Today is Lydia and Molly's Daddy's birthday! Happy Birthday, Da-da!! We love you, and we think you're the BEST DADDY IN THE WHOLE WORLD!!

Oliver's parents (a.k.a. Omi and Opa) hosted a nice dinner at their house tonight. Grammy was there too, and Aunt Katie, cousin Miles and Aunt Katie's sister, Emma. Uncle Mike and cousin Warner are away on a hunting trip! Little Miles was the lone male cousin tonight, but he held his own quite well. Here he is sandwiched between the girls.



Earlier in the day, Lydia and Mommy went out to the mall and we found our way to Barnes and Noble. She was totally in love with the stage where they have storytime. She had a blast playing there. She kept pretending to climb the trees, talking about Zacheus from the Bible. (One of her little beginner Bibles tells a story about how Zacheus climbed a big tree to see Jesus better!) She read some books, played with a train set, and made lots of friends who were there to play and read too! (See if you can find her in the picture, below.)

Today was Lydia's first day of school! (Actually she's been in school all summer... but today was the first day of the new school year at her REAL preschool in Frisco ISD!) She was eager and ready to go and have a great time! We had meet the teacher night last week, and she remembered the school from last spring, so she wasn't apprehensive at all this morning. What a relief for her parents! She had a great first day.
The picture above (super cute!) is Lydia with her teacher this morning! She has 1 lead teacher and 2 assistant teachers, and they're all wonderful.

I tried to get a cute picture of her with her new backpack in front of the school, but she was not in the mood to cooperate for me! She kept saying "Nooooooo Mama!" And the more I persisted in trying to get a picture, the more irritated with me she became, so finally I gave up. Here are my "out-takes" if you will...

Here's a link to our blog post from this same week LAST year on her first day of school EVER! Her first day at her first preschool (St. Phillips Preschool). My how she's grown! That was such an emotional day! http://barronbaby.blogspot.com/2010_08_01_archive.html

l m'';c`ccm c mc vf b nmg PLkyub (Molly typed that!)

Today Molly tried her first Baby Mum-mum rice cracker! She seemed to understand what to do right away, and ate it pretty quickly. I think she really liked using her teeth, and enjoyed that finally something she put into her mouth actually has flavor.

And she's practicing standing! (about 20 seconds or so at a time)

Molly loves her exersaucer! Can you tell? (video below)


Miss Molly has got to be the sweetest baby on the planet! She's approaching 7 and a half months old - hard to believe!

I neglected to post her stats from her 6 month check-up (which was 6 weeks ago). It's fun to compare she and Lydia, so here you go:

18.7 lbs (90th percentile) (Lydia was 20.7 lbs at this age!)

27 in long (95th percentile) (Lydia was 26 in. long)

17.25 cm diameter head (80th percentile) (Lydia's head was 17.5)

So Lydia was 2 lbs heavier and 1 inch shorter! Otherwise they still look a lot alike as babies!

We had a playdate at Warner and Miles' house today. It was lots of fun!

Miles and Molly held hands. So sweet.



2 little monkeys jumping on the bed!


Hangin' out in Warner's train tent.

Tonight we went to one of our favorite places for dinner... Cheesecake Factory! Oliver did yard work for a loooong time today, and Lydia, Molly and I were itching to get out and do something fun. We brought the camera, of course.

Oh-so-close to getting a nice picture of me with my girls...and then Lydia had to go and stick her finger in her nose!

Molly ate her first puffs tonight! It's the first time she's eaten anything whole like that - just pureed solids or mashed banana. The puffs dissolve pretty quickly if they're not chewed, so they're a safe thing to start with. She liked them! Video, below.

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…