happy things

as you all know, we've had some tough times recently - thank you to everyone for their kindness and support - but we've had some happy times too. i wanted to share a couple.

first, another song from Molly. they've been learning all about building houses in school, and what it's like to be a carpenter, and Molly's become quite knowledgeable about pipes and wiring and foundations. it's wild to be having a conversation with her about the pipes used to bring water into the house, or sheet rock, but that's our genius girl for you! here's her latest song with some interpretive dance in the background by her father.


also, we've had so much fun with her many, many amazing Christmas gifts. some of her current favorites being her TAG books, all of her new games like Candyland, Shutes & Ladders, Eric Carle's ABC and Memory, and her new wooden blocks. here is one of her latest block creations, a combo fireplace / space station. it was a surprise for me, probably because she knows i really want to be a astronaut, and i like fire places. cool!

and speaking of Christmas presents, Zero and i got a cookbook this year from my Uncle Lonny and Aunt Ritsu on traditional Hawaiian cuisine, in which they talk about Hawaiian plate lunches, one of Zero's favorites! he's been reading through the cookbook/history since we got it, and this past week made his first meal from it. he made adobo chicken, pickled cabbage and (of course!) mac salad. i BBQed up some tofu and we got some POG, and sat down to a delish Hawaiian plate lunch. Molly enjoyed it as well. thanks Lonny and Ritsu!

lastly, Molly's really getting interested and excited about letters. we work with letters here at home, and they do at school, and she's starting to recognize them more, and in the case of M and O, write them herself! just today, after writing several Os, she said to me, i'm going to write and M now, and sure enough, she did - near the top left of the picture, isn't that a perfect M?! she also drew a cat today, with ears and claws, and an owl with a beak. yep...brilliant!

take care one and all!

little miss harley poochie pants

this past Friday, our dear sweet Harley passed away. it still hurts way too much for me to talk about her death, but i have a very strong desire to talk about her life.

miss Harley came into my life almost exactly 16 years ago, in the first half of January in 1995. my mom, her dog Chardonnay and i were at a Harley Davidson dealership in San Jose, CA. i was inside browsing around, and my mom and Char were outside, when up came this bouncy, little thing to nip at Chardonnay's feet. i can still remember my mom knocking on the front window of the store and pointing down at the little fluff that came to be known as Harley. she fit in one hand. no one around seemed to know anything about her, so we took her to the Humane Society figuring someone must be looking for her. in the car ride over, she flipped over in my lap and demanded a tummy rub. this was the first of hundreds and thousands of tummy rubs to come. she loved them! three days later, on January 11, 1995, i went back the Humane Society and adopted her, because no one had come to claim her. and our life together began!

i remember the tears the first few days and weeks. i was 22 at this point, and not ready for the responsibility (never mind my mom had me when she was 22!). i thought i had made a huge mistake. i even called the Humane Society and said i had to bring her back. luckily for me, i chickened out. she was my baby girl, and we had many adventures ahead of us.

Harley has been my faithful companion the past 16 years, as she moved to Oregon with Zero and i (where she had to endure rain, her least favorite thing, and leap over puddles all the time), became big sister to a rat named Lily (who was always trying to snuggle up with her, ugh!), drove and flew to and from California on many occasions (she would always wait till the end of the flight and let out a big bark so everyone suddenly knew there was a dog under the seat of the plane), and moved with me five different times. the last time we moved, into the house we now own, i knew it was the right house because Harley seemed to feel at home here immediately. she was very wise.

she loved the beach, and the snow, and taking hikes in Forest Park. when she was about 7, she came down with immune-mediated poly-arthritis that took a couple of years, and a whole lot of tough times, to get over. but she did it, because she was one tough cookie. she always thought she was a big dog, never showing fear, always ready for anything. she loved bananas, and pizza, and really anything that didn't have honey on it - she was always very "food motivated". and she loved to herd us, the sheltie in her coming out. and one of our favorite exercise games to play was when Zero and i would go into a parking lot, and just walk away from each other while Harley would run back and forth, bringing us together again. people were always stopping us on our walks to say how beautiful she was and ask about her. they were always trying to guess what kind of mix she was.

she captured the heart of everyone who met her, with her big, brown, intelligent shining eyes, her soft little ears, her fluffy, fluffy tail, and her adorable little prancing feet. i can't even tell you how many times those prancing feet saved me after a tough day. one little walk with Harley, watching that fluffy tail and those little feet go-go-go, and i was cured.

and of course most recently Harley took on one of her greatest roles, that of big sister and teacher to Molly. from the moment Molly started to notice Harley, she was enthralled. i will always believe that Harley was the impetus for both Molly starting to crawl and walk. anything to get her closer to the pooch! and Molly learned well how we treat our four-legged friends, Harley was a very good teacher. one of my greatest regrets is that Harley and Molly didn't meet when Harley was a bit younger, they would have had so much fun together. but even in her old age, Harley played with Molly now and again, and showed her the kind of love, only Harley-pooch could. Molly truly believes that Harley loved her more than anything and that she was her "other mom". it's very sweet...Molly is missing her greatly.

