Where did Nonny go?

And then came the day that Lucy woke up and stopped calling her older sister Molly "Nonny". I wouldn't call it a coming of age, but we did lose a little something. It started happening a month or so ago, but it's pretty consistent now.

Jack and Molly

Tonight, Jack is sleeping at the foot of Molly's bed for the first time. Nobody asked for it, Jack just didn't leave when I did after prayers. We cracked the door in case he decides he wants a different place in the middle of the night as he often will do. I wonder what Molly thinks of it. Sure seems special to me.

Edit: At 2 AM something happened, though not sure really what and Molly woke us up to wailing and crying.  Maria took the call.  While Maria was gone, Jack showed up to get on OUR bed.  Maria comes back and says that Molly claims we didn't check on her.  Unfortunately, that's a no-win situation where you're not going to wake her up just to prove to her that you did check on her.  Also, someone closed Molly's door (I left it open after I took Jack out and saw he went straight back to her bed).  Molly said this morning that she liked having Jack in the bed.

Welcome to our new home

After almost 1 year of not posting and seriously reviewing our cash flow, I've decided to move this blog to a new location that is much easier on the wallet.  I've sent out an invite to Maria to see if she'd be interested in posting as well.  We'll see!  Could be a great opportunity to get some good content up here for the family to see.

Putting Lucy To Sleep

Lucy USED to be a great little girl to put to sleep.  She will race you to her room, help you turn on all the fans (yes, we live on a loud street and have 2 fans for white noise and another for a heater), and just hop in your arms to sing prayers and lulliby's.  A couple of nights ago, we picked up a "No, No, Yes, Yes" book.  Each spread has one page that says "No, No" and has a picture of a baby doing something wrong and on the opposite side a picture of a baby doing something related the right way with the words "Yes, Yes".  One spread depicts the baby tearing pages out of a book on one side and reading nicely on the other.  This particular night, Lucy begged for that book and started frantically flipping pages yelling "Book!  Book!"  When she found that spread regarding the books, she punched the sky with her right fist and yelled "YEAH!" like her favorite baseball team just hit a home run.  Such good times!

We erected a playscape in our back yard last weekend.  It was picked up off of Craigs List for free as the playscape is 5+ years old and the owners were moving.  We've probably gotten no more than 5 minutes of play on it and already 2 sets of tear inducing splinters.  Maria, after seeing the playscape, now believes that I can build one even better.  Someday she'll believe me when I tell her that I can do things!!!  ;)

Christmas was.... AWESOME!

Christmas has come and gone this year and it has been a ton of fun.  We've definitely been blessed.  The kids spent the first 3 weeks of December sick making it a very interesting week before Christmas.

We finally got our Christmas stockings this year.  Santa left some great gifts for the kids including a doll house full of furniture, some Cars matchbox cars, a couple of soccer balls and many other things.  Molly and Lucy can tear through gifts at an embarrassing rate.  We visited one of my aunts and Molly had 3 gifts open before she could get her camera!  If you're not careful, opening gifts can be nothing short of chaos and this year was a lesson learned.  Molly and Lucy left reindeer food out for Santa's "crew" as well as a plate piled high with some cookies and a half glass of almond milk.  Molly was so excited that Santa polished off all of those cookies and the food bowls for the reindeer were emptied and not in their original location.  The magic of Christmas was alive in our house!  Lucy said "WOW!" after pulling the paper off of every gift whether it was a generic brown box or the gift itself.

In that time, Lucy's vocabulary has shot through the roof!  She's beginning to fill in the missing words when you sing with her, though her missing "word" for the alphabet song is always "No!"  I guess she just doesn't like that song very much.  Disney's Choo Choo Soul has a neat rendition of the alphabet song and she's a bit partial to their "Choo Choo" opening diddy, so maybe that's what she wants.  Little Lucy is getting better at telling us what to do to make her happy and is also getting more upset when she doesn't get what she wants.  For instance, we've had to move the dog treats because she's made it very clear that it's her job to give Jack every treat from the bag at one time.  Her name for Molly right now is "Nonny".  It's ridiculously sweet.  We're starting to see some really cute OCD behaviors form lately.  For instance, she knows that Molly isn't very good at drinking her juice, so when she comes across Molly's juice, Lucy stops what she's doing, picks it up and takes it straight to Molly yelling "NOOOOOONY!!!"  Lucy must keep her bear (named "Baby") and pacifier (named "Binky" sounds like "beenkee") together at all times.  If she loses one, she will look for it: "BIIIIIIIINY!!!!  WHERE ARE YOU?"  It's very sing-songy and adorable.

