Lydia can't decide if she wants to be a baby, be the Mommy to a baby, or be the bossy big sister to a baby.

She has shown more of an interest in baby dolls lately, and frequently walks around the house cradling her babies, putting them to bed, feeding them... Then the next minute she's copying everything Molly does and trying to act like a baby. (If Molly is eating a toy, Lydia grabs one and copies her. If Molly is drinking a bottle, Lydia asks for a cup of milk and then lays down just like Molly to drink it.) And more often than not, she has already begun to boss Molly around and will take a toy from her hand, toss it aside, and then make her play with the toy SHE wants Molly to play with! (I keep telling her to enjoy it while it lasts, because one day Molly's not going to be so sweet about it when her sister takes her toys away from her!)

I guess Lydia is teething too.


"Baby go sleep. Sleeping on couch."


Feeding a bottle to her baby. This went on for long time this morning.


Watching herself with her baby in the mirror.


Drinking milk like Molly.


She also takes care of her "Little People " toys. In this case, she put the farmer to bed in the swing. I love it that she enjoys putting people, dolls and stuffed animals to bed, because as I'm walking around the house I'll find random acts of night-night time in random places - like the sheep I found in the basket of towels in the bathroom, all tucked in.

It's SO hot here in Texas! It's been over 100 degrees for more than 25 days...and the only way to beat the heat is to GET WET! So Lydia has spent a lot of time in her pool. And Molly, too, of course!


Pretending to pull weeds - just like Daddy...

Today was a fun day for Mommy, Molly and Lydia. We went to the playground early before it got too hot, and then we went swimming in the baby pools. Lydia and Mommy played with play-doh while Molly napped, then when she woke Lydia and Molly played together for awhile. After their afternoon naps, we went swimming in the baby pools again, followed by baths and dinner. We also made a movie for Daddy about our fun day! And here it is! (I inserted captions about our activities, but in most cases they transition too quickly to read... O well. The pictures are the best part.) Enjoy.

Last night Uncle Mike, Aunt Katie, Warner and Miles came over for dinner and to play. The kids had fun together!

Fun in the baby pool!

Wow, it’s been awhile since I’ve drafted a post for the blog!  Life got away from me, and the more time that passed, the more videos, pictures and stories I had to share…and the more daunting the task became.  So in light of that, tonight I’m just going to go blog-crazy and post lots of pictures and videos, and perhaps not as many anecdotes and stories…  All is well in our world.  Actually…all is AWESOME in our world.  God is so faithful to us, and we have so many reasons to praise Him.  But as I said, tonight I’m just going to upload lots of pictures and another day I’ll share updates on life of late.  Changes to my work schedule, Lydia’s speech progress, Molly’s milestones, etc…

Going all the way back to Father’s Day, here’s a video the girls and I made for Oliver!  (I should warn you that it’s 10 minutes long.  It’s a video/photo slideshow.)  I worked really hard on it, so when the time came to share it with him, I was bummed to discover a few timing errors at the beginning… I really wanted to go back and correct it, but who am I kidding… I don’t have time to be a perfectionist about stuff like that.

The girls have been really busy this summer.  Busy having fun!  Every Sunday after church we’ve gone to Grammy and Poppy’s house to have lunch and swim.  Lydia LOVES swimming!

Lydia is in school this summer, and doing really well.  I can’t wait to share more with you about how much she’s talking now!  Finally!  Praise God!  I’ll share more about that in a special blog entry another day.  Here she is before school the other day:  (although she’s not looking at the camera, I love the picture because she looks like such a big girl!)

Lydia took swimming lessons at the beginning of the Summer.  It was just 4 weeks on Saturday, a Parent & Child class.  I also enrolled her in a “Fun & Fit” class at the Frisco Athletic Center.  It’s just movement, music, dancing, tumbling, etc…  We’ve only been to one class so far.  She had a fair amount of fun…although she was apprehensive at first.  She enjoyed leaping like a frog – that was her favorite part. 

Molly has gotten very good at sitting up, and she loves her exersaucer now.   

Molly loves it when Lydia hangs out by the bathtub during her baths! 

And Lydia likes to climb onto my back while I bathe Molly… Like it’s not hard enough leaning over the tub…I really need a 3 year old on my back!  

Opa was in town for awhile, and the girls got to see he and Omi and their cousins Warner and Miles several times.  In the picture below: Opa, Omi, Molly and her cousin Miles. 

Opa and Molly 

Opa found Molly’s funny bone!  (Video below)

Somebody thought it would be funny to sit Molly down beside this guy…  Just what, exactly, were they suggesting, hmmmm?  (Don’t worry, Molly – you may have a similar body type, but you’re WAY CUTER!)

Other Molly moments…

Daddy found Molly’s funny bone, as well.

Gosh, as I’m going through my pictures I’m realizing that I don’t have very many new ones of Lydia!  It’s tough to catch her because she’s always on the move!  And getting her to pose for pictures is tough, but little Molly is camera-ready at all times!  I have hundreds of her lately, but not as many of her sister.  I’ll make it my mission over the next week to catch Lydia’s happy little face on camera!  At least Molly’s getting lots of camera-time as the second baby.  Everyone always jokes about the second child having very few baby pictures as compared to the first, but I don’t know if that will be the case this time. 

