miss molly grace...7 months

Molly is 7 months old. 

Of course, I am in complete shock and a lot of denial.

She is quickly becoming a big bundle of chub, and we kiss, pinch, poke, squish, and squeeze her all day.  None of us can get enough of our adorable brown butter ball.


Fun facts:

Her favorite toy is paper.  She loves to crinkle it and suck on it.

Molly can get up all fours and actually took her first "crawl" step today.

She is EXTREMELY grabby!  She will grab anything she can possibly get her chubby fingers on. 
She is quick too, and frequently we will get our food swiped right out of our hands.

Molly loves to laugh, and laughs very easily.  William and Luke can get her laughing the most, and it is so precious.

She had her first ear infection this past month, and she was a trooper, but it was sad.

She really likes music, and dances when she hears it.

She has her two bottom teeth, and is cutting her two top teeth.

She hates her car seat.  This is new to us, and it is crazy hard.  ugh

She gives the sweetest hugs.  She will wrap both arms around us, and then lay her head on our chests.  This absolutely melts me, every time.

Her hair is still brown, and her skin has a darker tone.  Her deep blue eyes make her little features very striking.  We call her our little brown baby.

Molly can worm her way around a room now.  She isn't crawling quite yet, but she can slug around pretty well.

She is a sweet and happy baby.  She has a very calming and happy vibe around her, and it radiates to anyone she comes in contact with.  She definitely has a gift for making people feel good and happy.

Molly is addicting, and she has her sweet little being wrapped around all of our hearts.

I am so glad she is here with us.  Sometimes when I look at her, and realize that she is finally here, my heart feels like it could just burst.

Love you Molly Grace!

annual stress fest., uh, I mean, easter photo shoot

Since Easter fell on conference Sunday this year, and we were out of town, we decided to wait to dress up in Easter outfits and take our annual Easter pictures, until this week.

For Easter pictures, we take them ourselves.  It amazes me how each year, the phone pictures and cameras get better and better.

I have a love/hate relationship with family pictures.  I am pretty sure we all do.  I sure love my babies though, and it is always worth it!

So, here you go.

 

This picture cracks me up!  It perfectly captures each of their personalities.
Luke looks like he just did something mischievous.
Mary looks completely annoyed with her crazy siblings
Molly is grabbing and curious
Sam is kind of boobing, but trying to be tough.
William is goofy.

through the eyes of luke

A couple weeks ago, I was driving to the store with Luke.  We were stopped at a red light, and the car next to us was also stopped.  There was a dog hanging out the passenger window of the car, so I told Luke there was a dog next to us, and rolled down his window.

Luke was waving to the dog and calling out to it, and the man driving the car thought it was cute, so he rolled down his window and waved to Luke also.

All the sudden, Luke got extremely excited and started leaning out his window pointing and yelling, "Santa! Santa!"

I glanced out the window, and sure enough, the guy waving at Luke in the car next to us had a white beard, and white hair.  The man was laughing and totally playing along with it.

It was awesome.

Later that same night, Ben had Luke and some of the other kids at the store with him.

Luke pointed to this...

and exclaimed, "Jesus!"

I still laugh hysterically every time I think of this, or see this picture at the store.

WOW.

ski babies

As mentioned in the last post, Ben took William and Luke skiing while the rest of us were at the State Meet.

I feel like these pictures say it all.

I love that Ben takes the time, energy, patience, and effort to introduce something so fun, and that he is so passionate about,  to our kids. 
Obviously, it is well worth it.

Lukey boy eating some snow for the road

this speaks volumes

heart melter

um dad??  I don't think we're in Kansas anymore.

state meet sheninigans

The state TNT (tumbling and trampoline) meet was this weekend.

Mary competed in it, and since it was the end of our spring break week, we decided to make a small trip out of it.

Our family decided to leave Friday, and go check out some of the fun things Thanksgiving Point had to offer.

First stop was the baby animal zoo.

It was really fun.  The baby animals were so stinkin cute!  Mary found an app on her ipod that makes real animal noises.  She did the turkey noise when we were by the turkeys, and they went nuts.  It was hilarious!  She got the pigs all sorts of confused and they started fighting with each other, so she stopped, but it was great.  Way to go Mary!

