Cricket

Finally! Something happened that prompted me to get going and write a post! It's not that nothing has happened in the past few months, but nothing this good. It was completely random and unexpected too, so it makes it that much better. Today my dad came over with a treat for the girls. Salt and vinegar CRICKETS! so exciting! When he brought them out, Molly seemed disgusted (who can blame her?)and I was definitely not going to be the trailblazing good example of trying new things.  Plus, I don't like vinegar.  Molly then completely surprised me by popping one in her mouth with very little fanfare. I was unprepared for this, so here is the video of Molly's 2nd cricket.  It's a shame I didn't record the first one since it was more fully formed.
 
 Maggie came around eventually with a little persuading.

We're super lucky that we get to go to my childhood home 2 times a week almost every week. I'm there so much, I honestly don't even really feel nostalgic about it or anything. Here's Maggie helping in the Jordan garden, standing in front of my former playhouse.

Maggie is such a funny little thing. Her favorite song to sing, she has made up herself.  It's call "Fastest Baby" It goes "I'm the fastest baby!" repeated over and over and over. The other night, Jonny says to me "Maggie really takes that fastest baby shit seriously" and he's right, she does.  If they are racing to the bedroom and Molly beats her in there, she bursts into tears and screams "NO! You're not the fastest baby! I am! You're the SLOWEST baby." So hilarious.

Here she is with the muse for her fastest baby song, her tricycle.

Awe.

Don't let Gran see this picture

I'm pretty sure Ramsey is the inspiration for Molly's look.

It was kind of unexpected, but I love this cat.  She's seriously awesome.

Wrapping up a package

Trying to move it.

It's contents

She's seriously awesome.

Isn't it fun to have kids help in the kitchen? This is one of those things where fantasy doesn't mesh with the reality.  It's going to be 100 times messier and take twice as long and there's the possibility that at any moment they can completely destroy the recipe by dumping a whole package of salt into it. I'm hoping it gets better.

Molly got her ears pierced! She's wanted to for a long time and I have put her off.  One weekend she was particularly forceful and I think Jonny just got sick of listening to her.  So Jonny took her to Claire's and let her do it.  My mom told us of the doom and gloom that awaited us (In fairness to her, Mere's ear piercing story is pretty icky), but it's almost been 6 weeks now and we haven't had any problems. She of course got the Elsa's. Fair warning, Molly breaks a commandment in the video-Looking at you Bryn! hahaha.

Looking good!

I asked Maggie if she wanted hers done too, She's a definite "No!". It's funny though because she LOVES watching the video over and over.  I hate to say it but I think she's entertained by Molly's pain.

Jonny's such a good dad.  They all fell asleep watching a movie the other night.  The movie was likely terrible, so her really is a good sport.

Naps can strike at anytime.

Since the beginning of these posts almost 6 (yikes!) years ago, I have brought up our children's various terrible sleep habits at their various ages.  They are still not great sleepers and it has gotten to the point where Jonny just leaves our bed when one of them shows up.  Sometimes he goes to their room, but lately he's been trying out the guest cottage.  I should probably fix this mess, but I'm usually asleep, so it's difficult. I mention all this because the other night, I woke up and Jonny was standing and Maggie was in bed with me. I hadn't placed everyone yet, so I was asking him what he was doing, where he was planning on going.  He says to me that he's going to go over to the cottage and Maggie (seemingly completely asleep next to me) says "It's okay Daddy, I still love you." I don't know if she was really awake or just has some great sleep talk timing, but I was cracking up. Such little punks!

Storytime

My mom really felt strongly that I needed to write about all of Molly's tall tales.  She's really into storytelling and pretty much constructs a whole alternate version to every day at school.  They generally revolve around either her being ridiculed or awarded...being attended to.  One of my favorites is how one day she was so amazing at school that she surpassed her green status and had to change her card to purple.  She's also been "punched in the face" and she watched her 4th grade buddy's finger get stabbed with a knife. When pressed she'll usually admit she just having some fun.  It can take a lot though-you pretty much have to threaten to call the school and find out.  For example, I had to explain to her that if someone really brought a knife to school and then stabbed another student with it and no one knows...as an adult, I should probably notify someone.  It's starting to feel like some ghetto "Mulberry Street" story. My mom thinks it's funny because it reminds her of Chris.
Molly was legitimately awarded in November though.  She was Mustang of the month for her class! The better moms took pictures.  I didn't.  I think Mere might have one, but she's off with my mom being a world traveler.
Hold on, we've actually been taking pictures.  There's a ton here to get through.

Maggie's school picture turned out super cute. I normally see her crying at school, so this is a huge improvement.

We had family pictures taken a couple weeks ago.  They turned out pretty good, especially the ones of the girls.

Ugh, she's too photogenic.

Maggie was way more into pictures this year than she was last year.  This one is super cute, and it shows the personality that only we see.  She is such a punky little goofball at home, but as soon as she's in the company of strangers, she clams up.

We went up north and visited Granny.  While we were there we went with the Morris clan on the Polar Express train.  It was a good time and the kids were totally into it.

Getting ready to go!

The first gift of Christmas!-Still had the "made in China" sticker on it. Ha Ha Ha

Everyone more or less looking at the camera. Maggie gives it a thumbs up!

Poor Grayson is in for it. He may have been asking for it though. I didn't get a picture of it, but a little before this, he was stroking her hair while they looked out at the "North Pole".  Creepy? or Sweet? We don't know.

Don't let the cat in, she rolled in something.