Well, that’s all for tonight.  I feel better having caught up a little bit.  More to come very soon…

This afternoon Molly's babysitter Stephanie e-mailed me with the subject line: "Notice anything new in each picture?" And here are the pictures she attached...







Gee, I guess Molly was really into her tongue today! So cute. Stephanie is so much more than a babysitter, of course... She really goes above and beyond to take exceptional care of Molly, and they even do fun art projects (like the ladybug I shared a picture of not too long ago). This week, they made 2 new art projects! One involved Molly's footprints in paint - now that's ambitious!

Here's a video:



Stephanie also made us a super cute photo scrapbook of Molly's first few weeks with them. How thoughtful!

In a couple of weeks Molly will be 6 months old. I can hardly believe it! It's hard to believe she was a little newborn who woke me up every hour of the night not very long ago... Now she's a babbling, playful little baby, learning and growing daily! Here's a bit about Molly at 5 1/2 months old:

- She has a tooth coming in! A couple of weeks ago I felt a little tooth bud on her bottom, front gums, and sure enough...now we have a tooth! It's still pushing it's way all the way through.. but we can see it! Way to go, Molly!

- She can sit up! Not for very long...but we did get about 3 or 4 minutes of solid sitting up a couple of days ago! Then, she toppled over. :)

- She loves to hold onto her feet!

- She can put her pacifier into her mouth! Sometimes her coordination is lacking, and it's upside down or sideways...but more often than not, if we place it into her hand the right way, she'll place it into her mouth perfectly.

- She loves her big sister! She is all smiles when Lydia is around.

- She likes the glow seahorse that plays soft music for sleeping. Lydia liked him, too. I've been using it every night when she goes to bed, and I think it really soothes her. I've decided she really likes it, but maybe she's just really tired and ready to sleep and it actually has nothing to do with the seahorse...!

- She naps in her bouncy chair, rather than in her bed. I'm not sure when we'll transition to naps in her bed. It just feels more convenient to bounce her to sleep downstairs where we're usually hanging out and doing chores or whatever...

- Believe it or not, she is still swaddled for bedtime. Not for naps, but for her overnight sleep in her crib. We have one of those velcro swaddle vests, and it's very secure. I'd like to test her out again on sleeping "free style" as I call it, but you know how it is... When they're sleeping through the night without a peep, you don't mess with it! But it sure would be nice to just lay her in bed without the swaddle vest.

- She likes her baths.

- She likes the swimming pool. She has been in 3 times now. Didn't like it so much the first or second times, but the third time she enjoyed it.

- She falls asleep for the night sometime between 8:00 - 9:00 pm, and wakes between 5:45 - 6:30 AM (usually closer to 6:30! Too bad I have to be up earlier than that for work!)

- She started eating solids recently, and seems to really like the cereal, apples, pears, and sweet potatoes, but not so much the green peas!

- She hasn't rolled over, yet, and doesn't show any interest in doing so either! Oliver jokes that she's lazy, because she doesn't really like tummy time, either. ;)

- She has the most amazing smile! It's so big and happy, and it's like she's just so happy to see you, and so happy in general that she just can't help but beam with joy! I love it!

- She is without a doubt the sweetest, cutest, most precious baby on the planet, and I am madly in love with her! (And to my baby nephews Benjamin and Miles...you guys are precious and cute, too, of course!)

Stay tuned... Next time I'll share about Lydia's latest and greatest interests/activities!

Sisters…    

Oliver played a game with Molly where he would surprise her from around the corner of the doorway, and here’s the cute faces the game produced!  I think she liked it.  (If you’re not a parent or a grandparent of this child, these pictures may all look exactly the same to you… But I couldn’t help but post all of them!)

 

Yesterday we went over to Grammy and Poppy’s place to go swimming.  Molly was all decked out, thanks to Grammy! 

Lydia had her cute suit on, too, and showed a great deal of interest in her little sister at one point.  Aren’t they cute?

 

We had a lot of fun swimming.  Molly stayed in the water for maybe 10 minutes or so, but she was only happy off and on… She’s not so sure about this, yet.  Lydia, however, had a blast.  Lydia’s Omi loves to swim, too, but she’s out of town right now.  Lydia is hoping Omi will take her swimming with her when she gets back from her trips to New  York and Canada! 

Lydia has been practicing holding her baby sister.  I don’t think this looks very comfortable for Molly, but she didn’t complain.

She also helps Molly with her tummy time.  

I’m not sure how helpful this was, however.

Molly really likes her big sister.  Despite the occasional roughness Lydia brings upon her, whenever Molly sees her big sister come around, she instantly smiles SO big.  And it takes next to nothing for Lydia to make Molly giggle.  All Lydia has to do is pretty much be herself and play near Molly, and Molly is very happy.