Merry and Bright

Merry Christmas to all! We hope you have a wonderful day with family, food, cheer, and health.

The Young And The Restless

I have about a thousand adjectives to describe Molly (which seems appropriate given how strong a foothold MadLibs have taken in our house. Thanks Grammy, Megan, and Erin -- this is a direct result of all the Thanksgiving MadLib madness.We could come up with a fairly wacky post if I played that way but I'll refrain). I've said most of them before and they continue to hold true. She's a proud, zany, booty-shaking, bossy, caring, smart, kind, helpful, stubborn, snuggly, loving, brave little creature who both really cares what other people think and very determinedly marches to the beat of her own (unseen, unheard) drummer. Her highs are high and her lows are... well... dramatic. She is not even keeled, not by any means, but that makes her her and adds some pretty exciting spice to our life. Mostly, I think of her as so much fun and so enjoyable as she comes up with yet another brilliant idea that everyone must embrace RIGHT NOW. She cries easily, latches onto things strongly, and she and she alone decides when it is time to move on (prime example being Spanish school. After weeks and weeks of tears at drop off, she suddenly decided two weeks ago that she was over being sad. She apparently loves Spanish school now. SERIOUSLY?!). She's also loves special time, being read to (and, very exciting for all of us, she just read her first book on her own! Sounding out evvvvverrrrrry word), baking, make-believe, special treats, climbing, balancing, running, chasing, just going. Her world has expanded this year in so many ways and she's mostly okay with that. There are challenges, naturally, but she is embracing change much better than she has in the past. She is a great companion and I thoroughly enjoy the special time that she and I have this year, in her last year, before full time school. We've been talking a lot about compassion this fall and giving to others and while this remains a largely concrete concept for her, she's fully turning the ideas over in her head and adding shades of gray. She has a big heart, which I think can make her feel overwhelmed sometimes, but she's discovering the roots of who she is and what's important. I admire her tenacity in tackling bigger thoughts, feelings, and issues since I might be just a wee bit impatient, but I hope I'm ultimately supporting that growth. It's very cool to watch the changes in feeling and thinking and bear witness to the possibilities.

Five feels like a big birthday to me. It's been five exciting years -- I feel like my brain power has significantly diminished but that my ability to see people and their actions in their purest forms -- their love, excitement, sadness, kindness -- has grown immensely, largely due to the little whippersnapper who came into our lives that snowy winter. As I try and teach her things, I humbly acknowledge that she teaches me so much more. She teaches me the power of my words and actions. She teaches me that we're all special but we're no better than anybody else. She teaches me that it's okay to cry and not to know answers. "I don't know" has become a more and more common answer around here. She teaches me that it's okay to fail but that you have to pick yourself up again. These are all expectations that I have for her and that she reminds me I have to have for myself. She's a good egg, this little (sorry, big) Molly. I'm honored today, as I am every day, to be her mom. 

Her superhero friend birthday bash. Please tell me you can see the Wonder Woman logo on that cake... somehow...

I did say zany, no?

Photobombing the carousel picture

Her actual-birthday cake.

She had a better reaction to her ice-cream cake than her brother did...

Happy to get a few big-girl presents...

Including some Playmobil, which...

allows the adults to have some fun, too. 

High Five

A quick birthday wish for my big, big girl today. I could not love her anymore than I already do but I am a extra appreciative of her presence today, on this fifth anniversary of her birth, given the tragic events of this week. Her birthday hugs are a little squeezier and a little longer than normal on this day for many reasons, not the least of which is that I'm just grateful that she's here. With us. We love our big, bold, bouncy girl so, so very much. Happy birthday to my little spitfire.

And So It Goes

Well, well... remember us? We've been skulking around holiday blogs (like dear Martha and that darn Pinterest) incognito...

so I understand if you didn't even realize that we've been on the internet since Halloween... since that's the last time I got off my duff and posted. 

It's been... busy, sicky, travely, holiday-y, birthday preparation-y, getting someone back on a sleep routine-y, sicky, and more sicky. Since apparently licking plane seat arm rests causes unfortunate outcomes, during and since our quite exciting (new babies!) trip back east for Thanksgiving, our little Jack has had a mother of diaper rash requiring voodoo remedies fix, an episode of puking with his sister close behind him (when I wasn't there and Grandparents had the pleasure of cleaning up that bile. Oopsandthankyou), a nasty stomach bug that I did have the pleasure of seeing from all ends once we returned home (with the peanut gallery hollering out "that makes me gag" every time he upchucked.), and now some monkey disease with hives. He's a beaut. So the little man has had a roller coaster beginning to the holiday season (which has not been improved by his crazy mother and sister's insistence on seeing Christmas carolers, tall lit up Christmas ships, and Costco and his incredibly busy dad and travel. Okay, we can't blame the dad). Despite some short-lived alarm on the part of the same crazy mother and his teacher that we had Jack 2-point-uh-oh on our hands all of a sudden, he has been surprisingly chipper, if not snugglier, during his several bouts of hosting foreign DNA in his little body. 

And now, we're on the mend and in the thick of it all just like every other family with small people. Santa excitement is in full bloom, hopefully tempered by reminders of other important parts of the season. Really, I hope. We've got a little girl ready and eager to join the full finger club of five years old with a party a week before her big day so that she and I can fulfill our yearning to just get that darned tree up already without interfering with any Wonder Woman birthday party plans. And maybe we'll just keep writing run-on sentences for the rest of this post since it is Christmas and all and it's the most wonderful time of the year and there is so much fun stuff to do for the next 19 days. 

Yes, she's already  wearing a Christmas shirt and we might just be painting ornaments. It never hurts to be prepared. 

But, before we get to all this candy cane goodness, we have to back up and acknowledge the lovely Thanksgiving holiday and visits we had. Because, it was great and it's always nice to be home. And Grandparents do fun things with grandkids. 

And the weather was beautiful for at least some of the time and, when in Maine, go the ocean. 

And just generally, we created mayhem...

 made artistic messes... 

and did I mention created mayhem? 

We had a great trip and Thanksgiving day itself and I did not take one picture of my whole family and for that, I'm a big turkey (hardy har har). Hopefully, though, we're back -- on track, on the blog, on the camera, and, most important of all, on the holiday crazy train. Happy December to you all.