Happy Father's Day, Jeremy!

I know I'm late, but better than never right? :-) I think Jeremy had a pretty fabulous Father's Day, at least I tried to make it that way. I made him fresh blueberry waffles for breakfast and the kiddo's each gave him a book, "Why a Son Needs a Dad" and "Why a Daughter Needs a Dad" and they each put their hand prints inside too. I surprised Jeremy with tickets to a Father's Day Mariner's game. This is a big deal b/c it was in the middle of the afternoon, right at the time that BOTH kids are usually sleeping...so for me to just throw that all out the window and take our whole family to the game, is a pretty big surprise. :-) I did think ahead though and decided to buy an "Ergo Baby Carrier" after several friends said I should get one, so I finally gave in and did. Well it was great, I carried Molly on my back for part of the game and she slept on my front for an hour. Oh and I had never seen these things before a couple months ago when my friends got them, but holy cow! No exaggeration...I saw at least 20 of these things at the game. I even stopped one lady and asked her for tips on how to wear it.
We had bleacher seats, b/c I had no idea how enjoyable the game was actually going to be considering we had two young kids with us, but they were still good seats! We had fun people around us and we didn't sit in them very much (another reason I wasn't willing to spend more). We had hamburgers from Kid Valley, Chocolate Mint Dippin' Dots, and we lucked out and went to the playground just in time for an "open session." So Will got to play on all the slides and in all the tunnels, he even made a friend (he almost always does) named Lilly, she had the same hair color as him, kindred spirits. We did watch some of the game at the end, it was tied and then we scored and won! Glad it was a good game for all of our fabulous Father's out there. Oh and Will passed out in the car within minutes of driving home...that's heaven. Happy Father's Day, Honey, we love you so much and appreciate everything you do for us and our family!

Molly Sofia is 9 Months Old

So I'm a little behind on my posting, but only by a week or so, so I'm gonna try to catch up. Molly turned 9 months old last week and she's got such a personality. She's a go-getter, that's for sure. Maybe she feels she needs to be since she has a fast and wild older brother. :-) She's become very impatient with baby food, she REALLY wants to eat finger food...but the poor girl...she's got NO TEETH!! Yes, she's 9 months old and no teeth, not even a smidgen. It's really funny to watch her try to eat the finger food too, she tries soooo hard to get it in her mouth and then it slides out, it kind of breaks your heart actually. And if she does get it in her mouth, the poor girl practically chokes to death b/c she hasn't figured out she has to chew it before it goes down. Not even a cheerio or puff can go down without a red face and watery eyes, you really have to watch her. Once she started crawling, she pretty much became bored with it and decided to just stand up on everything, and now she's cruising, walking all along the furniture and tables. Will, poor Will, has to share everything. She's just soooo curious about what he's doing and playing with. Every once in awhile, I will get a moment of clarity and decide..."ya know what, no Molly, you can't have that. It's Will's and he's playing with it. Leave him be." No Will does not have to share EVERYTHING. Poor kid, give him some space. :-) Molly also loves music, "dancy, dancy" is what we call it, she claps, cutest thing in the whole world, little girl hands clapping. And pats, the table, the tray, the bath tub. Then she takes two toys and bangs them together, and if you do it with her, she'll stop, drop one of her toys, grab yours and start banging, or take her one and bang it against the one you are holding. Oh such brain stimulating fun, here at our house. :-) She had her first Gymboree class today...brought back crazy crazy memories for me. Will and I went to Gymboree for two years, but haven't been back for a full year...Molly did great, she wasn't very active, but that's exactly like Will...sit back, take it all in, and before long, they're cruisin' along, getting in to everything...

