely adorable! Just see for yourself! This is just a tiny sampling of the photos I have of him so far! :).

Let them eat . . . CAKE!

2010-07-04T00:15:00.004-05:00

So Miss Summer who I took newborn photos of here is alllllmost ONE, just like Miss Mollie - she's exactly two weeks younger than Mollie, and already walking "like a big girl" as Natalie would say! ;) We had a lot of fun letting Summer get her first big taste of cake . . . chocolate cake, to be exact. I'm pretty sure she's a fan. :)

It's a Boy!

2010-07-01T23:20:00.002-05:00

I also got to spend some time with Mr. Caleb and take some photos of this gorgeous little guy at a mere 5 days old! He's such a sweet baby! I have lots more photos of him, but here's a sneak peek! :)

Two Beatiful Redheads ;)

2010-07-01T22:47:00.004-05:00

This weekend, I got to take pictures of some of my favorite people that I haven't gotten to take photos of before! It was crazy hot and humid in Ohio, but you can't tell it by looking at these sweet girlies. I had fun chasing them around and snapping some cute photos. :) I have lots more, but here's a sneak peek for you guys!

11 Months!!!

2010-06-23T07:04:00.003-05:00

OK I am definitely posting this late, but I only took it a couple days late. WHERE is our baby? Not in this photo!!!

Mollie is still amazing us every day with her new accomplishments! She's a superfast crawler and will get into anything quicker than you could imagine! She is one BUSY baby, it seems like overnight. She's just as strong-willed as her sister, perhaps even a bit moreso! She's started really being pretty ornery from time to time, and is doing that "thing" where she does something she knows she isn't supposed to, and is watching you the whole time to see if you're going to stop her. It's pretty crazy how quickly she's moved from baby baby to almost-toddler!!!!

She's started using the sign for "more," which is really fun. It's helpful when we're feeding her, and occasionally she uses it for something else too. I know I saw her signing "more" to Natalie when they were playing patty cake a few days ago. Last week, I was letting her play with a kleenex, and she was tearing little pieces off and handing them to me. When she got to the last piece, she stuck it in her mouth. I scooped it out quickly, and she immediately looked at me, and signed "more." Kim and I were cracking up!

So here's her pink bear photo, and then one of the girlies together. I know I've been a bad blogger lately, but another thing Mollie's been doing is NOT sleeping through the night along with waking up way.too.stinking.early. Brad and I are both suffering from some sleep deprivation. So anyway, that's what you can partially blame for the lack of updates. But - PRAISE JESUS!! - Mollie has been sleeping through the night the past few nights (three to be exact), and I feel like I have a new lease on life! Let's keep that up, Mollie Grace! :)

Bathing Beauties

2010-06-01T21:48:00.002-05:00

Here are some recent pics of our two little sweeties in the pool. Mollie wasn't too sure what to think about it at first because the water was pretty cold, but she eventually decided that it was fun. I had to sit with her and splash water gently on her for a lonnnnng time before she was ok with it the very first time. I'm glad we kept at it, though, because they had lots of fun! :)

There's also a video of Natalie and her new dance moves at the end. ;)

Enjoy!

Untitled from Sarah Billheimer on Vimeo.

Mollie has something to show you!

2010-05-25T19:09:00.006-05:00

Earlier this evening, I was inside making a grocery list, and Brad took the girls out to look at the garden and play in the backyard. All of a sudden, I hear this loud bang on one of the kitchen windows, and I see Brad motioning for me to come out. I can see a tiny little pink figure out in the middle of the yard . . . standing up! So I run out, then run back in to grab the camera. She just started doing standing out of the blue, with no prompting! Too cute! Note how at the verrrrry start of the video, she's attempting to clap - which then kind of causes her to lose her balance. She kept doing it over and over and over for quite a while. She even almost perfected clapping for herself at the same time! ;) :)

Mollie's First Stand! from Sarah Billheimer on Vimeo.

TEN Months

2010-05-18T20:43:00.004-05:00

I don't know if you're aware, but Mollie is officially TEN months old. Yes, ten. Seriously. I am really planning a birthday party for our BABY! *sigh* She just gets sweeter all the time, and we're thrilled with each new milestone. She crawls like crazy and is completely and totally obsessed with pulling up on things. Not just "things" as in "some things" but "things" as in EV.RY.THING. It's so neat to see her becoming more independent, but we have to watch her like a hawk, especially in the bathtub! Just today, she stood unsupported for about 10 seconds which is seriously a long time for a newbie like Mollie! I kept trying to get her to stand on her own later, and she did, but as soon as she realized it, she dropped herself right back to the ground. She'll get there! I really feel like she'll be walking by her birthday, but you certainly never know! I am not especially in a hurry, but once they start down that road, it's fun to watch their progress. I know Natalie will be more than thrilled when Mollie is walking around!

