Miss Molly-18 months

Our little Miss Molly is 18 months old in just two more days. I can't believe it. We got her pictures taken today. As per her usual, I spent twenty minutes running around peek-a-booing until I'm a sweaty mess and we got one good shot. Kind of. One SUPER CHEESY squinty shot, and one non-smiling-gorgeous-eyes shot. We'll call it a success. Much like the pictures below. But we love her anyway, haha!

While she might not smile on command, she is getting CRAZY smart these days. She can now sign 'please' and say: thank you, uh-huh, no (which is nononononooo), bubbles, uh-oh, whoa, milk, love you, and I'm sure lots more because I think about writing them down all the time, but I can't think of any right now. Her little tiny voice is hilarious and I love listening to her sweet little phrases. Love you is always my favorite.

Wowza.

 She loves to read. When the house gets quiet and I get REALLY nervous, 99% of the time she is just sitting somewhere looking through books. It is the cutest ever. The other 1% of the time she has found the toilet bowl scrubber. I don't know WHY kids love that thing so much!

 She is the wiggliest worm in church, but really great in nursery. Although, usually Sterling deals with her in church because I am in primary, but when I see them she's either in nursery or asleep in his arms! She is mostly sleeping through the night, but still has her odd nights of waking up. And after waking up she hates going back to her crib. If she ends up in our bed she likes to sleep everywhere, mostly on our heads. We don't appreciate that very much.

Molly is a great eater and loves to feed herself. She wakes up hungry and pulls me down to the kitchen where I usually give her dry cheerios in her high chair until I can wake up enough and get something prepared. Or a cold pancake from the fridge. She eats those right up though, so they must not be too bad. She really loves ice cream and say "mmMmm" after every bite and makes everyone laugh.

Cutest picture ever. Oh how I love her!

She is really great at playing with the kids and often goes along with whatever they are doing or just sits beside them and does her own thing. She goes to sleep with her "Ellie" elephant that she got for Christmas and still snuggles up with the crocheted blanket that Sister Rhamdan gave her when we she was born. 

She is a minx. She thinks she can get away with everything. She does something she knows she shouldn't, catches your eye to make sure you're paying attention, and then goes running away while giggling her head off about it. It's highly entertaining and makes getting after her really difficult, haha. 

She is the BEST at giving kisses. She will often pull my head around and give me a big ol' kiss out of the middle of nowhere. I LOVE it. She also does that a lot in the wee hours of the morning when I can't quite get out of bed yet (the stinker wakes up generally at 530am) and she is sitting there trying to wake me up. Lots and lots of kisses. Can't really say there's any other way I'd rather wake up! She doesn't do the open-mouthed kind either. Great big kiss with LOUD smacking sounds planted right on ya. Oh, it's adorable.

She is tiny. If you haven't noticed, she is SOOOO teeny tiny, itsy, bitsy. I still get comments at the playground "She's walking already?" Yeah, surprisingly, she's been walking for almost nine months.... But what they really mean is that she looks too small to be so crazy. She can climb up all the climbing walls, all the ladders, cross all the barriers (although she did have a terrible fall last week at the park, I might have even screamed) and does it so quick and nimble that I think it surprises people. A body that tiny shouldn't be doing that many things!!!! It makes her all the more endearing. 

Her small size doesn't hold her back at home either. She thinks she is just as important as every single family member...if not more so. She is quite the boss when she wants to be and quite adamant and LOUD when people (usually Will) are playing with/doing things she doesn't want them to. She thinks she can keep up, too. She likes to do everything during Joy School and just two weeks ago she was doing an art project with us and I turned around and she was passed out head down on her high chair tray. HAAHAA. Maybe not quite a big dog!

Will calls her our baby and whenever we see teeny, tiny newborns he says "That's a baby like OUR baby Molly!" He mostly calls her 'baby' and not Molly at all. 

My absolute favorite thing is her shrill "MAAAMAAA!" that I can hear anywhere in the house when she hasn't seen me recently enough. Oh Molly, you have my heart. We love you! STOP GROWING UP! Oh and my other favorite thing, she does all the actions to popcorn popping. The best is when she wags her finger up and down at you. Oh I want her to stay this way forever.