Zero told me the other day that he and Harley would take breaks together, whenever things got to be too much. and it made me think of all the times Harley and i would just lay there together, me stroking her soft fur, and i could tell her anything. i could totally be myself with her and she always loved me. she would do anything for me, for our family. she was a truly amazing friend and companion.

our loss is great and there is a big hole in our lives. time will help heal, but Harley will always be missed. she's been with me through some of the most important parts of my life so far. she's seen me through getting out on my own, getting married, buying a house, and having a child. these are big things. and i'm not sure i could have done it without her, or at the very least, it would have been a lot harder.

i swear i still hear her, the noises she would make. her nails click-clicking on the hardwood floor, the big sighs she would always make, her snorts and snuffles. it's comforting to think that maybe her spirit is still around, but more than anything, i hope she is running wild, happy and free of pain, herding her friends and chewing big bones (or expensive leather shoes!) in some kind of sunny doggy heaven!

we love you miss Harley poochie, miss fluffy pants, our sweet little girl. we love you and miss you very, very much.


below is a video of Harley from just last week at Cannon Beach. she was so happy to be there. it took her a while to warm up, but eventyally she got going and she and Molly ran around till they both pooped out.

Fall is in the air

we'll start this post off with a song for you...


is that not adorable?! she learns so many songs at her preschool, and with that amazing, sponge-like brain of hers, she hears it once and boom, she's got it. there's a whole second verse to this that she just sang to me at the park today. too cute!

of course, she also likes to play with it too, she's a bit of remix-er...


so fall is here, i guess, the weather has been pretty much cold and wet most of the summer so it's hard to differentiate seasons anymore. but according to the calendar fall is here. which means, i had a birthday! for my birthday this year, Molly and Zero gave me a hammock and wind chime (that Molly hand-painted!). here is a little slideshow with Molly and Auntie Shani playing in the hammock!
you can see the wind chime hanging from one of the hammock posts. it's like my own little paradise in the backyard!



for my birthday a group of friends came together and after some craziness and tears (on my part) we met up at one of Portland's famous food cart pods in North Portland and had a wonderful time trying all different kinds of food and topping things off with the best salted caramel ice cream, ever! Molly enjoyed the chocolate ice cream herself! i got some delicious homemade beer, a lovely bottle of wine, some handmade note cards and a chance to hang out with my really wonderful friends and family. i'm a very lucky woman!

a week later, a group of us came together for the 1st Annual Birthwich 2010 (a sandwich making birthday party) for myself and friend Scott whose bday is a couple weeks after mine. Scott and i love sandwiches! it was really fun and Auntie Shani made a beautiful cake which Molly helped her decorate.

i should also mention that for my birthday, my mom spoiled me with a flip video camera! which is why this post (and possibly all future posts) is chock full of videos. it's almost too easy to do!!

fall means the days are getting shorter and in the evenings before bed, we read a couple stories out-loud, but we also take some time to read our own books quietly. i instituted this for two reasons, 1) i'm slowing working towards Molly reading herself to sleep in a few years and 2) i needed some time to read myself! plus it's some nice quiet time before we all hit the hay. but on this night, Molly decided she was going to read aloud to me from the book i was currently reading, Discord's Apple. the plot took a real turn on the chapter Molly read!
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notice she can read right-side up and upside down!

so, we all know Molly is very advanced and a genius child, and she amazes us pretty much constantly. but one thing that has really blown my socks off lately is her work with her magna-tiles. first off, huge thanks to Grandma Mike for giving us magna-tiles for xmas last year (i think they were mostly a gift for me, but Molly has really taken to them!). she'll spend long stretches of time completely absorbed by them, building all kinds of different buildings and landscapes. i remember the first time i came home and there was this amazing structure in the middle of the living room. Zero had this goofy grin which i took to mean, "see what i did, isn't it cool?" so i said, "good job honey." and that's when he burst out, "no, it wasn't me! it was all Molly! she built it all by herself!" i didn't believe him really till she did the exact same thing on my watch. here is her giving a little tour of one of her "high-tech" barns (she likes to make things "high-tech" - no idea where she picked up that term).