Molly has been nothing short of perfect.  She's been so much fun to hang out with.  Her personality is really starting to form, as is her sense of humor.  She loves to dress up, cook, help, and learn.  Boy does she like to learn!  We spent about 5 minutes watching Star Wars today right after she got up from her nap.  It was the 5 minutes of R2D2 and C3PO going to have their chat with Jabba the Hutt.  We're not ready, yet.  Both kids stopped what they were doing and wouldn't respond to any of my questions while it was on.  My little girl is definitely growing up, but she's not Star Wars grown up, yet.

Chikoh

Happy Halloween!  And man have we celebrated Halloween this year.  Molly’s preschool had a “Trunk or Treat” event where parents drove to the parking lot of the church, decorated their vehicle’s trunks, and handed out candy as the kids walked around and trick or treated just as they would in a neighborhood.  Daddy went a little crazy and had quite the setup with cloth that looked like sand, a treasure chest, some fake coins, some treasure maps, a pirate hat, and an eye patch to depict the scene of unearthed treasure.  It was fun even if it was a bit cold in the shade.  Molly (er, I mean Cinderella) was ever so elegant and Lucy Cat (sporting normal clothes and drawn on whiskers) was cute.  Mommy walked around with the kids and Daddy handed out candy witnessing the wide array of pleasantries and not so from patrons of the treasure chest.  Molly’s class also had a parade earlier on Friday to showcase all of those who came to school in their costumes.

Saturday we went to the park and played with some of our neighborhood friends.  We’re still getting to know everyone but Molly is so good at not being shy. Grandma came over on Saturday, too and was great to have around.

Sunday, on the eve of Halloween, we made it to church as a family, went to the new Kroger (which is awesome) and then after naps headed down to the pumpkin patch held at a nearby YMCA.  We went on a hay ride, saw some humongous and alien pumpkins, played in a bounce house, and saw some folks who really got into the trunk or treat festivities with their trucks turned into pirate ships, a castle tower for Rapunzel, and a house for some smurfs.

MONDAY was the day of Halloween and boy did we have fun.  We met up with some family friends and walked around the neighborhood with their family.  Little Lucy was dragging her candy pail everywhere she went and wouldn't let you touch it unless you were going to pick her up with it.  We had one candy meltdown where Lucy wanted a sucker but couldn’t walk with it in her mouth (she’s just not sure enough on her feet for Mommy and Daddy to feel comfortable with that, yet).  Lucy’s “Trick or Treat” sounded more like “Chikoh” and her “Thank you” was a very sing-songy “Dakoo!”  She called candy for just a little while “Dakoo”.  We finished the night waving glow sticks in the back of the Expedition begging for trick or treaters to come by so we could give them our candy.  The weather couldn't have been more perfect and good times were had by all.  Next year, I think I'll setup my barbecue and cook hot dogs and hamburgers for the parents as they walk by.

Here are some pics from the Trick Or Treat efforts:

But... But... I did!!!

So the other morning, Molly woke up a little early and was awake and watching tv before I left for work. In my usual routine when Molly is awake before I leave, I give kisses to the girls, say goodbye and get on my way to work. By the time I was 3 miles down the road, I got a call from my little Molly in tears saying that I didn't say goodbye to her. I didn't know what to say... Thanks to a closely listening mommy to help work Molly through the problem. I'm going to have to brush up on handling these situations me-thinks...

I can't get over how awesome Molly is. She's a ton of fun to hang around and, even when she's having trouble with behaving, she's downright awesome.   It's really tough to spend time just me and her with Lucy around because Lucy has become a bit of a Daddy hog, lately.  A child has never crawled at such speeds as Lucy when I come home while yelling and screaming all the way: "OOOOOOOOHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!"  Molly is exploring her sense of humor and is really funny at moments.  She'll learn when a joke gets too old in time.  Mommy and Daddy just need to keep in mind that she's learning...  all...  the...  time.....

Little Lucy is walking more and more now.  Her favorite thing in the world right now is a barn swallow that sits on her window sill.  The swallows have learned the sounds of our house and are not spooked by the audible excitement produced by Lucy.  Lucy (and the rest of the family) can get an up-close look at the swallows that is no more than a foot or two away.  Little Lucy now says "bird" and it sounds like "buh".  It has become her word to use whenever she wants anything (along with "all done").  Little Lucy is getting harder to hold now as she is getting bigger and feels that she has earned the right to explore anything at any time anywhere.