Molly is 18lbs 2.5 oz (25-50th percentile), and 28 1/2 inches long (75-90th percentile).
Molly playing with her neighbor friend, Samantha.
Playing on the floor at Will's preschool.
Molly's first stroller...our first pink toy. :-)
I love how Molly's little blue eye is just peeking out of her hat.
Molly happy and smiley with her cute reversible hat...
Molly's first pair of shorts...they look sooooo tiny on the hanger. :-)
I LOVE this picture with the colors of her hat and being outside, the sky, the grass...now if it weren't for that darn Lady bum and shopping cart! (Jeremy took the pic, I would have moved those. :-) )

Now on to Will's last day of preschool. I can't believe he has gone through a whole year of school already. I'm so proud of all that he has learned and how much he loves his teachers and friends, but part of me thinks, poor kid, he has to spend so many years in school and here I had to start him at 2 1/2 years old. But he loves it and that's all that matters. Miss Maria, his teacher, said numerous times that she is impressed with his color recognition, shapes, matching, sorting, numbers and letters. The last few weeks of school she kept saying he was doing "1st grade work." Don't set the bar too high, there Will, you'll make it harder on yourself! Anyway, his school planned this amazing bbq and party to celebrate the year, there were 29 days of sunshine...and yup, you guessed it, the last day of school, it rained. So no outside play, no bbq, no bouncy houses. I felt so bad for everyone that put so much work in to the day...the kids still had a good time showing off their school to their parents and eating yummy food all together at the tables. And of course those delicious graduation cupcakes were eaten looong before any fruit or hotdogs!
Below is a picture of Will on his first day of school and his last day of school.
1st day: look closely and you'll see his pants are rolled up...now those pants are too short, even when they are unrolled. So big.

Will standing in front of his preschool's sign, the globe with "all his friends," as he says. Everything he is wearing is crooked...his glasses, his coat, his pant leg...don't know what was going on that day. :-)Will with his friends Julian and Phillip.Will with Tyler.Will with Kody...the sweet sweet friend that helped Will during his birthday circle.
And of course the yummy cupcakes (I put the diploma off the cupcake in Will's baby book, I even wrote on the back of that tiny little thing, he'll thank me some day. :-) ).

A Right of Passage

Passage in to what? Hmm...girlie accessories? We did it! Molly had her ears pierced! She is soooo brave and such a trooper. She was laughing and giggling away with the girl, then 1, 2, 3 BAM. It was done, she was shocked, then she cried, but only for 3 or 4 minutes. I can't believe we did it, but we waited a lot longer than we thought we would. Her ears look very sweet. :-) We took along her favorite blanky and favorite ball...The pictures show her before, during and after.
My sweet Molly...before her big moment.
Molly's precious, innocent, little ear.
Giggling and laughing with the girl that put the earrings in (I'm laughing much too hard at something Will was doing, probably b/c I was nervous).
Why is there a pen on my ear?!

The guns...BIG GULP from Mommy and a what the *!#+ from Molly...
Look at my beautiful ears and I'm happy as can be...not even any red eyes as evidence of the crying.
Mommy is sooooo proud of her little girl.
And I'm also VERY VERY proud of Big Brother Will...we explained what we were doing and that Molly might cry really hard for just a few minutes b/c putting earrings in your ear kind of hurts, like when you skin your knee (wink wink). He picked out some big sparkly earrings to distract Molly with and stood right in front of her and told her it would be okay. He was very very sweet too...so he got new shoes. Not planned at all, but perfectly fitting for the moment. (And we realized we should check his shoe size more often b/c he grew a size and a half!! to a 10!

An Update on the Goings On of the Henley's

Well, we've officially been on the market for two weeks, we've had a couple people view our home and lots of calls. One of the viewings, just a few days ago, was very very promising. But has a lot of details to work out...been talking to her agent some, but not sure if it will go through. It would be nice b/c we'd be done and can move on and won't have to worry about selling a house in this terrible terrible market...but it's not the best scenario or candidate either, so I think I'd be happy either way, if she takes it or if we move on and hope for someone else.