Hey Papa...i see a future engineer! it just skips a couple generations! ;)

an engineer maybe, but she's still very much a girl. take this picture to the right.
every once in a while she insists on putting on every last piece of jewelry, and every frilly dress-up item she owns. it doesn't last long, but it's fun. i dress up too of course.

so fall means my birthday, but it also means a couple other big events. Zero and i will celebrate our 4th wedding anniversary on October 27 (17th year as a couple was on October 4th) and Harley, our sweet, sweet poochie will turn 16 on Halloween! but another big day happens on October 29th...Molly's Birthday!

every day Molly finds something new she loves to do. she learns a new word or new song. she figures out something she's been struggling with. she acts up in a whole new way. it's wonderful! (and exhausting) i can't believe she turns three on October 29th. how time flies! speaking of which, we have the party of the century next week (i won't even tell you how many people are coming, you wouldn't believe me if i did). and after that BOTH GRANDMAS are coming for our annual bday trip to the beach! what a lucky girl! i'll try and get some pictures and video up in early November from her bday celebrations (plural). in the meantime...

SMOOCHES DARLINGS!

we're baaaack!

ha! you thought you'd never hear from me again (heck, i thought you'd never hear from me again), but we were both wrong! (and the crowd goes wild)

i had to make some tough choices in regards to how i spend my awake time, and i decided that a) i needed to get more sleep (of course, after 2+ years of sleep deprivation, i'm finding that no amount of sleep is going to repair all the damage done to my addled brain, but i got to try, right?), b) i needed to spend my time with Molly actually being with Molly and not wondering how i could post about being with Molly, and c) i needed to put the camera down at least once in a while.

but it's hard, this blog is a great way to not only keep everyone informed of her goings-on but to chronicle her milestones - something for her to look back on - which is good because you can't rely on my memory anymore (see Point A above, lack sleep = addled bran). but my hiatus has meant there are some big gaps, which makes me sad. now that Molly is in preschool on Fridays (one of my days off), i've got a bit of free time every week to keep all of her wonderful friends and family up-to-date on her adventures. and it doesn't mean taking time away from her (or sleep) so i don't feel so guilty. a win-win! this post will most likely be epic, as we've months to catch up on, but i will do my best to keep it brief (not my strongest suit, i realize) and you really want to read to the end, cuz there are cute pictures of Molly with an adorable baby! and some priceless videos!

where to begin...

we last left off with Molly's first day of school back in May. she is loving school and starting this month is up to five days a week. it feels like a lot to Zero and i, she's such a little girl still, but she honestly loves it. i went to pick her up early one day and she didn't speak to me for hours (except to say she wanted to go back to school). i watch her with her little friends and she is just so happy and smiley. she talks about them all the time and she's learning so many new things. a couple highlights...one morning, she's sitting on the potty (did i mention we are completely diaper free now and have been for a few months, yippee!) and she starts belting out Don't Cry For Me Argentina. Zero and i look at each other and shrug, neither of us is into Evita. then she starts telling us about Argentina, how it's in South America, she can point to it on her globe, etc. At the end of the week we get her notebook where her teachers let us know what she's been up to and sure enough, the day before, they had had a lesson on Argentina (which included dancing around to the song). hilarious!

also, toward the end of August her whole class had an art show, called ArtFest, to raise money for the school and celebrate the kids who were moving on to Kindergarten. it was a wonderful event that showed off the children's paintings, sculptures and photographs. Molly displayed a couple photographs she had taken at school, a paper towel roll sculpture she did of a blue house with a chimney that she titled "Papa Goof's House" (we have no idea why), and a painting she did of a "dinosaur in a tree house" (in the photo to the left, it's the one on the bottom with the red border!).

also at the event the kids put on a little performance. they sang two songs up on stage. Molly was amazing, she had the biggest smile i've ever seen on her, her eyes lit up, she sang her heart out and did all the movements that went along with the songs, it was wonderful to see! except for that you couldn't. she stood directly behind all the big girls and you couldn't see her at all (see the photo to the right, if you open it up, you'll see i've pointed out Molly - or what you can see of her). she didn't even care that she was completely blocked, she still sang her heart out. our sweet little girl! i tried to get video, but ended up hitting the wrong button (argh!) but i did manage to get this little video ahead of time with all the kids screaming for Annie, one of the big girls who was moving on to Kindergarten. you can sort of see Molly to the right of the girl in pink. Molly is wearing a blue dress.