Mollie started clapping over the past few weeks, and it's just too cute! Forgive me if I've already posted this, but she was clapping at the table on Mother's Day, and she had everyone else clapping too. It was so adorable how proud she was that she had the power to make us all clap! I think she was more excited about that than the clapping itself! I also realized a day or so ago that she will clap on command. I was totally surprised that I asked her to clap - and she DID! Pretty cute! She's also started waving, which is another fun milestone (but aren't they all?). Today when I got home from work, she was sitting on the kitchen floor by Brad, and she started whining, crawling toward me, and waving, but she was kind of waving at the floor. It was like she knew I'd like her to wave, but she didn't quite get the concept.

She's babbling LOTS more these days, and we hear lots of "dadada" so I'm always trying to get her to say "mama," naturally. :) Gotta have equal time, right? Sunday morning she and I were the only ones up, and she was in a sweet mood. I stood her up on my lap and said, "Mollie, can you say 'Mama'?" and she looked at me, then paused and kind of looked away. I figured that was the end, but a few seconds later, she looked right back at me, and in the teeeeeeny tinnnniest sweetest voice, she softly said "ma-ma-ma-ma" while clapping her hands. Melt my heart!

Mollie also LOVES to eat finger foods. She often gets finger foods for breakfast, and pretty much always at dinner. She literally gets upset with us if we are eating and she's not getting what we have, even if she just had her own jar of food before we started! Tonight she chowed down on some pasta and veggies. I'm pretty sure she at more than Natalie. ;) I'm not sure how we were blessed with TWO great eaters, but we're thankful for it!

So here's Mollie's 10-month photo. She's fresh from the tub, smelling yummy and being sweet in her jammies right before bed! :)

Playing Catch-up

2010-05-14T20:14:00.003-05:00

Here are a few pictures that I've been meaning to post over the past few weeks. A couple cute random ones of the girls, then us painting pots for Mother's Day gifts.

My First Fondant

2010-05-10T18:21:00.004-05:00

I have always admired smooth fondant-covered cakes, and I am thinking of trying to make one for each of the girl's birthdays this year instead of buying them. It's so expensive to buy fondant cakes, and all I ever hear is that the fondant doesn't even taste good at all. So one of the crafty-mom blogs that I follow had a recipe for Marshmallow Fondant that is supposed to be easy AND tasty, so what better opportunity to practice a bit than Mother's Day?

Using some recipes I found online and the advice of a friend who has is a professional baker, I made a yellow cake with raspberry creme filling and covered it with white marshmallow fondant. I will just say that none of the steps were as hard as I thought they'd be, but there were a LOT of steps! I'll definitely only be attempting these again for special occasions! I would do it again, though! I was really proud of how mine turned out! It tasted good, and lots of people went back for seconds, so I think it's safe to call this cake a success!

Mashmallow Fondant Recipe: click here

French Braids

2010-04-30T09:50:00.002-05:00

Natalie actually sit still and let me French braid her hair yesterday afternoon (while she watched Super Why!) We were both really pleased with the results! :) I can't believe how much older she looks though!

9 Months

2010-04-27T22:00:00.005-05:00

Well, I was late in taking Miss Mollie's 9 month photo, and now I'm even later in posting it! During the past month, Mollie has started crawling and pulling herself up on things. She LOVES being mobile, especially when it involves chasing Natalie around the house. Natalie's definitely a trooper - getting down on Mollie's level and crawling with her! They are so adorable together!

It's so exciting to watch this point in Mollie's life. She's showing more and more personality, and just gets sweeter each day. She seems to be more attached to me than Daddy's Girl Natalie was, which is kind of neat for me, I won't lie. :) We think she may have started giving some "kisses" over the weekend, but it's not especially consistent. I loooooove it when they start doing that, so I seriously can't wait!

It is totally and completely insane to me that Mollie is only 3 months (well, 2.5 at this point) away from her first birthday! I have been planning her party in my head, but I need to start really getting some ideas. The way time flies, it will be here literally before we know it!

Natalie and Mollie are having more fun together than I could have imagined at this point. They play peek-a-boo in the car, and they play a game that Natalie has entitled "Jumperoos," which is basically a type of peek-a-boo where Natalie puts a blanket over Mollie, then pulls it off and says, "Jump-a-roo, Jump-a-roo, Jump-a-ROO!" to the tune of Mollie's giggles.