Will is about to complete his first year of preschool...the accomplishments he has made this year are truly amazing. His writing is incredible, he's "read" a couple books to me, knows all numbers and most letters and just says the most Einstein things...he's sooooo smart. One thing I find truly fascinating is what a different boy he is at preschool than at home. It really is true that a child will listen to his teacher but not to his parents. So here's what I mean...he doesn't talk. Really, he doesn't. They say that he is mute. They can barely get a word out of him. He follows their every direction and doesn't falter from it until they say so. They say jump, he does, they say jump higher. He does. They say sit, he does. They say don't move, he doesn't. He's been this way all year. Yesterday at dinner he said to us, "Miss Maria is teaching me to talk." I wanted to get up from the table and laugh my you know what off. The boy is CRAZY at home...full of action, loudness, moving, jumping, yelling, flying arms. He doesn't STOP talking!!!! I really really want his teacher to sneak to our house some day and watch him...she'd be in shock. She wouldn't know who he was. Something we always joke about...when he started preschool, back in Sept 08, they had to carry him and his backpack in...then he would walk in but they had to carry the backpack, then he would walk and carry his own backpack....today, for the first time, one week before the end of the school year...he walked in AND wore his backpack. My sweet little school aged boy.

Last week we spent the afternoon at Country Village with some of our best buddies, Drew, Luke and Amy. Drew and Will are best buddies. We met them through Heather 2 1/2 years ago, Heather met Amy at Gymboree and we started play dates. Before Heather moved back to Texas, Will, Drew and Brooks were the Three Musketeers.

Thank goodness Heather introduced us to the Flinn family, we have so much fun with them! Anyway, back to the park, the boys played on the swings, carousel and pirate ship and then we took a little ride on the train and had a picnic lunch. (And I think Luke might be making a play for Molly! Although you wouldn't know it since he doesn't look very happy...he was all over this girl, smiling and giggling with her. :-)) The train is actually one Will rode on about a 1 1/2 ago at the Seattle Center...and it was a BIG deal b/c he was the last kid to get on the train and he had to ride in the caboose (just like the pic below) but I couldn't go with him, I didn't fit in the caboose. I COULDN'T BELIEVE he rode the train all by himself. I kept saying I couldn't believe I put my baby boy on his first amusement park ride and he did it by himself. Present day: Amy said she could hear the boys giggling away as they sat in the little red caboose all by themselves....

The Henley's Go Hiking

A couple weeks ago we all went hiking...this was Will and Molly's 1st hike...it was out in Monroe and is called Wallace Falls, it's actually quite the hike. Will has been on little neighborhood hikes, but this was his first real one...and it was pretty long. We only hiked to the "bottom falls." You can see the "top falls" from where we were but it was much too long to take kiddo's all the way to the top. I was sooooooo proud of Will, he did this entire hike, walked all by himself. Round trip it was FOUR miles!!! He didn't complain, he didn't say he was tired, he didn't say he wanted to go home, he actually had FUN the entire time!!! He looked at trees, bugs, found lots of walking sticks and rock treasures. He did fall four times, and of course all four were actually pretty bad falls, usually tripping over a tree root. He already had a bad scrape on his knee from falling on the driveway and the hike made it much worse, just kept tearing it open...yet another reason I was so proud of him...that knee must have hurt like you know what, and he would cry and then go on his merry way up or down the mountain!! I think I'm still in shock that he walked the whole way (during his nap time!) and was in such a GOOD mood the whole time too! :-)

Molly did equally as good, although it was her first time in a backpack that we borrowed from Casey (thanks, Chica!) and Molly wasn't so sure about it. It made her nervous...we thought for sure she'd fall asleep in it though, but nope. She was up the entire 5 hours of the hike. Gotta love my little non-sleepers...

A Daddy/Daughter self portrait...do ya think they're related!!? I'd say they look just a little bit like each other. Even their heads are tilted the same direction, which for some reason, I find helarious.