earlier in the spring and summer we celebrated our friends Adriana and Jasper's 2nd birthdays, partook in the annual St. Johns Parade, saw our friend Jane get married, went on another Sunday Parkways adventure and made our yearly pilgrimage to beautiful Northern Minnesota where we spent time with the Feeney clan (pictured to the right). it was another cold, wet one, but we had tons of fun nonetheless. here is a lengthy slide show of our trip...


upon our return we had our 2nd Annual Charleston Ave Block Party. have i mentioned how much i love our neighborhood? well, i do! the best was when our neighbor Josh got out his guitar and Molly got her harmonica and they jammed together!


and right after that we went to California for my 20-year high school reunion (i'm getting so old!). it was great to hang out with the entire high school crew and all their kids. i made some fantastic forever friendships in middle and high school, i'm so lucky. i can only wish the same for Molly.


this was immediately followed by my first ever triathlon. it was a sprint triathlon, but still kinda tough. and much like not taking time away from Molly to work on the blog (or clean the house, or take showers, etc.) i didn't want to take time away to train. but for a few months before, i was running, biking and swimming twice a week. it meant very early mornings for me, and i've completely fallen off since the event. but hope to get back on that bandwagon soon, because i loved it and plan to do it again next year. the best part, the very best part...was seeing the look on Zero and Molly's faces as i passed by (check out the picture at the very top of this post) and at the finish line (pictured here). you simply couldn't ask for a better cheering section!

so that takes us to August...phew! August was the ArtFest mentioned earlier and washing the very dirty car (i just had to include this shot, look at her getup!) and our neighbor Mishya's 9th birthday party, and tons more stuff i can't even remember. this hasn't been a true summer in Portland, weather-wise, i think we had about 2 weeks of real summer, so we haven't gotten out and done a ton of things.

but one thing we were able to do a few times was get to the Portland Beavers baseball games. the Beavers have been around since 1903 and this was their last season here in Portland. the city has let them go in favor of soccer (boo!)...and just when we were getting into it! Molly loved going to the games, she would cheer the team on, enjoyed the popcorn, and most of all, had a huge crush on their mascot, Lucky the Beaver. our very good friend Denise got her a glove (and a hat, and a pennant, and so on) and we were lucky enough to get Lucky to sign her glove (no pun intended). Molly was so thrilled. she asks about Lucky often, not sure how to tell her he's gone for now (hopefully Portland will wise up and get their Beavers back some day). in the meantime, Roosevelt High School's sports teams are playing again, so we'll cheer them on! this year, we're going to check out volleyball. go roughriders!

and that brings us to September. the big news for September? first train ride! we took Amtrak up to see our very good friends in Bellingham, WA. what a great way to go. you can wander up and down the aisles, you don't have to be strapped into a car seat, lots of leg room (for Molly), great scenery, and a bistro car! plus Molly met and totally hit it off with some little girls across the aisle from us who happen to live in St. Johns too - cool. she told everyone she saw on the train she was on her way to Kell's house.

you may remember Kell from earlier this year and back in 2008. well now big Kell (almost 4!) has a little sister, Tessa! Molly fell totally and madly in love with Tessa (as you can see from this picture). Tessa was truly the highlight of this visit, along with getting to see her daddy Drew play with his band, "Assisted Living" at an anniversary party on Lake Whatcom. beautiful view, great music and good fun.

the whole experience did make me a bit nervous about Molly's future however, as she kept attacking Kell (with hugs mind you) and tackling him to the ground with her embrace. may i present Exhibit A, Hope and baby Tessa lead the children in a nice little conga line, and then...

and yes, i think that is the sound of Kell's head hitting the ground, but he popped right back up!

and Exhibit B, everything seems nice, good music, fun times and then...

and by the way, that's Drew singing "Brown Eyed Girl" - isn't he awesome?! he's also obviously great on the guitar and plays a mean harmonica!

so this coupled with the fact that Molly was totally fascinated with and kept running up to this one woman there who was all makeup and tan, with bleached blond hair, wearing jean shorts, doing this odd cowboy-like dance, and being flirty. here she is leading her own conga line (starts about 10 seconds in)...

