Robert Burns Day

Today was Robert Burns day. In the 18th century, he was the national poet of Scotland. Tim, being part Scottish, likes to celebrate Burns' birthday.

Kathy made these Scottish outfits for the kids.















We can't drag him to a Halloween party, but Marc even came dressed as Robert Burns.

With bagpipe music and traditional food, I think Molly had a great first Burns day.

Fun with the Molloys

Kathy, Calvin, Molly and I spent an afternoon with Sara and Kaitlyn Molloy.  As always the kids and the adults had a great time!  Thanks for all the jelly beans Sara!

Kaitlyn showed Calvin all of her barnyard animals, I think he liked the pig the best.

We tried to get them both on a chair at the same time, it lasted about 30 seconds, just enough time to snap one photo!

 

Kaitlyn has this great green chair that both kids took turns sitting in.  I love this picture of her!

The kids did play together a little bit, Calvin likes to pinch cheeks and Kaitlyn has some of the cutest I have seen!

Molly slept through most of the fun, but, we are definitely looking forward to our next play date!

LOST

Joe and I were watching "Lost" on Wednesday when Sun showed Kate a picture of her baby.  We gasped when we saw it.  Above is a picture taken of the TV, Molly is below just 1 day old.  We think JJ Abrams saw our baby and tried to duplicate the photo!

2 months

Molly had her 2 month check up at the pediatrician.  She weighs in at 14 1/2 pounds and is 24 3/4 inches long, both in the 95th percentile.

She was great with the doctor until the shots began.  It was heartbreaking to hear her screams!  She did calm down fairly quick and slept through most of the day.  The next morning she was back to her smiley self... phew!  Mom is not looking forward to the next round!

I heart NY

Check out Molly in the onesie Aunt Karen brought back from a recent trip to New York. She looks so grown up in her little Levi's at just 2 months old!

Alison

Alison came for a visit and held Molly the whole time! Here is the baby looking very comfy fast asleep on her shoulder. As a mother of 3 she has that special touch. Barney also had fun with Alison and he did not leave her alone for a minute! Thanks for being so patient with the pup!



Here is Molly once again looking very comfy and warm snuggled up in the blanket Alison knitted for her... it is so pretty and cozy! We love it!

LA Galaxy

Aunt Kathy sent Molly a super cute LA Galaxy soccer outfit. She works at the Home Depot stadium and runs graphics for the games. Thanks Aunt Kathy!

Here is Molly bending it like Beckham!

Aunt Karen's Birthday

We had a little celebration of Karen's birthday today. Kathy made Karen a fun birthday sombrero. It was a good time and everyone had fun playing with the babies.

...even the birthday girl.









The babies had a little fun with each other, too.

Dave and Sally

Colleen's Uncle Dave and Sally were in town from Traverse City for a visit. Sally's son bought a car from Colleen's Grandma and they drove down to pick it up. They were glad that we braved the snow storm to make the trip to GG's house so that they can meet Molly. We were happy to do it.

Sally's Son Greg and his wife Lisa are pregnant, so congrats Sally, for becoming a new Grandmother!

Nuance

We're still trying to figure this little bugger out. We've run in to a few situations where she's "over-tired". She's been awake for over four hours, we know she's sleepy, but she will rather cry than sleep (???). Not a huge deal. More rocking and singing. Sleep will always happen eventually. It has only happened a couple of times.

It's still loads of fun. Molly is as adorable as ever. Here are a few obligatory cute photos of her from the last couple of days:

We do not have a shortage of pretty outfits for her. Here's a bear jumpsuit.












She does like the mobile above her crib.













Still enjoying baths...

I Say Manicotti, You Say Manigot

Carrie, Joe, and Joseph Cognitore brought us dinner last night. Carrie's homemade manigot, as New York Italians like to pronounce it, was delicious. She prepared, served, and cleaned up. She also got a kick out of changing a diaper. It was more work than I usually like for a guest to do, but anyone who knows Carrie knows that you can't really talk her out of what she wants to do.


Little Joseph liked operating the controls to Molly's swing. He had fun figuring out how to get it to play music and make sounds.

Thanks Cognitores for good times and good eats!

Happy New Year!

We didn't take any party hat pictures of her, but here's one of Molly in her dog head hat on New Year's Day.

Here's wishing everyone a safe, prosperous, and healthy new year.

CORRECTION: This was a picture from a few days after New Year's. Here is a picture from 1/1/09.

Pillow La La

My sister had a pillow she couldn't do without when she was but a wee child. Since my sister was a particularly creative kid, it was called her "Pillow La La".

My Mom brought it out for Molly to have fun with.

Nicole and Leah

Nicole, Niko, Leah, and Oscar got together with us for their annual Christmas celebration. Oscar was giving Molly a kiss here.

Funny story: I don't know if these types of gifts are the norm for these two, but Leah got Niko (Nicole's son) a block of a chalk-like substance that he was supposed to "excavate" dinosaur bones from. Nicole got Oscar (Niko's son) a monkey that repeats what you say back to you.

