Molly's Christmas Program

Molly had her first program at school Thursday night. We'd been hearing her practice her songs for weeks, so it was fun to finally see the entire performance! Molly did great and wasn't shy at all about being on stage in front of so many people. Daddy and I were really proud of her! (we were also very proud that she wasn't one of the kids who made the crowd giggle by scratching, flashing or picking!)Caden, Molly & DavisAdalyn made her first public appearance for her big brother's performance!

An End to the Birthday Madness!

Molly's 4th birthday extravaganza finally ended today with a celebration with her friends at Pump It Up. All the madness started on November 19th upon our arrival at our Disneyland hotel where she received a room upgrade, balloons and a personalized "Happy Birthday" button that had every Disney employee wishing her a happy birthday every few minutes. I knew all the attention was going to her head when two Japanese tourists were getting off the elevator in our hotel on our last night and Molly turned to me and said, "They didn't wish me a happy birthday!"

A week after we returned to Arizona from Disneyland, my family had a birthday party for all our December birthdays where once again Molly enjoyed her birthday spotlight. Then of course her actually birthday occurred 3 days later, the same day we returned home from Houston. This day wasn't as festive since we were busy packing and saying good-bye to family. We did take her to Applebee's where they were going to sing "Happy Birthday" to her and bring her a free birthday dessert, but after many warnings concerning her behavior, she finally crossed the line and lost that privilege. She did get some nifty wings from our stewardess on the plane ride home.

Waking up at Nana's the morning of her 4th Birthday

Visiting Grandma and Grandpa on her birthdayToday we finally wrapped up the nearly month-long celebration with a party at Pump It up with our friends. We all had a great time and Molly wore herself out playing with all her friends, mostly boys of course!

Can you tell by her hair how much fun she had?

SNOW!

Yesterday while Molly was taking her nap it SNOWED! The last time it snowed in Houston she was just a few weeks old... so I ran up to her room and tried several times to wake her up, but she just wouldn't budge.

When she finally got up from her 3 hour nap, she was upset to learn that she'd missed the snow. She ran outside and yelled up to the sky "God, make it snow again!!" but I told her it didn't really work that way.

Later that night while wewere driving around looking at Christmas lights it started snowing again, so we all got out of the car in the middle of a neighborhood street and ran around in the lightly falling snow because we thought it might stop before we got back home... but by the time we got home it was still snowing and even sticking to the ground (this is a BIG deal in Houston, we get a little ice and light snow every few years, but it never sticks or accumulates) Paul's black truck looked awesome with a dusting of powdery snow, so Molly quickly got in the bed of the truck and started making snowballs.

Molly's cute little snowman!Notice Molly's filthy little snowball?Our flowers are still blooming since it was 76 degrees the day before it snowed.

Even More Christmas-y!

Paul decided the front yard just wasn't decorated enough, so he added lights to our two flower beds. Now we're trying to decide how to decorate the backyard. We're having so much fun getting everything decorated for our first Christmas in the house!

The other night Paul and Molly set out to look at the neighborhood Christmas lights and when they returned home Molly didn't recognize our street and started yelling "Oooooh Daddy! Look at that house!" when they drove up to our house. Paul was so thrilled that Molly's favorite house of the night was ours!

I am very scared that next Christmas Paul is going to want to rent a cherry-picker so he can wrap our pine trees all the way to the top.

Christmas on Pebble Beach

Paul assigned himself the task of decorating the house before he joined us in Arizona for Thanksgiving. While he was putting up lights I kept getting reports from Danielle - she had me worried with one text that read "I didn't know they made Star Wars Christmas lights!"

The three of us flew into Houston at night so Paul was beyond excited for us to see the house all lit up. Molly and I were both so surprised! Molly got out of the car and ran around the house like a maniac, she was so excited!! I still love driving up to the house at night. I can't get over how beautiful it looks.

Visiting Molly's Great Grandparents

While in Arizona we also spent lots of fun time with my Grandpa and Geneva. When I was Molly's age I had so much fun with my Grandpa, he was so creative and came up with the most fun activities to keep a hyper little maniac busy. When I was about 5 we built a robot (out of wood of course, nothing too fancy!) which I still have. He used to let me sit on his lap and drive his big yellow Suburban, and one day decided to mess with one of his neighbors and laid down on the seat while I "drove" by. The little old man about had a heart-attack!

I wish we lived closer to my family for many reasons and Molly getting to spend more time with her Great Grandpa Benny is at the top of the list!

Geneva made several newborn hats to donate to the NICU in Julia's name and here Grandpa is modeling one of them!

Drawing in Grandpa and Grandma's driveway... since it hardly ever rains in Arizona, Molly's art will probably be there for several months.

Geneva's gorgeous flowers!

Phoenix Zoo Lights

Saturday night a pretty big group of us headed to the Phoenix Zoo for "Zoo Lights." I didn't get many pictures of the awesome displays, but I had a lot of fun playing with the night settings on my camera!

Molly had a blast at Sting Ray Bay where she got to pet several sting rays. Her pig-tails and jacket sleeves were soaked and I know if I hadn't kept an eye on her she would have been in the pool with the rays. I think she might be my diving-buddy one of these days!

Jeremi and Devon

Molly and her new best friend, Devon. They had a blast pretending to be Jedis together!

This is the only picture where Molly and Devon weren't trying to battle Sara aka "Darth Bunny"