that lady was a groupie, through and through. and Kell looked appropriately frightened, but Molly looked like she wanted to join right in. but i have to say, the lady was really nice. Molly kept interrupting her conversations with other people and she would stop and talk to her. and she was having a ton of fun, so maybe Molly's on the right track!

many more wonderful pictures here, with lots of baby Tessa!...


which leads us to today, the last day of my 37th year, tomorrow is my birthday. this was my birthday present to myself, taking the time to start up the blog again. i hope to keep it up on my fridays. it may not be as important as sleep, but it's important to me, and that means something. it is my sincere hope that this finds you all well. our love to everyone!

breaking news!

obviously, i'm months behind - i've missed telling you all about tea parties and grandma visits and hysterical conversations we've had with our absolutely brilliant daughter. and i do intend to go back and fill you all in, but as for today, we've got some breaking news...


Molly started preschool!

Monday, May 3 was her very first day at the Montessori House of St. Johns. we had originally thought she would start in the fall, but a spot opened up and we jumped at it. she will go three mornings a week for a while, slowly building to five a week around the time she turns 3. we love the school and the program (Zero was a Montessori baby, and look how good he turned out!), we really love the teacher, it's less than a mile from our house and a perfect bike ride. we couldn't be happier! (of course, we're both still complete nervous wrecks about the whole thing, our little girl is growing up too fast!)

above is Molly all ready to go!

school starts at 8:30, Molly used to rarely get up before 8:00, so we've been setting alarms and trying to get up earlier the past couple weeks. we had a rough night, but we did manage to get up on time and we got dressed, got her lunch all packed into her new lunch box, put it into the back of the Burley, got our helmets on and headed off to our first day of school! i took the day off of work, so Daddy and i could both see her to school. to the left is Daddy and Molly riding down the street.

below and to the right you can see Molly bee-lining it up to the school with rain boots in hand. when we got inside, they showed us Molly's spot. she has her own little box for things, she has a place to hang her coat and put her shoes, and one nice little boy showed her where to put her lunchbox. when we came in teacher Megan was reading books to everyone and it was hard to get Molly to concentrate on anything other than going over to hear the stories. it's funny, because just the night before when we were talking about school (and reading for the umpteenth time her current favorite before bed book, Wow School - thank you Angela!) Molly told us she was going to go into school and say "Hello teacher Megan, we should read some books." and teacher Megan would say, "Oh yes Molly, I will read some stories!" and it pretty much happened just that way. we sat for a while and eventually we tried to get her attention and wave goodbye and she was kinda like, "yeah, ok, see ya...i've got stories to listen to!" so off we went.

Zero and i had no idea what to do with ourselves, so we treated ourselves to breakfast out and watched the first half of one of my favorite movies, The Right Stuff. mostly we just watched the clock for it to be time to go back and pick her up. we're pretty pathetic! :)

when we went to pick her up, she was putting on her shoes to go outside and play. we're picking her up a bit early to begin with, so we can be sure she gets her afternoon nap (we've had a couple days recently of her going without a nap...it isn't pretty). i spoke with her teacher who said she did great. about an hour after we left she realized we were gone and became upset and went to the door. but Megan said she was easily redirected and enjoyed the library (of course!), cleaning the chalk board (lots of water involved!), group games (especially when they all sang "Roll Over", which she went on to sing all night long!) and painting. above to the left is Molly's first day of school work of art!

she went again today, and will go on Thursdays too. i hope she loves it. i hope she makes wonderful friends, and explores all sorts of new things, and that this starts a lifetime love of learning. i also hope she stops growing up so dang fast!


love to everyone from our little schoolgirl!

update from Mollyland

things are pretty fun and exciting here in Mollyland. here are some examples of what Mollyland is currently offering...

a phrase we hear often around our house is, "you be Oscar, daddy is Cookie Monster, i'll be Big Bird" or "i'm Mary Ann, you're Mike Mulligan, daddy's Henry B. Swift" (all characters from Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel by Virginia Lee Burton) or in the case of the picture here, "i'm a princess, mommy's a mommy princess and daddy's a daddy princess". and then we all run around pretending to be princesses which usually involves some flying and using tools to fix things. we are very talented princesses! Molly's imagination is in full swing, and i think we have a little actor here, rather than a little librarian. ah well, i do like theater!

of course she may be destined for a different kind of performance...