Last week, they were crawling around in the kitchen, chasing each other and having fun when Natalie disappeared. I knew she'd gone into her room, and after about two minutes, I called her across the house. She said, "I in my roooooom!" I said, "I know, but what are you doing in there?" She replied, "I waiting fa Mollie. She gonna come chatch me." I looked down at Mollie, chewing on a toy she'd just discovered, blissfully unaware that she was part of a game of Hide & Seek. So I scooped her up, and both of us went to "chatch" Natalie.

Sunday evening was the close of a rough day. No one had been sleeping too well the past few nights, Mollie wasn't napping well, and she just didn't seem to be happy. Brad had been playing with the girls, and I started hearing extremely excited giggles and squeals. Eager to see what all the excitement was about, I went into the living room, and to my surprise, I found Brad sitting on the couch - alone. He said that the girls were chasing each other and having THAT much fun going from room to room, all on their own. I had totally assumed that he was tossing them in the air or inventing some super-fun new Daddy game. YAY for sisters having fun with each other!

And here are a few of Natalie with the pink bear, because isn't only fair that they both have a turn? :) I am definitely not turning her down ANY time she WANTS to look into the camera! :)

I know this looks really odd, but she's belting out one of her famous Disney tunes, and it's just classic Natalie. :)

For the Birds

2010-04-20T23:06:00.002-05:00

So tonight, we went to the "big park" in town and walked the 2 mile track with the girls in the double stroller (joovy caboose - love it!). In one area, there is a large pond that kind of trickles out into a stream on one side. I saw these black birds that had bright red shoulders. I thought they were really different, so I was pointing them out to Brad. After a minute, Natalie starts pointing, and saying, "I want one." We have no idea what she's talking about. She says, "I want one a dose. Wight here." She still appears to be pointing out towards . . . the birds. We then realize that she has pushed up the sleeve of the arm she is "pointing" with . . . and also realize that she's not pointing, she's sticking her arm out so the bird can come land on it. I think someone's been to the new Lorakeet adventure at the zoo a few too many times lately. ;) Add that in to a fondness for Cinderella, and voila! Birds totally just come sit on your arm if you want them to. Obviously! Right?

Natalie Love

2010-04-19T10:53:00.002-05:00

Just a few photos of Natalie that I took last week that I love. :) If you follow my 365 blog, you've seen all but this first one. If not, here's that blog: http://sarah-365.blogspot.com/ Just a little project I'm doing to improve my photography skills. :)

And a really cool one of Brad & Mollie. :)

Looookie Here!!

2010-04-12T09:06:00.005-05:00

A couple days ago, I submitted a little story and photo on a blog that I love - Kelle Hampton's Enjoying the Small Things - as a submission to win a beauuuuutifully cool Mother's necklace. To my thrill and surprise, she posted my entry yesterday on her site! That certainly doesn't mean that I'll win the big prize, but at the risk of sounding like an Oscar nominee, "It's just an honor to be nominated!" Woo hoo! You can click here to see the whole post (she's posted a few submissions for the last few days, the two from this post are not the only ones), but I'll also add it here:

Life happens here in our toddler's bedroom. Love has been literally stroked onto its walls, having been painted no less than three times over two days by a loving daddy, at the urging of an expectant mama, both determined to find the perfect shade of pink for the arrival of our firstborn. Currently it's my favorite place to watch as our two daughters are united and we can just see love and friendship blooming in their hearts . . . in this room sweet and silly books are read and giggled over before naptime and lingered over after naps. It's here that bedtime tales have been shared nearly every night by adoring parents, who are still finding it a little difficult to believe that they could have been this blessed.

EASTER! aka The One Where I Post Possibly More Photos Than Ever Before

2010-04-06T20:47:00.008-05:00

We had such a great Easter! It was positively chock-full of people we love, which is my favorite part of any holiday celebration. The day was overflowing with food in pots and bowls and plates (and sometimes on the carpet), babies in bellies and on hips and laps and even learning to crawl on cool linoleum floors, and children running and hunting and singing and gaming and bubble-blowing and hide-and-go-seeking. It was full of chatting, catching up, trading kid stories, baby advice, watching the youngest generation connect with each other, reminiscing, and even discussing some favorite TV shows. It was warm and humid and sticky, but I hope I don't speak for myself when I say that a wonderful time was had by all. :)

There's so much more that could be said, but I think I'll attempt to let the photos speak for themselves.

Oh, with one addition. KIM!!! How did I not get pictures of you and Tommy? I guess you and I just stay behind the scenes and behind our cameras. I just wanted to make sure that you know your presence was certainly FELT and ENJOYED! Muah!

Eggs!

