Swim Crazy

This has been our first week without swim lessons in almost a month and Molly isn't that thrilled that it's over. I should probably be a good mother and take her to my Mom's house for a dip now and then, but I just haven't been into it. As much fun as it is, getting ready for swimming, swimming and then cleaning up after swimming threatens to take up entire day with a two year old. It's worth mentioning that of both of the pools we had lessons in, Marcus beat out the aquatic center, for me anyhow. Yes the paint is chipping, the tiles are cracked and the equipment is old, but as far as where I think she made the most actual progress in learning to swim, Marcus wins. The aquatic center is nicer for sure, but there, we never once got into the big pool and so instead of being able to get her to try to float kick and scoop, I spent my time chasing her around while she ran around in the shallow water. They did have an awesome playground that definitely puts Marcus' froggy pool to shame, but they only let them use it one day and on that day they had some of the older classes using it at the same time which made it a little more difficult to maneuver for the littler ones. Regardless of my opinions though, Molly had fun at both of the pools and it was nice to have something to occupy our time.
Molly and Grayson, the new Parent/ Tot swim class graduates...next stop Preschool swim class!
MMMM! Gotta love iced HFCS (right Michaela?).


But the swim craziness doesn't stop there...no way...it just gets crazier! This past weekend we went to Lorelei's 2nd birthday party and boy was it good times. Lot's of swimming, good food and a giant water slide. After the first time Molly went down I was sure she would be terrified since it ended in a huge uncontrolled, completely submerging, splash in a pretty cold pool of water. Not so. She though it was great and did it two more times. If the getting her up the slide had been easier, we might have done it more. Thankfully there were lots of older girls who were happy to be little helpers to her.

Molly was so embarrassed. She showed up to the party wearing the same thing as the birthday girl...hahaha!

Cleaning up before presents.

Well, you may have noticed that I haven't had a baby yet. I have noticed that for sure. The days before my midwife leaves for her vacation are slowly ticking away and she doesn't have anyone who will cover her so if things don't happen in the next 2 weeks, I'm going to be stuck with the luck of the draw as far as who will be there for the delivery. Not exactly appealing to me.

Full Term

So I know my ticker says that I still have 21 days to go, but seeing as today I'm officially "full term" I think I'm ready! Yes, yes, completely wishful thinking I know (unless you're Ramsey). My midwife says that she thinks I'll have the baby a little early (first week in August is what she's saying). Of course she's saying this not based on any evidence, only a feeling that she has that everything will fall into place since she's going to go on a 3 week vacation starting on my due date...boo! When I ask her if she thinks 2nd babies come earlier she say "no not really, I was late with both of mine". I'm sure it will be fine whenever she decides to come I mean I'm the one doing most of the work...right?!? My plan this time around is to wait until the last minute to go to the hospital...not sure how that's going to pan out, but I'm going to try. She says she's trying to get this amazing Dr. (not one that works at the practice) to cover her and that I will love him, so that's at least a little encouraging.
This past weekend, we went and had our pictures taken. There's a woman (Jennifer Blackwell) who has taken some pictures for Ramsey before who I have "liked" on Facebook who offered a smoking deal on mini-sessions, so I thought even if I hate every giant pregnant picture of myself...I'm only out 25 bucks. Also, I knew Molly would take some cute ones and that's worth it for sure since I haven't had a "studio" picture taken on her since she was like 6 months or something. So I didn't hate EVERY picture of myself (just the ones showing my belly) and the ones of Molly turned out super cute. It's also important to note that if you have a 2 year old (or anywhere around that age) you should really consider the mini-session (1/2 hour). It isn't like they're able to last much longer than that anyhow. I know that the pictures would have become progressively worse had we stayed longer.
Jonny and I doing our best not to screw up Molly's picture

I've seen this picture done way cuter before. It helps when your kid kisses your belly instead of cramming her face into it as Molly has done here.

She hammed it up nicely for her pictures though


Me and my gal(s)

We'll be doing it again soon too. I saw on Facebook a few of my friends entered a drawing on another local photographer's page (Laurie Brown) for a free session and photo book, so I entered since I'm going to be needing to do something after the baby is born and since I'm totally awesome, I won! I'm excited because usually I'm not totally awesome and I don't win. So let's hope that this is my last post before I have Miss Maggie Mac! I'm winning contests, so obviously I'm on a lucky streak!