for those that didn't know, her father was a dancer before he started acting, and Molly seems to be following in his footsteps there as well. actually, more in the footsteps of one of her favorite books, Josephine Wants to Dance, about a kangaroo who discovers ballet and against all odds, becomes the prima ballerina! and actually, i love to boogie too, so she was destined to have dancin' feet. in the video above (and yes, it does look like maybe she's picking her nose, but what can you expect, she's a toddler!) you'll note that she's wearing a red sock on one hand. she likes to wear it around - a la Michael Jackson - and say she's Santa Claus. we may not stop talking about Santa in this house until next December!


so as you can hear, she can also really belt out the songs. one day, many, many weeks ago now i was home from work, sick in bed, and Molly climbed in with me, stood up and sang in full "abc", "twinkle, twinkle", "baa, baa, black sheep", "farmer in the dell", and "sing, sing a song". she has added many songs to her repertoire since then, including Bruce Springstein's version of Bob Seger's Pay Me My Money Down, almost every song ever sung on Sesame Street, a couple sea shanties, and a few she's made up herself on a variety of topics such as snack time and mommy's boots. singer songwriter? perhaps! here are a couple videos of two songs she made up about Clifford the Big Red Dog after she saw him at the Portland Children's Museum. the first song focused on "Clifford" and is a bit more mellow, the second is more about his coloring..."red"...and gets pretty rock n' roll. you'll note there's even a performance injury at the end!



or maybe a different art medium? like painting! for Christmas her great-grand Papa and auntie Sharon gave her finger paints. we already need to buy more, she wants to paint all the time. and our collection of "masterpieces" is growing on the wall. here is a little video of her painting. you'll note she talks about big bird, and Karl (from the Zen books with Stillwater the Panda). you'll also note that at some point she gets paint on her fingers, tries to shake it off, and then chooses to lick it off (which is where i quickly turn off the camera).


we keep mentioning Sesame Street...we had been reading Elmo books and the like for some time, but when she turned two we started watching a little "tv" (DVDs on the computer) and Sesame Street was one of the first. we instituted popcorn and Sesame Street nights on Sundays and Thursdays. after dinner, when the dishes have been cleared, i make popcorn on the stove, and we all sit down and watch Big Bird and Ernie and Bert and the whole gang. other favorite shows of Molly's are Bob the Builder, Handy Manny and Blue's Clues. Auntie Sarah recently introduced us to Yo Gabba Gabba, that for me feels like what a psycholdelic trip must feel like (and not necessarily a good one), but Molly loves it, of course, so we may need to add it to the rotation. the picture above of Molly and Zero eating popcorn totally cracks me up! check out those silly faces! like father, like daughter!

another current family tradition is going to see high school basketball games at Molly's future high school! those of you who have known me a while know that i played basketball all through high school, and loved it! Molly seems to love it too! she can actually sit through an entire basketball game, we are constantly getting comments from people who are amazed by it. we bring her pom-pom and at half time she runs around and makes friends with other little kids. she yells "Go Riders" and "Go Roosevelt" and claps and talks about the "girls running" and the "girls throwing the ball". and if the concession stand is open, we get popcorn. good times!

Molly's love of reading is still very strong. she picks up books, sits down and reads them to herself! she's memorized them word for word and as i read books to her i watch as her mouth moves along to every word i'm saying. and this is not just one or two books, oh no, this is twenty, thirty or more - she currently has over 50 things checked out from the library, and she reads them all! this very morning we co-read A Wish for Things That Work - i would read a line and then she would say a line - she's brilliant i tell ya! she asks to be read books many times a day, and she takes the stories we read about and uses that amazing imagination of hers and builds on them - it's wonderful! and i think all this reading may be the reason why we can have entire conversations with her already, which i wasn't expecting quite so young. her language ability is quite astounding. at lunch today she said to me, "i am going to walk you to work with mr. ant [an imaginary friend] and he will say 'i want to go back to Molly's house' and i will say, 'no, not yet' and we will walk you to work". wow!

she is also starting to truly make friends. not that she didn't have friends before, but now at play gym she'll actually walk up to some other little person and ask if they want to play ball with her or run around. she has one little friend named Rowan who she likes very much! due to my work schedule, i rarely make it to play gym, but lately on Fridays we've been going together. i had heard her talk about Rowan, but had never met her, so when Molly introduced me to her it was very exciting. last Friday when we showed up, Rowan ran across the gym yelling "Mollly!" and they gave each other a huge hug. this is a picture of them playing together!

