Deeeeelicious Drip Beef

So after hearing lots of friends RAVE about The Pioneer Woman's "Drip Beef" (aka French Dip Sandwiches), I finally made it today. Oh my gosh, it is SO good. It was way better than I'd even imagined! Here is the recipe. I did as many others suggested, and used more of the juice from the peppers than it called for. I wasn't sure if I should use ALL the peppers AND ALL the juice, so I used the amount of peppers she suggested, then used about 3/4 of the juice in the jar. We ate it on toasted deli rolls with melted provolone cheese. Oh. My. Goodness. SO.GOOD. And so easy too!! Can't wait for the leftovers - hee hee! :)

Eight Months

Mollie is EIGHT months old today. That's just so hard to believe. There are only FOUR months until her birthday. It's just not right. I feel like just yesterday, I was still going to the hospital for NSTs, taking Natalie to the splash park, and PRAYING that she would take good naps so that I could too because being pregnant and chasing after a toddler was exhausting. On the other hand, that seems like an entirely different life. It's a little bit hard to remember life without Mollie - and that's just fine with us. It's getting better all the time!

Mollie sits up like a pro, and when she does end up on her tummy, she has started scooting backwards or attempting to get up on her knees, without a whole lot of success at this point. She LOVES sitting up to play and will even play on her own for a nice period of time. She is totally in love with Natalie, who completely shares the devotion. It's wonderful to watch them laugh, giggle, squeal, and just love each other in general. I wonder what Natalie will think when Mollie becomes mobile. It's funny, Mollie will scoot around on her bottom, and reeeeeeach for things she wants, but I don't think she's realized that crawling is an option yet. When she does, look out world! She still only has two teeth, but I think the top two may be on their way. We're still in shock that she cut the bottom two almost without our knowledge!

Mollie's been sick quite a lot in the past two months, but she appears to be over everything for now. It's such a relief to see her feeling better. She's so happy and smiley in general. It's hard to see her upset, whiny, or just lethargic. We know it's just not "her" to act that way. YAY for putting the sick stuff behind us and more Mollie smiles in our future!

I guess not a lot has changed in the past month, other than Mollie just becoming more mature and more of her own person. She does a lot more babbling now, and of course, is saying da-da-da-da-da a lot more than ma-ma-ma. *sigh* She definitely isn't using either as a name, though, she's just making her presence known. :) She loves to eat puffs and baby mum-mums while we eat, then it's her turn for dinner. If you decide that she's more tired than hungry, and try to lay her down for a nap without her solids, she becomes enraged! The photos below are the result of today's lunch. I knew she wouldn't take a nap without eating, even though I don't think she was hungry. Our pediatrician says eating at this age, is such a social thing. They just want to be like us! Today, I had given her blueberry puffs while we ate, and there were a few on her tray still while I was feeding her lunch to her. I think she thought she was pretty stinkin' funny at one point, because she grabbed a puff and jammed it into her mouth when I was headed that way with the spoon. Then she just giggled at me. Anyway, today Mollie also decided she NEEDED to hold the spoon. So I let her help. ;) That resulted with Turkey & veggie dinner alllll over her hands. Then she began rubbing her eyes, and, well, you can see what happened. I was scrubbing veggies out of Miss Mollie's eyelashes for quite some time.

In short, our love affair with Mollie continues to grow daily. :)

Lazy Sunday

Little Things

I was really taken with Natalie's tiny little feet last night, and I took this photo (she is stretching her toes out - they aren't really spaced like this ;)). Then I had to take one of Miss Mollie's tootsies this morning. I love recording the little things.

Sweet Baby

We went to storytime at the library this morning, and I had to wake Mollie up from her nap (don't worry, it had been an hour already, which is about how long she usually sleeps in the morning - and trust me, she loves storytime). This is what I found when I went in:

John Mayer!!

Friday night, Brad and I went to the John Mayer concert at the Ford Center. It was so much fun! We had really awesome seats! It was really cool to be so close to the front, and it definitely made for some entertaining people-watching as well. We didn't expect to enjoy the opening act, but we really did! It was Michael Franti & Spearhead, and they had a really great show. Michael Franti sang quite a bit out in the audience, and at one point, he was RIGHT in front of Brad (our seats were the first in a row, so there was an aisle right in front of us). He does a little video clip for each show on his website, put they haven't uploaded the OKC one. We keep checking to see if we're on the video!

John Mayer was an awesome show too, of course! He played for about 2 hours, which put us getting in and getting to bed WAY past our normal bedtime. :) It was well worth it though! Here's a little video I took of one of my old faves thats brings to mind happy memories of when Brad and I first started dating. :)

Tiny Concert Clip from Sarah Billheimer on Vimeo.

What's in a (Nick)name?

So I don't think I'd necessarily consider myself to be a big nickname person. I don't have one, and I don't think I use them a whole lot. I refer to Natalie as "Nat" a LOT in writing, but pretty much never in person. If I do call her "Nat," it feels weird in my mouth, then she always looks at me like I'm crazy, and says, "I Naa-a-LEE." I also do refer to the girls as "Munchkin" or "Sweet Girl" fairly often. But the big, huge, exception seems to be Mollie. I'm not sure why I feel the need to add to her name. Maybe it's because I'm used to saying Natalie - a 3-syllable name - as opposed to Mollie's 2 syllables? Anyway, here's a list of the many names of Miss Mollie (oh, and I only write the "Miss" before my girls' names too - never call them that in person :) ).

• Mollie Grace
• Mollie G
• Mollie Mollie
• Mollie Girl
• Mollie Sunshine
• Sweet Mollie
• Mollie Moe

I feel like there's a biggie that I'm missing. I'll add it later if I think of it. - Just added Mollie Moe. I think that was it! :)