The result: Niko was a chalky mess by the end of the night and Oscar had a screaming monkey to deal with. I'm not sure if Molly will avoid the messy and loud toys, but her parents will be happy if she did!

Reading

I had said that she likes to be read to and I swear she follows along. Maybe it's just the colors on the page that catches her attention, but she does like to look at the pages as I flip through them.

We don't get through more than a few books before more pressing needs come up, but it's fun while it lasts!

Great Grandmas

Not much in the way of updates. She's still cute. She's still alert. She's still loved.

She likes to be sung to. Stevie Wonder and They Might Be Giants are hits so far (at least my versions of them).

She likes to be talked to. She will stare into your eyes as you talk.

She likes to be read to. Sam McBratney's Guess How Much I Love You was the first book she had read to her.

She hung out with her Great Grandmothers over the last few days. She met Great Grandma Caird for the first time yesterday, as well as a few new Grand Uncles and Aunts. Her second cousin Julia was there as well.





Great Grandma Schultz (or GG as she likes to be called) had a bunch of us over for dinner tonight.

Molly has an extensive extended family. All happy for us, all happy about Molly. She will have quite an adventure getting to know them all.

More Santa

Guess who made a visit to the Caird household? Santa stopped by for a few photos at Colleen's Parents' house before our Christmas dinner. Strangely enough, he also resembles Marc Smith.

The kids were having fun getting passed around all night long. Everyone took turns holding and feeding Molly. She even stayed awake through a big chunk of the evening.

Calvin likes to check out what you're doing so he can smile and show off his dimples.



Molly and Calvin had a great first Christmas. She has a big year coming up of growing and learning. It seems like she's changed so much in just a few short weeks.

We hope everyone had a great holiday season!

Christmas Morning

It seems that Santa left a few presents for Molly under the tree. It also seems that Colleen wants to kick off some Christmas traditions as soon as possible.

Christmas Eve

We spent Christmas eve at my Parents' house. Dinner for the adults was a very non-traditional seared sesame tuna on a bed of greens with an Asian vinaigrette. Dinner for Molly was a very traditional milk/formula combination.

I think she had a good time. She spends a lot more time awake and alert in between feedings. It makes it a lot of fun to get her attention and talk to her. My Mom was not shy about doing that.

Lifting My Head

Molly is starting to lift her head for a look around. I am told that this is remarkable for a one-month old, but I'm at the point that I expect her to do amazing things.

Alicia

Our friend Alicia visited last week and is super excited for us. It is nice when people want to be a part of this child's life.

A Bunch of Kids

Colleen's sister wanted to get a few of the kids together, so we went over there along with Liz and her daughter Charlotte and Sara with her daughter Kaitlyn. We hung out with Calvin and had a really good time, despite what this picture indicates.




I'm counting myself lucky right now that Molly is not mobile. Watching the other mothers chase after their girls was exhausting.

Here's Kaitlyn going for a tree ornament.






And Charlotte taking pictures (kind of).







It's nice to know that Molly will have many friends close to her age. Hopefully her parents can keep up!

Housekeeping

Blog housekeeping, that is.

I changed the way comments can be left so now you don't need a blogger user ID to leave one. Just click on "comments" at the bottom of any post and you can leave a message, but click "Name" under it and just leave your name.

I changed the link to most of the photos so now when you click on one, it will open a larger sized version of it. Of course, you can always click on "Molly's Photo Collection" under Links and get to all pictures of her.

Bath Time

Today was Molly's first real bath. We have this contraption that goes in the kitchen sink that monitors the water and warns you if it is getting too hot or too cold.






The bath part went pretty well. She didn't mind getting soapy and rinsed off (I think Colleen enjoyed the process even more than Molly did). Getting out of the water to get dried and dressed, however, was a different story. I guess the transition from warm bath water to cold kitchen was quite unpleasant.


After being put into her warm clothes and fed, Molly was back to her happy and good smelling self.

Becks

Justin and Leah (and her new cute hair) dropped by for their first look at Molly. Justin was gazing adoringly at the baby in this picture.

Lydia

Lydia brought lunch for Colleen and had some quality Molly time. It might have been better quality time if Barney would have left her alone, but he really wanted her attention today.

Santa!

We made the trip out to Oakland Mall so that Molly could meet Santa. He can be intimidating to some kids, but Molly was pretty relaxed.

Melanie and Company

Melanie, Ashley, and Brooke came by for a visit. Melanie made dinner for us, complete with containers of ingredients and instructions. Delicious creamy chicken and pasta. There was enough for two nights of dinners.

This idea of bringing meals to new parents who might not have the time or energy to cook and clean is pretty new to me and is a great little tradition. Thanks Melanie for your time and energy.

The funny thing is that Molly lets us cook, but wants attention when we sit down to eat.