and speaking of friends, last month we were finally able to see our very, very good friends Hope, Drew and Kell. the last time Kell and Molly saw each other, she was only four months old. Kell was the big boy at 15 months, and i remember being so amazed at his ability to walk, and sign, and eat solid food with all of those teeth he had! this time, Kell had just turned 3 and he blew my mind again - he is an amazing little boy! and so are his totally awesome parents - if only we could convince them to move to Portland...ah well! you'll note in the pictures here, compared to the last time they saw each other, they are much closer in size. and they played together quite well! they played with cars, listened to stories together, were thrown dangerously around by their fathers (us mothers couldn't even be in the same room), threw rocks into the water at the park, and took a bath (of which we got the best video ever, but it will forever have to stay within our two families as there is some brief nudity).

so yes, the adventures here are great indeed, and sometimes we even dress the part! especially if there are boots involved. to the left was her get up to go hike around the Columbia Slough last weekend. she's starting to get into clothes, and want to play dress up (as you saw earlier in the post). it does make getting dressed a bit easier, she doesn't always insist on being naked anymore and fighting clothes. you just have to let her pick her own thing out, which can mean you end up with something quite "loud", but hey, i'll take it! sometimes it doesn't work out so well though, as you can see to the right, we only managed to get half-way dressed (and i think those boots might be a bit big for her).

thanks for enduring this super long post - i get to it so rarely anymore and then i have so much to tell you all! and this time, thanks to my new iPod Nano with built in video recorder and my friend Steph's flip video camera, we actually had some video to share, which is nice. for our final shot today, here is Molly and her friends all cozy in bed together.
so long, for now, from Mollyland! take care everyone!

it's the most wonderful time, of the year...

so much happened last month. Molly met Santa, good friends came to visit, we celebrated Zero's birthday, we watched Portland's famous Christmas ship parade, and to top it all off, it snowed!

let's start at the beginning. the day after we got back from our Thanksgiving trip to Arizona we found out that Santa Claus was in St. Johns at our local toy store, Grammy and Nonna's (the best toy store ever!). our timing was perfect and just as we headed out the front door to see him, so did all our neighbors and the Charleston Ave gang went to see Santa. Molly had been talking about it all morning, but when we got to the store, well, she basically crawled into my coat and refused to come out and even look at Santa, much less sit on his lap. honestly, it makes sense to me, i don't want to sit on the laps of oddly dressed, hairy men either. either Grammy or Nonna (can't remember which) suggested we write Santa a letter and come back the next week (Santa came to St. Johns twice, cuz we're so cool!). a couple days later, Grandma Nancy sent Molly a snow glob Santa, and so all week Molly talked to "Santa" and grew more confident. the following Saturday Molly dictated the following for her Santa letter,

Dear Santa,
I would like a candy cane. I would like a panda and a robot.
Merry Christmas.
Molly

and we headed back to the toy store. this time, she was willing to hand him the letter, get her candy cane (which i think was the real driving factor here) and have her picture taken next to him - success!! [please note, our Santa has a gold tooth - you gotta love St. Johns!]

the next weekend our friends the Englehardings came up from Eugene. dad Jim, mom Terri, Skylar and Paige all came and stayed with us (Skylar, Paige and Terri pictured with Molly to the right). it was so much fun having friends come stay and have a sleep-over. we went to the park, we played with play-doh, we all went out to breakfast and Molly showed off her favorite toy store to her friends. it was a really great time!

the next weekend was Zero's birthday, i won't tell you how old he turned, but we'll just say next year is a BIG ONE. we had a nice day together, and Auntie Shani came over for dinner and we had cupcakes. Molly helped daddy blow out his candle, very thoughtful! normally at this point we'd have a picture of Molly next to a 5 pound Hershey bar (see here) but the catalog went missing, so we'll skip 2009. but i think i can safely say, she would totally dwarf that candy bar this year - you know it!

and that brings us to Christmas!

