Girl Talk

Kate and Hannah came up for a visit this week and the little ladies had fun with each other. As always, time flies by and instead of staring vacantly at the ceiling the girls actually sat up and played with each other. They're not quite braiding each other's hair yet but they do swap toys to shove in their mouths and it's pretty entertaining.

Sharing a little chat after a busy afternoon.

Sometimes there was good sharing...

Sometimes not.

Mugging for the camera

Goofiness (and mom entertainment).

Block Head

We headed out to Block Island with some friends for the long weekend. Molly scored her first BI piece of apparel and has decided to pursue a hat head look. Like her friend Samuel she actually is fine wearing hats. This is quite good news in case you hadn't noticed what some may call "fair" (and others may call Casper the Friendly Baby, blazingly pale) skin. She also scored a quick visit with Grampa, Aunt Karin, and Rebecca (thanks for making the trip out!). She has decided that stealth rolling is now out and that constant rolling/movement/wiggling is in. Thanks to the many hands and eyes that kept an eye on her.

Lions and Tigers and Babies, Oh My!

The stork made a mad dash around the country last week, depositing babies in Boston, Seattle, and Hanover. We're looking forward to meeting the newest Colby student, Garrett Burke. Garrett's dad, Dave, was John's roommate in college and looked especially charming in scrubs while he witnessed the delivery of his son.

Next stork stop was Seattle where the newest member of the Doyle clan arrived. Emily Anne came last Friday night, joining big sister Katy. She's a beautiful little one and is keeping the girl gene alive and well in the Doyle/Gerbi families. All those girl cousins will have lots of fun together!

Finally, Jonah William Morrill was delivered on Sunday morning and was happily snuggling with big brother Samuel (and Jake and Beth) before the morning was too old. This peanut is the only one we've laid actual eyes on but I think he's representative of how sweet and special all the new babies are.





Molly is so excited that she's having trouble sleeping! Ugh...

We're Sick of...

Molly wants to apologize for the lack of updates this week. She's been sick, unfortunately. I think John has figured out what makes him feel better on a Friday, though, and shared the goods. Excuse the runny nose in the second picture.

Catching Up

I'm trying to keep up with all of Molly's moving and shaking. Our friend Katie always requests that Molly check her Blackberry to see if she's available for a walk because she has quite the packed schedule with all her rolling, play groups, yoga, etc.

We had a very nice mother's day and celebration of Cousin Megan's birthday this past weekend. The weather in Maine was unexpectedly nice and we were able to hang out outside and enjoy the swing. Molly is apparently a big fan of swinging and Erin and Megan are big fans of pushing her.

Molly is also rolling up a storm and making her way across the floor with speed and cunning. The cunning part comes in because she likes to roll mostly when no one is looking. If people are there to entertain her than she'd much rather laugh and smile at them then roll.

This is the end product of the rolling and she's not in this position for long before she's flipped back over. It's hard to catch her in the act without sitting and waiting because she's much happier doing this if someone is watching:







Molly's extra special helpers who wanted to assist her in jumping.




Molly really did like the swinging and Erin really, really liked pushing her.



Megan just turned three and is very funny. She has reported to Grammy that she was worried about turning three because she was worried about falling down. She is a great big cousin to Molly, though. She teaches her how to put pacifiers in her mouth and was constantly asking to hold her. Megan got busier later in the weekend taking care of baby Izzie who was on a suspiciously similar schedule to Molly. I'm not sure where I've been but I didn't even know that the newest trend in motherhood is wearing a mask.




She had a couple of things to tell Grampy...


And then John tried out a new look on her.

Notes from the Road

Now, I'm not saying that I don't love New England, because I do, but I have to admit that our brief interlude of warm, sunny weather and lots of helping hands was pretty darn nice. We tried to bring the nice weather back with us but I'm not sure that it's pool or beach weather quite yet. Molly had a good time visiting Nana and Grampa (and Uncle Angus) and subjected them to lots of bouncing, squealing, and wiggling. She also managed to reward them with bunches of smiles and the delight in finding her feet.

Aforementioned smiles. She enjoyed being sans socks and pants once again.

Nana and Grampa discovered a new bouncing game for Molly. She got a kick out of being on the bed while someone bounced her around like a little piece of popcorn. John got these laughs out of her.

Oh, the places she'll wiggle to. Molly wanted to stand, then sit, then stand, then sit... She's a mover and a shaker.

We had some pool time despite the pool water being a little chilly. Molly loved the fountain and was happily focused on that instead of the huge, huge snake that Nana had to wrangle out of the pool area. She was initially ambivalent about the water but warmed up to it and liked going in the shower after the pool. We'll let the water warm up in the North before attempting another dunk.

Florida Fun

Molly and Nana enjoyed an afternoon together so that John, Grampa, and I could play some golf. Molly loves her playmat here and has found how useful her feet are to play with. I'm stealing a picture from Nana's camera to show all the good times.



We're also eagerly awaiting the arrival of another Doyle cousin. It may be an imminent arrival -- and we're trying to be patient. Given how good Katy was with Molly we know she'll be a great big sister. Here's another picture from Phoenix of those two gals.