Luke really loved the baby lambs and goats, and they seemed to love him too.  They would follow him right next to the fence, and let him pet them.

The kids also got to ride on the Ponies.
William was not at all interested, so he gave Luke his ticket, and let him ride instead.

While the kids were riding the ponies, we happened to see Devin and Nichole there!  Pretty crazy to find my brother at Thanksgiving Point on a Friday afternoon.  We decided to meet up with them at the museum when we were all done with the zoo.

After the pony rides, we got to ride on a wagon behind a tractor.  Luke sat down, and stared at the tractor the entire time.  I am not sure if he even blinked during the entire ride!  I literally had to peel him away, kicking and screaming, when the ride was over.  This boy LOVES tractors.

 While we were waiting for the tractor ride, Mary decided to braid a horse's tail.  The horse just stood there and let her do it.  It was great!

Somehow, we timed it perfectly, and on our way out, we noticed that they had brought a cow in, and they were letting people milk it!

We decided to get in line.

Mary

Sam

William and Luke didn't want to milk the cow, but they thought it was really cool to watch.  William already doesn't like milk, and once we told him that is how we get milk, it completely solidified his distain.  ha!

I took a turn myself, and although it was pretty cool, I have to say it just felt kind of wrong.  Save the udders for the babies.

After the cow milking, we headed over to the Museum of Curiosity.

By this point, my phone was dead, so I didn't get any pictures.

I have to say though, that this museum was the absolute bomb of all museums!

We spent several hours there, and still didn't get to all of it.  There was a jungle gym made out of ropes, slides and nets that was 3 stories high.  There was a water room, a city room, a giant lego room, and everything in between.  It was awesome!

It was so fun to hang with Devin and Nichole too.  Uncle Devin is still such a kid at heart, and we about died laughing at him fall through the 3 story "spider web."

After the museum, we grabbed take-out at Red Robin and head to our hotel that Ben totally got us hooked up with.

This hotel was awesome!  Our room had  a kitchen, and a separate bedroom and living room!  The hotel also had it's own water park.

Mary and Sam swam until the pool closed.  The rest of us were too tired.

We all crashed while watching Harry Potter soon after.

The last thing I did was set my alarm on my phone, to make sure Mary wasn't late for her meet the next morning.

Yeah, the alarm was set for weekdays only, and it was Saturday.  I woke up, and totally pulled a Home Alone...."WE SLEPT IN!"  moment.

I flew out of bed, woke up the kids, frantically got Mary ready and sent them down to eat breakfast while I slapped on some makeup and hat and ran out the door.

By some miracle, and a lot of crazy driving, we made it to the meet on time for Mary's first event.  My sweet mother had woken up before 5:00 am and met us there.  Talk about an amazing support.  This isn't the first meet she has traveled to, and it means so much to Mary, and to me.

I had Molly and Sam with me, and Ben took Luke and William snow skiing for the day.

We spent the next 8 hours at the meet.

The competition was EXTREMELY close and tough.  Mary had an average of 30 girls in her age group, and she was the youngest of them all.

It was hard to imagine the size of the meet and the competition, until they did the march in.  It was really cool, and it was a great way to introduce the athletes and teams.

Heber Handspringers (Mary's team) are in the middle, in the black.

all of the athletes

She held her own really well.

Unfortunately, on floor (her best event), her heels went in to the red, and her first pass was deducted tons of points, even though she completely stuck it.  Poor Mary was pretty sad.

Her second pass was beautiful, but she took one step back on her landing, which in this competition, was a lot.  She ended up 12th out of 30.  It was still good, but she knew she had the ability to podium, so she was kind of sad.

Her double mini was the best I have seen her do, and she also did great on trampoline.

She placed in the top of the middle of the pack with all 3 events, which we are were all really proud of.

She was pretty bummed about floor.  The girl that won on floor got a 52, and Mary scored a 55 on floor at her last meet!

It is amazing how up and down these meets can be.  Mary is so good at enjoying the good moments and learning from the hard ones though. She is very resilient.

She is already looking ahead to Regionals in a month, and focusing on what to improve on.  She wants that 55 back on floor!

Mary is an amazing athlete, and I am so proud of her.  I love watching her flip and fly!  I hope she will always find joy in the journey.