we got our tree a week or so before xmas. we had big plans to go cut down our own but ran out of time, and thankfully there was a lot right down the street. we even got a discount because it was the display tree (and covered in tinsel which we had lots of fun picking off by hand, but $5 is $5!) i totally forgot to bring a camera, but thank goodness for cell phones. i got a quick pic of zero and Molly carrying it home. and here is a little slideshow of tree trimming with Molly, at first sporting her Santa gloves and hat (she loves to pretend she's Santa) and then donning the tree skirt as cape. we wouldn't want the tree wearing anything we wouldn't wear ourselves! :)



you'll remember that Molly asked Santa for a panda bear and robot. i'm not 100% sure where these gift ideas came from. we do have some favorite books that star a panda bear named Stillwater (i highly recommend these books!) and we also have a book on saying please that has one scenario where a small boy really wants a robot. a combination of those two could be it.
or, way back on that first trip to see Santa, I believe our neighbor Mishya (who you'll remember from many past postings) may have said she wanted a robotic panda for Christmas? i don't remember Molly being in on that conversation, but if she heard that that was what Mishya wanted, well she would want it too! but no matter where the idea came from, it's what she asked for from Santa, and Santa being the super cool jolly ol' elf he is, brought her exactly that. check out the photos to the right, this is the scene Christmas morning before and after Molly came out to see what Santa brought - in the top one you can see panda and robot on the arm of the chair next to the tree. she also checked for the cookies she helped make for him (she did all the sprinkles, and cut out some of the shapes) and she was very pleased to see that he had eaten them right up! and we read the note he left her. that Santa is a good guy!

of course, Molly has a ton of "Santa's" in her life and as you can see in the above pictures, prezzies from friends and family were overflowing out from under the tree. she got stuff for her kitchen, art supplies, books, puzzles, clothes and so much more. here is a slide show of Molly opening, playing with and listening to some of her presents. notice how in some of the shots she is completely surrounded! it took us four days to unwrap everything!


on christmas day, after a couple hours of nonstop unwrapping, we all stretched our legs and went for a family walk. we could not have asked for better weather. sunny, crisp and dry. here you see Molly taking Harley for the walk. she does a very good job of holding the leash. i sometimes wish Harley was a bit younger, so that she'd maybe feel more like playing with Molly, and they could be friends for many years to come. but at times like these i'm kind of glad we have a 16-year-old, 20 pound dog for our daughter to learn with. not only has Harley taught Molly to be very gentle with dogs (because Harley has very little patience at her age) i also find it works well in learning how to take a dog for a walk. i've seen kids dragged down the street by exuberant labs and giant retrievers - with no control over the pooches. and though Harley can still be quite sprightly when she wants too, there is very little chance of dragging Molly down the street when she outweighs Harley by close to 15 pounds! they are a good team!

we even managed to get in a nap, though it was much later in the day then usual. but that's to be expected on Christmas day. we had lots of lovely invitations from our friends on that day, but after all the hustle and bustle, it was a bit too late for much visiting. so we put on our party clothes and ran down for a quick visit at our neighbors house where i had a delish lemon drop and the kids (this includes Zero) ate christmas cookies and danced around. what fun! check out the party clothes! you'll note that we are wearing our Fancy Nancy tutu and ruby red slippers from Grandma Nancy, and that Mr. Bacon and Monsieur Tofu are coming with us. Bacon and Tofu were a favorite gift from the Feeney/Hancocks.

we made delish homemade Mac and Cheese for dinner (two kinds!) and steamed some green beans. forget roast beef or turkey, this was the perfect Christmas meal! after dinner, on our way to bed, i remembered we hadn't taken our annual family Christmas photo! so we pulled it together and gave it our best shot after our big day, with Molly already in pjs after her bath (she got lots of fun bath toys, and we had to play with them!). as in past years, it can be hard to capture a good shot with a young person and a dog in the mix. not to mention that i'm sometimes still in motion as the timer takes the picture before i can fully run back and get settled. because it was evening and i dislike using a flash, the lighting is a bit odd in these. and then there was Zero with his melancholy expression. he assures me he was not bummed-out, he says he was "content". those of you who know him well, get it. :) so with all those caveats, here are our attempts at family xmas photo 2009...

the one that turned out looking almost sepia, was probably the best one of the four of us, but the color was terrible. the first two we took were really the best, and this one, the very first one, is probably what i'll go with for this year. so, Merry Christmas everyone!


shortly after Christmas, we got our snow! last year we had a very white Christmas and i was worried we wouldn't get any snow this year, but then Mother Nature came through. unfortunately for me, she came through while i was at work, but Zero and Molly met up with the neighbors and made snowmen, had a snowball fight and topped the whole thing off with hot cocoa and marshmallows. what could be better!

so as you can see, December was a fun-filled month! we are very fortunate and thankful, and we are excited about 2010 and what it holds in store for us. of course, in the case of the smallest member of the May/Feeney clan, ms. Harley-poochie, it's all very exhausting!
happy new year everybody!