One more thing

In case you were desperate for the audio book of "The Napping House" here it is as read by Molly. For some reason taking video of her reading is easier than taking video of anything else. She's usually too easily distracted by the camera to do anything but try and get the camera from me. Reading seems to be important enough to keep her focused.

The Molly Show

My mom got us a fancy new monitor for when Maggie arrives. It's a video one, but what is most awesome about it is that it actually works in our house. We've had 2 other monitors, one video, one sound and neither of them did very well in our house. Yes, we were probably asking a lot of them, we have brick walls and probably some plaster/lath wall between our room and hers. So even though her room isn't that far away, the signal has a lot to conquer along the way. This monitor works really well though and the signal has yet to cut out on us waking us with loud beeping. It's also nice because we can have two cameras on the system which we're going to want in a few months (if I ever let Maggie sleep in her own room). So far my favorite thing about it is watching Molly when she wakes up, she is so funny. Sometimes she'll sing songs, sometimes she'll play with her animals or read a book. It really cracks me up when she'll wake up and immediately start talking about something she was talking about right before she went to sleep picking up right where she left off. Another feature of the monitor is that we can talk to her through an intercom. We thought this would be hilarious, but mostly she's just terrified by it and I suppose I see her point. We are being kind of creepy and voyeuristic. This past Thursday and Friday we headed to the San Diego area and went to Sea World and visited with some of my relatives. Lots of fun!
Checking out a turtle.

We fed the Sea Lions this time. This one is begging for more. Sorry buddy, Sea World's expensive!

Hanging out in Allison and Pablo's backyard. It was nice to be outside for a change. Now that were home, we're again cooped up avoiding the heat.



Molly's ready for some winter weather!

So one more week and Maggie will be full term. Of course I'm sure she'll wait around a little longer than that. I'm simultaneously ready and completely not ready for her to be out and among us. I'm sick of being pregnant, but I know it's not like having a newborn is a piece of cake, especially with a fairly demanding toddler. I'm also really wishing I was one of those "nesting" types. I'm hoping that something kicks in soon, but I have my doubts since I never thought I did that with Molly. I'm sure that eventually I'll get something done, but I'm pretty sure it isn't going to be from some uncontrollable urge to get ready for her. Right now the only uncontrollable urge I've had is to sit on the couch and read.

Susan cuts my bangs

I'm not sure why, I know a lot of kids hate getting their hair cut, but Molly loves it. I think it's mostly because she loves Susan so much that she will sit happily while she trims her up. It's probably the only time aside from sleep when she will hold still. So far, we've always just done it in the office, but this time, Molly wanted to be in a proper chair out on the floor and part of the action. Afterwards, she made another appointment to see Susan in a month for another trim. Of course she had to talk all about it "I have an appointment with Susan!" and "Susan cuts my bangs!". She's a regular now.

In other news, we have finished our first swim lesson session of the summer and we're starting another on Monday. This time we'll have Grayson and Colbie in class with us so that should be fun. I'm thinking she's going to have a hard time focusing on swimming when there's someone as important as Colbie in the pool with her. It's kind of exhausting for both of us (I'm tired from preventing drowning, she's tired from having no concept that she can drown) but it's nice to have an outdoor activity that we can do with out dying from heat stroke.
One more random story that cracked Jonny and I up today. We were coming home from the grocery store and decided that we wanted to order something for lunch. I was using my car's hands free to dial by number. I start to say the phone number... "7-8-2" from the back of the car, Molly starts yelling out numbers too..."6-5-8..". I thought there was a chance that since she was in the backseat and I'm in the front that it would disregard her numbers and use my numbers, but no, her numbers made it in there too. I'm not sure why this was so funny to us, but Jonny and I were cracking up so of course Molly starts cracking up too and also continuing to scream random numbers. I guess we're just goofy like that.

4th of July!

