West Virginia Wedding

This past weekend, we packed up the kids and headed down to West Virginia for my cousin Nolan's wedding. This was our first family "road trip" and it went better than I expected actually. It took us about 9 hours. On the way down, my parents had Grant in the RV most of the way, so that was nice for us just to have Molly. My aunt and uncle's farm is beautiful and in the middle of no where. Since it was the Fourth of July, they also put on a great fireworks show for us the night before. The ceremony was gorgeous (and hot...thankfully, since it rained most of the day before), and we had a great time dancing the night away in the barn while the kids, including my brother's two girls, slept away in the RV parked nearby. It was so much fun and we're so glad we made the trip. Congrats Nolan and Alexis!

11 Months Old

Molly is 11 months old today. I can't believe we are one month away from the big First Birthday. She has really changed a lot in the last month. Just wanted to highlight a few things that she has picked up just in the last month...

• pulls up on everything and is cruising now and can hold on with just one hand and bend down to get something
• gives high fives but is better at low fives
• signs all done and more (a bit revised) and we're working on please and thank you
• can say or has said mama, dada, papa, baby (more like bebee), ball (baw), lala, whoa or wow, gaga (Grant I think)...I know she probably doesn't know she is saying anything, but she is getting a lot of new sounds down pat. She says ba for things that start with B, such as Bottle, Book, and so on. So just shake your head yes, and say sure Les...
• still loves to clap and "sing" with mommy
• loves to dance to music
• waves bye-bye
• starting to climb stairs
• eats almost anything you put in front of her including cut up fruit and veggies, deli meats, cheese, chicken, pasta, and so on.
• loves bathtime again
• is starting to walk with a walker
• sort of throws and rolls a ball

So since I'm not so good at keeping up on the baby book, this will have to do. We love you Molly girl!!

Curly-Q

Before I had kids, I always pictured a little girl with curls. As Molly's hair is starting to grow out, it looks like this will be the case, especially as it gets more humid. Both daddy and mommy have somewhat of a curl to their hair, so it isn't much of a surprise, but we sure think it's darn cute!

What a Pair

Grant and Molly have been interacting a lot more lately, which is a good thing, and a bad thing. They can entertain each other for a while, but they also are starting to "fight". Molly surprisingly can hold her own pretty well. With the three and half years between them, I was pretty certain there wouldn't be too much sibling rivalry...but we will see. I having been trying for days, no weeks, to get a picture of them together. It's a lot harder than it used to be. This is the best I could do.





I finally decided it might work best if they just take a picture with me. Love the timer pics!

The Big Day

Today is the "actual" big day...the big 3-0 birthday. I can't believe it's finally arrived. I feel like I have been dreading this day for a few years now. So it's here, and now I'm old. Not really, but it seems like I would never be thirty for real. We had a great time celebrating up at my parents lake place in Muskegon this past weekend (thank you to them!). The weather was...well...interesting. It was sunny, then it was really windy and chilly, then rainy, then calm, then windy...and so on. We still had no problem having a great time though. It was a blast playing Flippy Cup, Pennis (that's not a typo-o...just Ping Pong and Tennis combined), Bag-O, a little Karaoke, and a roaring fire to cap off the evening. Thanks to everyone that made the trip out to celebrate with us. It really meant a lot to me! We hope you had an awesome time, because we sure did!

Stephanie and I

My college roomies and good friends Carrie and Julie

Arika, Lisa and I

Stephanie, Linsey, Jim, and Joey taking in the view

Jules and Matt...a bit windy

Lins and Carrie

Drew, Kevin and Zack

Carrie and I

Bethany, Carrie and Lesley

Julie, Carrie and Tina

My sister Lissa and I

My brother Peter and I

Sitting Poolside

The pool is officially open. In years past, we've been waiting and waiting for the pool to open because May has been so warm. But this year, it seems it is still trying hard to really warm up. We've gotten to the pool once so far, and the kids still seemed to enjoy it even though the water was nearly ice cold! Grant and Molly always have fun with Ella and Kate VandenBerg!

Grant, Kate, Ella and Molly

Kate and Molly (Six months apart almost to the day)

Grant taking Molly for a ride

Ella saying hi to Molly girl

Not sure about the hat mom



Whoa...that's white

Having a blast...but I can't feel my toes! Brrrr.

Look What I Can Do!

We took the plunge...we took off the training wheels. I'm not sure what we were thinking, but we did it. Grant is riding a two-wheeler at the age of 4 1/2! He seems to have picked it up pretty quick...it may have helped that the bike we taught him on is super small. We kept the training wheels on his newer bike until he really gets the hang of it. Well, he loves it and wants to ride all the time now. Unfortunately, we don't have sidewalks on our street, so now I have to watch him every minute ride up and down the street..."Hey Mom...Look what I can do!!".

That's the Way We Roll

I just had to share with you how fast Molly rolls. As I have mentioned, she does the army crawl almost everywhere, but she also is known to decide that it is way faster, and way more fun, to roll SUPER fast everywhere. Check it out.

Molly Update

Well, Molly is definitely taking things at a different pace than her brother. It's hard for me to believe that when Grant was Molly's age...about 10 months, he was taking his first steps. Molly is no where near that milestone yet, which is totally fine with me, but different. She is still just army crawling and rolling everywhere. She has figured out how to get from crawling to a seated position, which is hard when you are just on your belly and not on your knees. She will not get up on her hands and knees no matter what. She finally also has enough strength to stand on her own. Yet, she does not care for it much. I will stand her up here and there, since she isn't pulling up yet, but she only lasts about five minutes before she wants to get back down. She is babbling quite a bit and almost seems to be having a conversation with you at times. She also may blow you a kiss or give you a hug, but mostly she'll just make the kissing noise at you...muuuuwah! She will wave and dance to music. She is still sleeping well and eating well, but doesn't really care much for her bottle or a sippy. She loves to laugh at her favorite book, "Mr Brown Can Moo, Can You?" and sing in the car. She is such a blessing to this family and we just love to watch her grow and learn new things...at her own pace.