playing catch up...

i see other moms (or should i say, i read other moms) who are able to post daily to their blogs, getting up fabulous pix of their wee ones, and telling fun and witty stories. why is it so hard for me? it's not like molly doesn't give me a constant stream of wonderful and funny and exciting things to share with everyone...she's so amazing! but at the end of the day, i just wanna hang out with her and play. and once she goes to sleep, well, i just want to snuggle with her. so the blog is getting the short end of the stick. but after the past few days i've had, i need to just dwell in the happy land of molly for a bit and share with you all (in case you are having similarly bad weeks, or even if you're not, it's impossible to get enough molly goodness!)

so to catch you all up...my wondrous mother came to stay with us for a week, to help out around the house, and most importantly, to spend some time with her granddaughter. seeing them together was just beautiful - they love each other very, very much.

while mom was here we were able to go through molly's room and put together three garbage bags full of clothes that molly had outgrown (we are extremely fortunate to have many generous friends who have passed along clothes to molly). here is a shot of molly going through one of the bags, i guess making sure she was okay with everything we had decided to give away to charity. :) we also spent some time baby-proofing, and now all the bookshelves and other big items are bolted to the wall, which is nice. and we have a good start on the kitchen cabinets and such. this is all good because molly is super fast and very curious!

as for fun, grandma got to join us at the pool and watch molly swim around, and she took some really good pictures with her fancy cell phone! here is one of molly playing with a ball in the water.

we also finished Summer Reading the weekend my mom was here, and for her final prize molly was able to put her name in a book (we chose "Frog goes to dinner" by Mercer Mayer) and she won a onesie that says "Read to Me" on it. molly is one of 57,000 kids who participated in Multnomah County Library's Summer Reading program this year - yeehaw!! below is a little slideshow of molly reading in her new "Read to Me" onesie (notice all the books strewn everywhere!). she really does love her books, and you'll note that when we started Summer Reading, it was pretty much all about eating the books. now she spends much more time reading - or in the case of the ones that come with things to touch, feeling - the books. it's very exciting to see her reading to herself, or reading along with us. yay, books and reading!


but eventually, grandma had to go back home to her puppies and her job and her life, and we were all very sad. but she'll come again soon. and we'll visit her and the rest of the May family down in California, and all will be well. the only bad thing about Portland is that all of our families are so far away.

but i don't want to end this post on a sad note, so i'll go ahead and mention one other thing...our good friend Scott took some amazing pictures of miss. moo and i wanted to share a few of them with you. but before that you need to know that in all her 10+ months i don't think Scott (also known as uncle Scott) had ever held molly. molly has always been fascinated (and perhaps a bit smitten) with her uncle Scott. she likes her men tall i think. but alas, it was a love from afar...and then just last week, he and Auntie Sarah stopped by and he actually asked to hold her. i was blown away and immediately went for the camera (if you knew Scott, you'd know this is a pretty big deal). so this is a picture of molly with her uncle Scott (i think he might be a bit smitten as well).

but back to the fantastic pictures Scott took of molly. here is a slideshow of just a few of them, and i think you'll agree they are pretty awesome!


our best to everyone. be safe. tell the people you love that you love them. and last but not least, take a page from molly's book and always take time to have some fun!