Its been another busy few months, but here are some highlights of what Mollie's been up to lately:

• Getting ready  for ballet lessons, which don't start until June, but she is already practicing her moves constantly: 

• and wearing her ballet clothes whenever she can: 

• She loves spending time with her friends: 

• And spending time with her family: 

• She also loves to be told stories, and she is always the star of them. They go something like this:  "Once upon a time there was a girl named Mollie....(and then usually a description of what she did that day)." She often requests that the stories involve her eating at nearby restaurants. Here she is living out one of her favorites, The LaFonda Story: 

• Also, every character in every book is also Mollie. When we are reading a book she'll point to a person (or animal) on each page and say "that's Mollie!"

• She is also getting really excited about her baby sister arriving and talks about it alot. She loves to visit baby sister's room and practice pushing the swing gently. She also talks about what she is going to say to the baby she meets her at the hospital ("Hi Baby Sister! I love you!"), and how she is going to give baby sister her old clothes. We are looking forward to seeing how it goes when all of this actually happens.  Video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8CQFnz9jJE

• Nap time is getting tougher and tougher--some days she skips it altogether, but we always try. 
• She still loves wearing fancy clothes, often asking to wear her flower girl dress, but settling on other outfits as long as they involve ruffles, or a dress hanging in her closet (nothing from the drawer). And loves to sleep in her nightgown instead of footy pajamas. 

Mollie at 2 1/2

We've gotten a little off track with monthly postings, but wanted to make sure I record a little snapshot of our sweet 2 1/2 year old Mollie before she begins her journey as big sister this summer!

Here are a few things that she loves to say and do:

• Mollie: Tell me a secret!
  Mommy or Daddy (whispers): I love you!
  Mollie: That's not a secret, everybody knows that!
• Loves talking about letters and the alphabet and does a really good job of sounding out a word to see what letter it starts with. She can spell her name really well, and for some reason says the letter "L" with really thick country accent:

• Likes having the stereo on (usually Daddy's choice of music) while we eat breakfast in the morning, and loves to say "I like this music!" or "This is the Beatles! The Beatles have umbrellas!" because we once saw a poster of the Beatles in a bagel shop where they were holding umbrellas. 
• Is very opinionated, especially about things that Daddy does. "Daddy, put your hood off" (if he is wearing a hooded sweatshirt". "Daddy stay on your own pillow!" (if we are cuddling in bed in the morning). Sometimes if we are singing a song quietly during her bedtime routine she says "No, not whispered, sing it happy!"
• Loves to visit the dinosaurs at the natural history museum in our neighborhood, and shout "BIG DINOSAURS". She sometimes shouts this randomly at home. 

• Still loves building with blocks, but has moved on from making towers and now spends time building "baby beds" and even makes little "babies" out of bristle blocks, along with tables and chairs.
• Loves talking to the baby in mommy's tummy and has decided we should name her little sister "Snack" or "Babydoll". 
• Is a great climber and loves to climb at the bouncy castle place and slide down the big kid slides, and also climb trees and playground equipment.

• Loves riding her tricycle and is getting better at pedaling herself. 
• Loves the Fancy Nancy books, but calls them "Fancy Fancy", and will do almost anything if we can think of a way to make it seem fancy. 
• Is still completely obsessed with the color purple and really only wants to wear purple clothing (this has been going on about a year now!) 

Valentine's Day 2013

Mollie had a really fun Valentine's Day at school. This year her class and the other older toddler class put on a Sweetheart's Ball. The kids were matched up into couples and presented, couple by couple. Then they all danced for the parents. Mollie was paired up with her friend Luca. They did a great job!

Here are some pictures:


Here is a video...its a little long, but if you skip ahead to about the 4 minute mark, its perfect!

November 2012

Mollie had a great November, although we didn't take too many pictures this month. 

Our sweet girl performed in the school Thanksgiving program. Though really the teachers did most of the singing. Mollie did sing her "gobble, gobble, gobble" song alot at home before and after the performance. 

Here she is at the after-party back in her classroom: 

Mollie also enjoyed a trip to Memphis, and couldn't stop talking about Grandma & Grandpa's house for at least a week afterwards. While she still remains mostly a vegetarian, and anti-turkey, she was a great helper baking our pumpkin pie! 

October 2012

• Is potty trained! She is doing great wearing underwear all day at school and at home. She wears a pull-up for nap time, but is otherwise out of diapers. Hooray! 
• Loves singing loudly. Favorite songs include Twinkle Twinkle, ABCs, Wheels on the Bus, and Itsy Bitsy spider 
• Visited a pumpkin patch where she got to go on a hay ride, cow ride, watch baby pigs race, and do lots of other fun Fall activities
• Dressed up as Minnie Mouse for Halloween and had her first trick-or-treating experience.
• Is more obsessed with purple than ever. She only ever wants to wear purple clothing.  

September 2012

Happy Birthday Mollie!

Mollie had a great 2nd Birthday celebration. It started with a special cupcake snack at school on Friday, a fun weekend with all six grandparents, a pancake breakfast made by Daddy, and a fun party at Mulberry Fields Community Garden with all of her friends.