2010-04-03T17:01:00.007-05:00

Today we dyed eggs for the first time ever. Natalie did really well with it, and we only had one small catastrophe. Leeeeeet's just say the orange dye didn't last long, and somewhere in our home, there might be an Elmo nightgown, one pair of white socks, and a few dishtowels soaking. Maybe. And that could explain why Natalie is sans-shirt in many photos. But a good time was still had by all. Mollie enjoyed snacking on cheerios while Natalie and I painstakingly (or, ok, maybe not-so-painstakingly) decorated one dozen eggs. We attempted to do a baker's dozen, but I just couldn't fit 13 eggs into the pan.

Sweet Mollie

2010-04-01T20:38:00.005-05:00

Wednesday afternoon Mollie and I spent some time outside while waiting for Natalie to get home from her Oma & Papa's house. She looooooves the outdoors! Too bad it was pretty windy. I am thrilled that I captured several photos of Mollie's new "scrunchy" face smile. Love it!

At Gram & Opa's

2010-03-31T11:08:00.003-05:00

Recently, Natalie, Mollie, and I took a little excursion and went to Lawton to visit. We had a really great time hanging out on Gram & Opa's back porch. The weather was beautiful, and we were able to stay in from the wind, so it was even better!

Mollie was, um, slightly obsessed with Gram's earrings. :) Natalie loved playing the elephant music box toy, as usual. And we discovered that Mollie thinks wearing sunglasses is hilarious. :)

LOVE

2010-03-31T11:02:00.001-05:00

I am SOOOOO blessed!

Bathtime!

2010-03-21T20:48:00.002-05:00

We've done different versions of this from time to time, but today was the first time that Mollie officially took a big-girl bath WITH Natalie. She had a BLAST! Doesn't she look big (and small?) next to Natalie here? :)

JBF Goodies!!!!!!

2010-03-21T19:12:00.007-05:00

It's that time of year again! I got to do my semi-annual big shopping at the Just Between Friends Spring/Summer consignment sale at the fairgrounds. This time, I was mainly shopping for clothes - no big-ticket items needed around here right now! Basically, I need an entire spring/summer wardrobe for Natalie, but I couldn't help my self and had to pick up some new cute outfits for Miss Mollie as well.

When I got everything home, it was so much fun to show the clothes to Natalie! It's the first time that she's actually been interested. She was even excited about Mollie's clothes too. When I showed her her own, she was literally squealing, grabbing things from the stacks, putting them ON over her clothes, thanking me, telling me "it's so CUTE, Mommy!" describing the colors and characters (I'm kinda anti-characters on clothes, but I did get her some Disney Princess jammies, to her delight), and just generally being an excited GIRL. At one point, she had a new shirt on top of a new dress on top of her current clothes, plus the polka dot flip flops. It was very cute. :)

So here's our haul:

New sun hats and summer some shoes for both:

I even managed to find them a couple coordinating outfits. These dresses may look black, but they are actually brown and very similar styles. I just love these blue skirts with the pale pink tank tops too!

More sweet dresses for Natalie:

Some cotton sundresses for Nat:

Bathing suits & cover-up:

Cute outfits - these brown gauchos are soooooo adorable, oh my gosh!

Loooooove the capris and pointelle hooded sweater here - and the other outfit is super cute too!

This sweater is for Easter - to replace the one I bought (extremely, extremely grudgingly) at Target a few weeks ago. That one will be going back since this (sometimes) smart Mommy kept the tags ON it!

Summer jammies - adorable!

A swimsuit & sundress for Mollie (she already has a TON of suits, it's ridiculous!)

Cute summer dresses for Miss Mollie:

Super sweet outfits I love for Mollie:

And this year, I actually had TONS of things to consign at the sale. Of course I kept some pieces that have a special place in our hearts, but I am consigning most of the clothes that Mollie's outgrown, along with some other baby items that we didn't have a need for anymore. I'm soooo anxious to see how our things sell! If all goes well, we'll make WAY more than enough to cover the items that I bought today - yay! :)

First Day of Spring!

2010-03-20T18:30:00.003-05:00

Yesterday it reached almost 70 degrees here, but it was pretty windy so it wasn't all that enjoyable. Then last night the trouble started. Today we are snowed in! OK maybe not truly snowed in, but it's been snowing all day and we haven't found any reason to risk getting out in it.

Since Natalie has a virus that's keeping us home from church tonight, but only affecting her in the form of a sore throat, we let her get out in the snow. This is her first time to play in the snow, and she had a ball. We she found out she was going to go outside, she happily complied with all wardrobe adjustments we deemed necessary. We bundled her in a long-sleeved t-shirt, sweatshirt, gloves, thick tights, jeans, fuzzy socks, plastic bags on her feet, shoes, a scarf, knit cap, and VERY thick winter coat (thanks again, Sheila!). She was definitely warm. :)

Natalie's very first snow angel!

Rosy, rosy cheeks = the sign of a happy girl (whether or not she's willing to smile for a photo). ;)