Molly is ONE

I have no no no idea how this happened.

My baby is ONE?!?!

I feel like I should be celebrating, but I swear this creeped up on me and if I blink I can still see exactly how she looked at the hospital.

Oh Molly. You cried a lot. And screeched. And you are LOUD. But we wouldn't trade you for anything. I'd keep you just like this forever, if I could. 

She really is such a fun, fun baby right now. First off, WALKING. My first baby to walk before a year old. She took steps at 10 months, multiple steps in a row at the beginning of 11 months, and is  toddling about at exactly one year old.

She folds her arms before anyone else at the dinner table. Or at bedtime. Or at church. This is one of my absolute favorite things. Her little tiny arms wrapped up inside each other as if she knows exactly what is going on.

Molly has a huge sense of humor. She knows just how to push her sibling's buttons and you can tell by her big triumphant smile when she gets just what she wants from them. She also has this low, adorable chuckle when she is proud of herself. I can't get over it.

Molly screeches. In the upper octaves. It's quite a skill, actually. When Ruth and Will are singing along in the van, she joins right in and she doesn't hold back!

She is the belle of the ball. Everyone in the family adores her. Ruth and Will can hardly stand to be near her without touching her, cuddling her, squishing her, and kissing her. We all rub her head when we pass by. We all ask for her open-mouthed kisses and everyone works hard to get her to wave, clap, and laugh.

There is just nothing sweeter than our little miss Molly Fay. We love you to bits and pieces. To accommodate the med school life, we took the party to campus to enjoy the couple of hours break that Sterling had. Besides the 98 degrees and 100% humidity--it was such a great time!

Cupcake with a candle! Yay!

She wouldn't look at the camera because she was too busy watching Ruth and Will be ecstatic.

 

Presents!

She loved it! She was so excited that she wasn't very interested in her next presents, oops. Haha!

I thought this would be awesome. Then I forgot batteries. But she liked it later that day!  

Balloons!

Sterling had some classmates walk by that stuck around to play with our kids for over an hour! They were so enchanted by Molly's walking and by our kids in general--so that was a lot of fun.

After playing in the heat all afternoon, we headed home and I took the kids for a quick swim in the pool. Definitely just what we needed. And Molly! She decided in the past few times we've gone that she is a mermaid and goes CRAZY in the water. Splashing, kicking, squealing, trying to jump out of my arms, it's hilarious! She thinks she can swim just like everyone else, haha. We need to figure out a floaty situation for that petite little thing, because I think it will be a LONG time before she fits a puddle jumper. She had a great time though, lucky birthday girl.

Chillaxin'. She ALWAYS sticks her one foot out like that. 

We got batteries! They thought it was the greatest toy ever.

 

Dancing to the music, haha.

I can't believe she's really one. She is the smartest, tiniest, greatest little person I know. Her laughs and her grins (most recently, this incredibly impish cheeser-smile) and her baby soft sweetness just keeps us falling in love with her over and over again. We love you to pieces, Molly! Happy first birthday!

Matheson Hammock and Sundays

That cityscape. It never gets old looking at it from afar-so beautiful. Now, driving INSIDE of there, that's another story. 

Last week, since playgroup is indefinitely suspended until more people are home from summer vacations, I invited people to play at the beach. Come to find out several people had already planned on going to Matheson Hammock--so I invited myself! Haha. It was such a great time!

Matheson Hammock is GREAT for little people. My kids do really well at the beach. They love sand, they love water, and they LOVE waves. Funny, I never even thought about it until I read about another little girl being terrified of the waves and not liking to put her feet in the sand. My babies don't have that problem, haha. But it is a little scary to take them to the busy beaches in Miami (and by busy I mean, busier than used to be able to comprehend) and so I have never done it without Sterling along to help keep head count. Although, I think Molly is old enough now that I might brave it soon by myself. But Matheson Hammock is a special little oasis. It is ocean water, but it comes in through these little grates, so you basically have your own little swimming pool of ocean. Much easier to keep track of kids. And since we ended up with five moms and fifteen kids--we really appreciate that!

You can tell the sand is not quite as clean and gorgeous as South Beach, but the kids still love it! They ran RIGHT in! Good thing we put floaties on back in the parking lot so I don't have to worry!

Those two lately. Best of friends and WORST of enemies. Sigh.

Actually, after writing that ^^ caption, I remembered a sweet story about those two. We had to have some blood work done on Molly the other day, and it was a bit traumatic. The health worker was obviously uncomfortable with how small Molly was, and after getting her to scream for ten minutes while basically doing nothing, she eventually went and enlisted a more experienced worker. Then they drew two vials of blood while Molly screamed and Ruth and Will looked on in horror. Haha. So I decided a trip to Burger King, the play place (it is too hot for an outdoor play ground these days) and a chocolate frosty was in order. Luckily, we got the play place entirely to ourselves, and it was in a really nice neighborhood I've never driven through before so I relaxed and we had a great time. Unfortunately, the steps to get up the play ground were JUST out of reach for Will to climb up. I was thinking about getting Molly cleaned up and helping Will, when I noticed--Ruthie crouched down on all fours while Will crawled up on her back and up to the next level. He used her as a stool the ENTIRE hour we were there so he could get up and down!!! Sweetest thing ever!

Matheson Hammock even has a lifeguard! So nice! 

This was before the other twelve kids got there. Haha. But when they did arrive, my kids had a BLAST playing with everyone!

Molly thought she owned the place and WALKED all over. Crazy, tiny, little person.

On Sunday Ruthie wanted an Elsa braid. Not a Rapunzel braid, which is straight down her back. But an Elsa braid. I had to try three times, but I was pretty proud of the results!

Sweet sisters. Even if Molly is resisting, haha.

CUTEST BABY ALIVE!!!

The girlies. Oh how I love my girls. (Will always sleeps on Sunday until the LAST POSSIBLE SECOND in hopes he won't be cranky during church. But he always is. Considering his three hour nap is reduced to a half hour on Sundays, because he won't go to sleep any earlier, we can't expect very much. He is usually so ornery when we wake him up that we just put him directly into his carseat and change him in the parking lot. When you have 1-4 church and his nap schedule is 12-3, there's not much you can do.)

We need to get to the pool and get swimming! I feel like we've been really busy doing errands. Which is no fun for summertime! And then when I have a break, it's raining. Typical summer in Miami. It usually rains (POURS) every afternoon and evening, so I need to just get in the mindset that we will wake up and go to the pool first thing. Haha. Other than that, not much else is new. Except that Sterling has been having some issues (for like two years, but worse in the past couple of months) so we are trying to have him eat gluten free for three weeks, because we are pretty sure that is the cause. HOLY COW any help and suggestions and most importantly-recipes!-would be welcome! I've started following a few popular blogs and it looks like I'll have to invest in some cooking equipment and a lot of foreign (to me) ingredients in the really near future. I am completely, completely overwhelmed, but we have made it through one week alive, so I guess we can do this!