2 Years Old

This last month has been especially exciting for Mollie.In the last month, she:

She had a long visit with Uncle Kiss,

 a nice visit from her German cousins,

got to be a flower girl at Uncle Justin and Aunt Shana's wedding,

experienced a rickshaw through Times Square where she got to see Elmo, Cookie Monster, and Minnie Mouse,

got to meet lots of her cousins,

spent lots of time with all of her grandparents,

and spent quality time with her friends.

In addition to all of these exciting things, Mollie:

•  Is really using full sentences 
• Has become super opinionated. She only wants to wear her purple dress (she currently owns two) or purple socks. She only wants to wear diapers that have cookie monster on them. This list could go on and on. 
• Loves to sing and often surprises us all the time with songs she knows all of the words too (though it shouldn't be that surprising since we listen to the same music over and over) 
• Can sing her ABCs start to finish.
• Can answer the question "how many", and sometimes gets the number right. 
• Spent a good portion of the month anticipating her birthday, talking about cupcakes, hats, etc.

23 Months

At 23 months, Mollie:

• Can count to 10, but often skips the number 7
• Is very interested in labeling things "hot" or "cold" and knows that its hot when we get in the car and asks us to "turn the air conditioning on" or "more air please"
• Loves to dance, and jump and listen to music. In fact, she gets upset that the ride home from school is so short because she wants to hear more music.
• Is very excited about her upcoming birthday (See video evidence here: http://www.youtube.com/watchv=MBMSijMI4tc&list=UUwvXoHKCdRhd9E4MOpBMUUA&index=1&feature=plcp )
• Has quite an imagination. She tells me things like "Open the door, Elmo is outside". 
• Had her first trip to the dentist and got a clean bill of health for her teeth
• Has finally stopped referring to Mommy as "Mah-gee" (her own made up name) and using the real word "Mommy".
• Made her debut as a flower girl at Jeffy & She-she's wedding and is practicing her flower girl skills for her next appearance at Uncle Justin and Aunt Shana's wedding in August. 
• Loves doing somersaults (with assistance) and tries to do them herself, but mostly puts her head on the ground and rolls to the side.
• Has gotten pickier about food and stays away from most meat. 

22 Months

At 22 Months, Mollie:

• Can do a little counting. She points as if she is actually counting something, and says numbers up to 6 but often switches the order of 6 and 5.
• Is starting to sing along with her favorite songs. 
•  Traveled to New Jersey to meet her Great Aunt Fern, Great Uncle Paul, and cousin Adam and got to attend her Aunt Shana's bridal shower. 
• Spent a weekend in the North Georgia mountains with her Atlanta friends and enjoyed hiking and time at the pool.

Happy Father's Day!

This year we spent Father's Day in the North Georgia mountains with some great friends. After a delicious brunch, Mollie took a nap with her Daddy--a very rare, and very sweet thing, and luckily I was able to sneak in and catch it on camera:

21 Months

At 21 months, Mollie:

• is putting lots of words together to make phrases like "sit down mommy please", "bless you daddy", "here you go", "lots of cars" and the very best "I love you". 
• seems to remember a lot more of what she is told. for example when Jason was on a business trip last week, she kept saying "Daddy, airplane" and then when I told her in the morning that we would be picking daddy up after school, the first thing she said to me when I picked her up was "Daddy, airport!".
• loves the word "snack" and asks for snacks quite often, even first thing in the morning
• loves to push her dolly and her doggy around in the doll stroller, feed them, and pretend that they do everything she does, in fact she is starting to do a lot more imaginative play, such as pretending she is a dog
• is getting more and more active on the playground. Her teachers at school even said she likes to go head first down the slide

20 Months

At 20  months, Mollie is so much fun to be with. She is: 

• Talking more and more and still learning new words all the time. She still loves to label everything in sight. A few of her new words include sky, broccoli ("brock-ee"), dinosaur, etc. Her pronunciation is getting  a lot better too, but there are still plenty of times when we have no idea what she is trying to say. 
• Likes to play "nap" and will rub your back and tell you "shhhhhhh" and then lay down on her tummy so you can do the same to her.
• Loves to push her toy grocery cart around, dump it out, fill it up, and repeat. She also loves doing the same thing with her lego blocks. Build large tower, crash it, repeat. 
• Got to spend a lot of time with her grandparents this past month between Passover, and a surprise trip to Memphis. She seems to have settled on names for all of her grandparents: "Mama"/Arlene, "Papa"/Ron, "Rosie"/Rose, "Papa D"/David, "She-She"/Sheree and "Jeffy"(which sounds more like Jack-key)/Jeff. 
• Is even more obsessed with Elmo (if that is even possible). She really hardly ever watches TV, but with all of the Elmo branded products around, she is really familiar with all of the sesame street crew. She especially loves singing "Elmo's Song" and replacing Elmo's name with all of her family members names. 

Here are two separate albums, one from Passover, and one from the rest of the month: