Lydia Grace Barron and Molly Joy Barron

Molly is having fun being one!
Here she is reading one of her favorite books about farm animals. She has developed a fondness for cows, and now she even says cow when she sees one! Actually, it's "Tow" (like cow, but with a t). She's consistent in calling the cow puppet and other cow toys/pictures "tow" and it's very cute.

Here's a video:

Her other favorite thing to do lately is to play with wands. (as in Princess wands) Lydia is VERY VERY into wands and all things princess right now, so Molly has quickly learned to enjoy them, also. We have at least 7 or 8 wands around here, plus plenty of spatulas, melon ballers and other random things which serve as wands from time to time. The routine is to say "zap!" and wave the wand. When Lydia has a wand, Molly points and says "wa" and lets us know that she wants one, too. She then throws her arm down with it and says "yah!" (her version of "zap!") So precious. Here are the girls with their matching wands (thank you to Wal-Mart for their very cheap pack of 5 party favor wands).

Molly also says MaMa and DaDa. For awhile it didn't seem directed to us, but lately more and more it seems that is talking to us (she'll say MaMa repeatedly from the other room, for example, and stops saying it when I appear). Even if I'm not 100% sure she's intending to call me MaMa...I still like it!
Molly learned to crawl just before Christmas, but didn't prefer to do it very often. Now, she crawls a lot, and is enjoying her ability to roam the house. This week she has learned to crawl up the stairs by herself, which is wonderful...but also means it's time to get out the safety gate and watch her more closely. She can stand independently and has taken a couple of steps, but otherwise she's still just cruising and not quite walking, yet. Unfortunately with her new ability to stand independently while playing with toys, she also falls backward a lot more. Hopefully this stage will be short-lived as her balance improves. She loves to dance, and cannot help but shake her hips and booty every time she hears music.

Video:

Now that Molly is one, she drinks regular milk. Lydia loooooves milk, too, so we go through a LOT of milk very quickly around here!
That's 14 cartons of milk! Last week, Kroger had a great sale on their store brand milk that we typically buy, so we stocked up!

We've been busy around here with fun activities. We attended Liam's birthday party this weekend, and we went to see the Harlem Globetrotters! More to come soon.