Molly's 4th of July was extremely eventful this year. It actually started on the 3rd when we went to a BBQ at Cassie and Ben's and she had a blast swimming. Since there were plenty of big kids around doing awesome things like diving or even flipping into the pool, Molly was pretty sure that she needed to get in on that action and I've since noted a definite increase in her daring around the pool...not necessarily a good thing. She calls it doing "tricks", but basically she'll just jump in without any real concern for whose going to be there to catch her. In an effort to try and demonstrate to her that she actually can't swim, I've let her her go without catching her so that she's completely submerged for a least a second but it hasn't really helped any because she just comes up coughing, sputtering and saying "again!". Swim classes should be fun tomorrow. I'm just grateful that we don't have a pool at our house or anywhere around our house for that matter because she freaks me out.
After all of that fun, it seemed impossible that any more excitement could be had in one day. However since Paradise Casino puts on a awesome fireworks display every year on the 3rd, more fun is exactly what we had. "Ooh! look at that!" "Look at the colors!"...I think she was impressed and the best part is that we can see it from our roof. She seemed a little disappointed when I told her that she probably wouldn't see fireworks again for another year. At least nothing like that display. All this morning she kept saying "Maybe later we see fireworks". Sorry Molly.
Today, after sleeping in, we got up and went to a forth of July parade that runs through Cassie and Ben's neighborhood. Kate and her parents were also there to join in the fun. I almost didn't go because it's pretty hot and I didn't know if I would really be interested in walking around, but I decided that it was cloudy and breezy enough that I could tough it out (Of course it's Yuma, so the clouds were pretty much gone by the time I got there). It was pretty hot and muggy, but Molly had a blast and I managed not to go into labor, so it was worth it.
Hanging with Aunt Cassie before the parade.

Also with Madeline or "melwon" as Molly has renamed her.

They managed to ride together without any wagon turf wars. Success!

Thought it was a funny picture, don't know what she's yelling at but I'm going to guess it was a dog since she was pretty into any dog we passed.

A HUGE thanks to Cassie for helping me get Molly through the 2nd half of the parade after Kate went home with her wagon. Without her I may well still be wandering the hot streets chasing after Molly.

All of her hard work was rewarded with an ice cream cone.

"Mmmmmm!"

Miss Yuma county walked the parade in red patent heels of a significant height. While I feel that it was a useless show, I have considered how if I were someone who wanted to prove something, I should have walked the parade in heels. That would have been a true spectacle: 8 months pregnant with a two year old. Then I remember that I'm not of a competitive nature and I'm just grateful that I was wearing flip flops.
But wait! There's more. Not a lot more, but still...
Later in the afternoon (after a nice nap) We went to my mom's house to swim and have dinner. I didn't take any pictures there, but it's just as well because I did manage to snap one before we left and more importantly before she removed the pigtails and the bow. It's so hot now I wish she would keep her hair back to keep cool and to also try and avoid the ragamuffin look she gets. I suppose she's lucky she can pull that look off.

Party all the Time

Granted my sort of party is pretty tame (some may call it lame) but I still had a good time last week with all of my parties. It started last Saturday when Ramsey asked me out to lunch for my birthday and instead was throwing me a surprise baby shower. I didn't catch on that it was a baby shower for a few minutes (when I was told) but really it's not fair to do throw a party that close to someones birthday and not expect some confusion. Just ask Ramsey, she's had experience with this.
All my glory.

Thanks to everyone who came, it was a lot of fun!

On Tuesday, I turned 31 (doesn't seem right, but I did confirm this with my mom). Since it coincided with my friend Allysia being in town with her kiddos, we had them and the Morris' over for dinner. It was a total 10 year old birthday party complete with pizza cake and ice cream.
All of us, with all of them.

Molly would not look at the camera at all, so this was the best we got.

Molly with her favorite person, Colbie baby.

Obviously she couldn't be trusted, whoops!

Jadon stealing some lovin' from Miss Colbie.

Okay, I couldn't resist sharing my child's genius. When asked to write her name, she will fairly consistently do something like this. Yes, there's no real "M" (although it should be noted that she does say "M") and yes, there are too many "l"s (they're fun to write I guess) but she's only 2 and I'm impressed. It should be noted that it probably helps to have not only a simple name but also a simple to write name. Poor Maggie will probably not have as easy a time writing her name since she doesn't have any super simple letters like "o" and "l".

Although Maggie has not mastered her name yet, she has done me the favor of getting in the correct head down position. On my birthday I had an appointment and she is supposedly head down. Let's just hope she stays that way.