The day after our little fall snow (we ended up getting just 2-3 inches), Molly really wanted to go play in the snow. So, I took her out after lunch to play a bit before it all finished melting. As you can see, she had a ball throwing snowballs (and eating the snow as well).
It started snowing while Molly was at school on Thursday. She wanted to play in it as soon as we got home, so after Leah went down for her nap, we went outside to play.
Molly was so cute. She'd use her hands like little shovels to scoop the snow together, then pat it like she was making a snowball before she'd scoop it into her hands.
Look Mommy, snow!
She kept trying to catch snowflakes with her tongue,
and eating the snow.
I finally convinced her to head back inside and warm up with hot chocolate. Molly took a few sips, then declared that she wanted cold hot chocolate instead.
Our playgroup took the kids to Brookside Garden's train exhibit. The kids loved watching all the trains go by.
These two sure do love each other! Molly kept talking about how "Keira was wearing boots just like me!"
Leah enjoyed watching the choo choo trains too.
The exhibit had an I Spy list. Simon was in his own little world working on it with one of the employees.
We've had so much trouble getting pictures of Leah standing still that I just had to capture the rare moment!
Molly had her first gymnastics show this past weekend. They invited parents of preschoolers to come see what they've learned. They rotated through several stations. Here's Molly at the vault station. Next was the floor station, which Chad caught on video.
Here she is swinging from the bar in order to kick the cylinder over.
She called this a bottom jump, in which she jumps high on the trampoline, then lands in a sitting position, then back to standing.
All the kids got certificates and medals. Molly was absolutely thrilled to get her medal. She kept saying, "I've never had a medal like this before!" In fact, she wore it all day and had to be convinced to take it off for bed.
We braved the first minor snow and got our Christmas tree. It was our first time getting a "cut it yourself tree," though they actually cut it down for us. It was great browsing trees with a light dusting of snow on them.
Clark's Farm even had Santa on duty. Leah was scared of him, but Molly hopped in his sleigh to say hi.
That evening we decorated our Christmas tree. Since the tree hadn't been manicured, Chad had to invoke the "tree diet" and trim the tree to make it fit! Molly was an ornament hanging machine. She was especially excited to find our Disney-themed ornaments.
Leah wasn't into putting ornaments on the tree in the beginning. She hung onto this Minney Mouse ornament for a long time and had lots of fun decorating and dancing to Christmas music.
She did eventually catch the Christmas spirit after watching her sister adorn the tree.
To begin with, almost all the ornaments were hung 3 feet from the ground. Chad encouraged Molly to hang them higher, and then she decided she wanted to hang them all "really really high." So, Chad became the Daddy ladder.
Molly is quite proud of our tree.
Molly was invited to a Gingerbread House party. The houses were prepped and ready for decorating.
There was some Mommy help, but it was definitely directed by the 3 year olds!
Molly had such a good time adding all the special details. She'd grab a handful of candy, add a few to her house, then ask if she could eat the rest!
Smiling with the Gingerbread family.
Molly had her first gymnastics show this past weekend. A blog post on this is coming, but for now here's a short video of one of the stations from the show.
This week I hosted a Drop In & Decorate party for my MOMS Club. The idea is simple: decorate sugar cookies, then donate them to a local non-profit agency. The kids had a great time using squirt bottles to decorate the sugar cookies.
The kids also painted icing on the cookies.
The moms joined in on the decorating fun too!
Decorating is serious business!
Throughout the day, over 40 kids and moms came to the house to decorate. Molly loved having so many friends to play with!
We had some creative designs created on the cookies.
Everyone had such fun decorating that before I knew it we were out of cookies! In the end, over 200 cookies were decorated. The dining room was so colorful and smelled heavenly!
The cookies dried overnight and the next day we wrapped and boxed them for donation.
I delivered 125 bags of sweet treats to the Grassroots Crisis Intervention Center.
The party was a huge success! Several moms talked about hosting a party with their Girl Scouts and military wives groups. The great thing about these Drop In & Decorate parties is that you can have 5 people or 40 people. If you are interested too, all the information and resources to do so is on the Drop In & Decorate website.
Molly and many of her school friends attended a Princess party and all came dressed for the occasion. Here's Molly at the top of the tower (which yes, is normally a climbing wall).
They played lots of princess-themed games. Here the girls are sweeping like Cinderella in a relay race.
They were read several princess stories throughout the party.
And finally, the girls went on a treasure hunt through tunnels and over balance beams...
which ended a top the castle with princess wands for all!
I made a chef's hat and apron for the birthday girl. Molly happily modeled it, then proceeded to indicate that she needs a hat to match her apron too!
I know I'm a bit late in posting these, but I wanted to share Leah's 1 year portraits.
