We headed back to the local shopping center tonight for our third annual "sleigh ride" around the parking lot. Bob the horse pulls the wheeled sleigh at a top speed of about 1/2 mile per hour. Josh finds this thrilling, especially when Bob pulls the sleigh over the speed bumps.
We headed out for another attempt at Christmas photos today, this time amongst the new crop of leaves in our yard. I was better prepared this time with matching outfits and rested children, but the net result was about 70 really bad pictures. Here's one of Molly that I thought was pretty cute until I realized there was a stick touching her head, as if she was being anointed by the Christmas fairy.
Family holidays certainly have changed for us in a year! Last year about this time, my sister-in-law Amy and I were pregnant, and Josh was the only grandchild on my side of the family. Here's a picture from this year's Thanksgiving celebration, which now includes Molly and her twin cousins, Abbey and Elizabeth. My mom joked that when arrived at the party, we doubled the attendance.
Here's Molly playing with her cousin Abbey.
On Monday, Molly suddenly started clapping. We're not sure when and how she acquired this skill, but we're so proud that we're showing her off to our friends and neighbors like she's a trained seal. She claps on command to the delight of anyone we ask her to clap for.
We have also been very happy about Josh's recent progress with his talking, thanks to school and the hours of therapy he receives every week. It seems that the better he talks, the more confident he becomes. Last night we were very surprised when he not only wanted to say the prayer before we ate, but he uttered a long and almost completely understandable blessing. It unfortunately did not mention food, but he did thank God for Christmas tree lights and for "window" starting with the letter W. That meant the big piece of broccoli we made him eat did not go down blessed.
Here's Molly playing in the leaves the weekend as we headed out for our least favorite fall activity: the leaf raking that will go on for months. We love our wooded neighborhood, but we hate raking up the thousands (millions?) of leaves that fall every year.
The ever-elusive Christmas picture was difficult with just one child, and I imagine it will be all but impossible this year with two. We've pretty much given up on studio pictures, so we made our first attempt at a candid picture to send out with our Christmas cards at a (very early) Christmas party on Friday at a local shopping center.
We gave up because it was getting cold and I thought other people might want to actually enjoy the view of the Christmas tree that we were blocking with our antics. Luckily it's early, and there will be many other opportunities for Christmas pictures. We then headed to the pet store, where Josh spent some time gazing longingly at the clown fish, which he believes are Nemo and Nemo's father.
Finally, football season is waning and college basketball is underway. Molly is celebrating UNC's opener tonight with a T-shirt supplied by Corinne. I'm thrilled with the Tar Heel's #1 pre-season ranking, and while I can still do some trash talking, I'm going to do it!
The first meeting of Josh and Vivy. Vivy slept through her first Josh hug, but he has been schooled on how to say and spell Vivy and he was ready to meet her.
Josh helps Auntie Em blow out her birthday candle. We celebrated Emily's birthday on Saturday night with Randy, Em, Steph and our combined three kids.
Josh enjoying his first-ever Dairy Queen chocolate dipped cone at the mall today. I couldn't stand it after a few minutes and had to play the Mommy card and demand that he let me have some. He reminded me that I needed to say, "Thank you, Josh, for sharing."
Here's a picture of Molly, who has been left out of this photo fun, playing with the leftover Halloween pumpkins.
Today was a very sad day, as we had to put my cat Maggie to sleep. She stopped eating about two days ago, and today she was diagnosed with renal failure that was essentially beyond help. I was thankful that it was a clear choice to end her suffering, but I'm still sad to lose a longtime pet. Chris took Maggie to the vet and held her while she received the injection.
We are certainly not ashamed to be members of the Bald Baby Club, but I am increasingly perplexed as to why people do not equate babies (regardless of the amount of hair they have or don't have) wearing pink with girls. This is what Molly was wearing yesterday, and a man walked up to us at the grocery store (Molly was sitting in the cart) and said, "Hi, Mr. Blue Eyes." Did he really think I would dress my baby boy in a pink shirt and pink shoes with flowers on them in a day and age when there are a bazillion choices of children's clothing? I know I'm not the only mom with this issue, but it makes me so mad! Molly's wardrobe is 95 percent pink to offset any gender questions her baldness might entail, but with some people it just doesn't matter. I may have to start strapping a big bow to her head.
One of our latest parenting efforts is making Josh dress himself. He's doing a good job overall, but tonight he unearthed a t-shirt that's two sizes too small and had some trouble getting it over his head. The result was somewhat nunnish.
We headed up to the mountains today to Sky Top Apple Orchard in hopes of a repeat of last year's fun outing. We grabbed a wagon and two buckets and made it about 50 yards into the orchard before we realized there was not an apple in sight. We neglected to read the sign at the top of the hill that said this year's severe drought has depleted the apple crop.
Here's Molly communing with the remote control. She really liked the red light that comes on when you push the buttons.