Molly had her school performance on Tuesday.  I only have the pictures from before we left.  It was crazytown, so I didn't even try. They had the whole school up on and around the stage and between her location and our location in the auditorium I didn't even see her. Oh-Well.

Here she is practicing her singing stance.

And her curtsy.

Maggie's performance was tonight.  It was also crazytown, but this time we were assholes and made a spot for ourselves up front. We weren't sure she was even going to go up on the stage at all.  When I dropped her off she was crying and when they walked her out, she was still crying.  I let her sit with me and I think she decided I was close enough that she could see me, so it would be okay.  I'm glad she did since she actually sang and had a good time. 

"I'm a little snowman short and fat.  Here is my scarf and here is my hat."

Of course there was Santa! This is Maggie's 2nd Santa meeting and Molly's 3rd, just this month.  Santa is kind of everywhere now.  I feel like I saw Santa 1 or 2 times my whole childhood.  You used to have to go out of your way to see him, now he comes to you.

I see London I see France. this is her newest trick.  Kindergarten is teaching her lots of important things.  So far I kind of feel like this may be one of the most important things.  Everyday when I drop her off, she goes straight to the bars and starts hanging upside down and doing all sorts of crazy flips. 

 

Ok, it's possible that I should give Kindergarten credit for this too. I found this on the floor of my bedroom.  I asked Jonny and he didn't help her and I didn't either. It's by far the most complicated thing she's written by herself.  I love it so much. I love that it's song lyrics. I love that it's novelty song lyrics more. I love that it's Christmas novelty song lyrics the most.

Maggie and I got to go to school and help Molly make a graham cracker house.  It was fun.  They mostly focused on eating as much candy as they could while I was focused on trying to make it all stick better

 

Molly's now on break for 3 weeks! Lots of Christmas fun to come I'm sure.

Tribute

I was totally going to post the first day of school before we got to Maggie's birthday.  I was also totally going to post Maggie's birthday before we got to Halloween. I actually have a fuzzy memory that I did write a post and then somehow deleted it all, and it was like 10 so I just went to bed? Maybe? Let's pretend that I did do that, and it was the greatest post in the world.  This is just a tribute.

Molly's first day of Kindergarten went really well!  She was initially concerned and did cry a little, but she's been good to go ever since.  I think at first she was just worried that she wouldn't know what to do or what the rules were.  Something I can totally relate to.  She is super proud of her Green status. So far all of her days have been "Green" days, meaning she's following all the rules and doing what she should. She has since been given an award for her awesome math skills (she can count to 100 by 10s and 1s!) and a "Sunshine" award for being a good friend.  She's pretty awesome when she wants to be :-) 

In case you haven't been to Kindergarten lately, it's serious business.  It is not the Kindergarten I remember with a play kitchen and beanbag chairs.  They are reading and writing and sitting at desks...for better or worse.  They are also graded with a percentage grade. she mostly has 90's except for the 82 in writing, which I was informed was actually a high grade and that she really wouldn't have been expected to do much better.  Serious effin' business. I'm mostly trying to ignore it which I suppose is easier for me to do, because she is doing so well.

 

I took her shopping and let her pick out an outfit to wear for the first day.  This is what she chose including the accessories. I don't think she has worn any of it ever again. 

Maggie wanted to get in on the first day of school fun.  She took her pretend lunch to school that day and wore a pretty dress and let me do her hair in a "baby bun".  Everything in Maggie's life is about babies. She love babies, she loves the idea that she was one, that she continues to be one.  She likes things that she perceives to be for or about babies.  We went to pick out some flowers for the yard the other day and she was insistent that we get teeny tiny baby flowers. We ended up with some Alyssum.

Coolest Kindergartner at Alice Byrne since 1985.

 

 Next up was Maggie's birthday! For her school party, I took
 whipped cream and fruit.  The girls were loving it.
 Maggie's face cracks me up.

 For her party we had a swim party at the country club.

This picture make me feel like "Big Pimpin'" is playing in background.

To continue with her baby love, she picked out a baby minnie mouse cake.

 Blowing out the candles with a little extra help on the side.

 So this is actually some pretty big news.  Molly cut a big chunk of her hair off.  She's actually been bugging me to let her do it for at least a year off and on.  I had mostly just put her off until one Friday after school I just decided she had made it pretty clear what she wanted, so we went to the school and did it!  She loves it.

She had enough to donate so here's her braid we sent off.  I actually cut mine all off a week of so later, so we had two braids to send in the end.

I do not know what to make of this.  I seriously opened up the dresser to get some sheets and this is what I saw. She told me it was barbie jail.  I'm pretty sure they're waterboarding.

She's been crazy for climbing our fig tree lately. Last year there was a tree at school that she would climb everyday with her friend when I would pick her up.  She was super pleased with herself when she figured out how to get up this one.

 Still not too big for kitchen sink baths!  helps to have a giant  sink.

 

 What a sweet little Kindergartner! Considering I had completely forgot it was picture day until we were walking out the door for school, I think she did pretty good. Also working against us was a muddy playground and an also muddy ball.

Halloween! We made it! The girls were watermelon fairies.  Kind of random, but they enjoyed it.  We just did the downtown merchants trick or treating and were back at home before sunset.  It was a pretty good deal. I do wish it could have cooled off one day earlier for us though.  It was in the 90's yesterday (not terrible but not exactly fall either) and like just like magic, today, November 1st, it's cooler. That's pretty much the way it goes around here though.

So I probably won't get around to posting again this year, although we're having family pictures taken next week so you never know.