bestest friends!

molly has many friends, she is a very lucky girl, and one of her bestest friends is our neighbor Mishya. Mishya is a bit older than molly (ok, a lot older, she's 7) but she is always super excited to hang out with molly and have play dates. she comes over and helps me give molly a bath. she sings molly songs and makes up games for her. she reads to her. i think it's nice for Mishya because she gets to have a part time little sister. and i know it's fabulous for molly because she worships Mishya and always has a blast with her and she gets to have a big sister influence, which is awesome. Mishya and her brother Keeton are some of the nicest, most respectful, smart, funny, beautiful kids i've met - and they are exactly the kind of folks i want molly to know and look up to. we're very lucky to have them as neighbors! and their parents rock too!

so a few weeks ago now (i'm a bit behind) we met up with them and our other fantabulous neighbors Cosette, James and their daughter Adriana (who turned one on April 9!) at the local McMenamins. and then molly, zero, Mishya and i headed down to Cathedral Park. Here is a slideshow of molly and Mishya playing in the park - this is what fun is all about!

now don't you just want to get outside, pull up some grass, throw it up in the air and run around? i sure do! and the weather has been nice enough to do just that. yay! happy spring!

pigtails

so, i finally managed to get molly's hair into pigtails. it's been long enough for a while now, but she really doesn't go for anyone messing with her hair. well, she let me a few days ago AND they stayed in for about 15 minutes. pretty sweet. i'm pretty darn sure that molly is the cutest human being to ever walk the earth, and i'll think you'll agree after seeing these pictures. (and be sure to check out the t-shirt)

aloha grandma, and mahalo!

zero's cousin Alana recently got married on the beautiful island of Kauai and zero and Grandma Mike went to partake in the festivities (lucky!). Grandma Nancy came up to Portland while zero was gone to help me take care of the wee one (and so i could go to work and not lose any of my precious vacation time which has all been carefully dolled out for 2009 down to the last hour). it had been a while since molly had seen Grandma Nancy (since January) but i think she recognized her pretty quickly, and by the time i saw them together (zero and molly had gone to the airport to pick her up and then swung by work to get me) they were like old friends squealing and laughing and throwing their hands in the air (i had to shush them in the library!)

so that night Grandma Nancy was put on book-reading duty while molly sat in her lap, and she did a very good job! molly was obviously impressed with her talent! I am a bunny by Ole Risom was never so riveting! (see above)

Grandma brought an early Easter basket from some of molly's friends in California and amongst all the wonderful goodies there was a "doodle-pro" that hangs on the fridge and where molly can draw something, erase it, and draw something else. she caught on immediately and she loves it!

we also had a ton of fun playing with the ball while Grandma was here. the ball is indeed one of molly's greatest obsessions. everywhere we go, whenever she sees something that is even remotely ball-like (anything round really) she will shout out, "ball!" and if she can get her hands on it, look out! she's got quite an arm on her! she loves throwing balls to dogs, she loves throwing balls to people, and her latest is kicking balls around too. she likes to watch basketball and kickball and i think we may eventually have a jock on our hands! which would make me proud, being that i was a jock myself. here is a picture of her about to really launch her pink ball!
another thing we did while Grandma was here was go to Kelly Point Park, where the Columbia and Willamette Rivers come together. it was a bit cold and wet, but we had a lovely time. and molly had a reason to wear her super cute yellow rain coveralls! molly of course spotted a "ball" in the water (one of the round floats, this one was bright red) and she had some fun watching a couple dogs chase after a ball. she did a lot of pointing and was fascinated with the birds. here is a slideshow of our time there (most of the pictures are of molly of course!).

we also had a lot of fun eating! we went out some (which is always fun) and Grandma made us some most excellent meals, which we loved! Ollie the duck loved it too!

and whenever dad would call, we'd all say hi and hear about the wonderful time he was having in Hawaii. this is a man who had a pretty extreme dislike for the place, but he really enjoyed Kauai and is already talking about when the whole family can go back and spend the night sleeping in a hammock in the canopy (not sure i'm really down with that, but it's fun to see him so excited!).
after a few days he came home and when molly spied him coming up the driveway, she stopped, pointed right at him, and screamed like the bloody Beatles had come to town. it was hysterical (and i'm sure very reassuring to daddy who was worried she would forget who he was while he was gone - such a silly!).

and, zero and i got to go on a date thanks to Grandma, which was really, really nice. though it is very odd for the two of us to be somewhere together and not have the baby either right with us or asleep in the next room. very, very odd.

below is a picture Grandma got of all of us right after zero came home. we really can't thank Grandma enough for coming up and spending time with us and taking such wonderful care of molly. we had a fantastic time (even with the major bonk on the head and subsequent trip to the doctor) and we ate so well, and things actually stayed clean while she was there. basically, Grandma Nancy ROCKS!