Wow! She does have a big head!

Wow! She does have a big head!...Not exactly the words that you want to hear from your daughter's pediatric neurosurgeon, right? That's exactly what he said when he walked in the exam room today for Molly's check-up for her large head circumference. However, the good news is that he also said that her CT scan results could not look any more normal which was so reassuring to hear! He said that she must just have a big head to hold her big brain. (His words, not mine. And he went through many years of medical school so I feel that we can trust his judgement on that. :)
He was impressed by her ability to (literally) try to scale the wall in the exam room, and he could not stop talking about how cute she is.

Good medical check-up + compliments about our favorite daughter = Happy Parents.

February 2012

Molly continues to grow and has learned to do so many new things in the past month!

She is now pulling herself up to stand, trying to cruise along the furniture, feeding herself finger foods (freeze-dried yogurt bites and fruit, cereal, goldfish), taking a bath in the big bathtub, signing "all done," dancing and clapping along when the Ellen talk show comes on, turning pages in books on her own and getting into EVERYTHING!

She seems to be much more adventurous and curious than Bo was when he was her age. Although he didn't crawl until he was 10 months old, he was always much more cautious about what he did and he didn't pay attention to any of the things that we have to child proof the house for. He didn't mess with cabinets or outlets, but Molly wants to explore anything and everything that she can get to.

She is also understanding a lot more of what we say which is exciting. She enjoys being outside, and she smiles and laughs when she sees dogs and cats. We've learned that it's really not necessary to buy expensive toys. Everyday household objects work just as well for toys. Her bottles are one of her favorite things to play with.

She'll flip quickly through books and she will play with some toys, but more than anything she just likes being held and carried around. She's a joy! We tell her everyday how special she is, but she usually just laughs at us. (If you've seen the movie The Help, you'll really appreciate this video.)

Her nine month well-visit went well. She measured 21 lbs., 9 oz. ( 90th percentile) and 28 inches (75th percentile) and was meeting most expected milestones. Her head size continues to measure off the growth chart, and because her head is still somewhat flat on the back, her pediatrician wants us to pursue a CT scan and re-evaluation with the pediatric neurosurgeon to discuss potential reshaping of her head. His concern is that her skull won't harden the way that it needs to which could cause potential problems later on. We go for the scan and doctor's visit at the end of this month so we'll just pray for good news when we go.

Bo says or does something everyday that makes us laugh or reminds us just how bright he is. When he was very young, he loved listening to classical music and he has shown an interest in it again. He likes listening to Ode to Joy, and he surprised Tyler this week when he tried to sing the entire German part the choir sings during the song. He also loves going to Chuck E Cheese to play Mario Kart--so much so that he recently decided that it wasn't too early to start writing Santa for Christmas presents and handed me this letter to mail to the North Pole.

(Dear Santa, Please bring me a Mario Game. Love Bo.)

His favorite thing to play with right now is Lincoln Logs. He can make some pretty cool things. They definitely put my creations to shame...:)
He has been going through a phase of being more sensitive to certain things. He's been a little more emotional lately, and he has also had a harder time dealing with some sensory things. For example, Bo has never liked the Happy Birthday song or other songs and chants that people around him are saying or singing together. In January and February, Tyler took him to basketball practice once each week, and Bo would do great during the practice but become upset when the group did the group cheer "Go Team!" at the end of the practice. Bo told me that the cheer was too loud and made him "anxious." Bo doesn't usually get upset when he hear the Happy Birthday song now, so hopefully he will get used to the team cheers too (because he is starting tee ball this spring!). The other things that are going on are related to his clothes. He'll wear a long sleeve shirt, but he prefers to push the sleeves up to his elbows. He usually only likes to wear "soft pants" (fleece pants), but he will wear khaki pants to church. He just really does not like to wear jeans. He has become concerned with the amount of lint between his toes and a couple of times during the day he will take off his socks, look at his toes and say, 'look at all of this lint!" He'll take it out and go about the rest of his day with no problems, but we do wonder if he has some mild sensory issues. Of course we are not too stressed because the issues don't affect him too much, but we don't want to overlook them either in case they do start to develop into something more.

Other than that, he's doing great and he continues to be the best big brother for Molly. I bragged on him today for being such a good big brother, and I asked him if he wanted to have kids of his own. (He was concentrating on coloring so he wasn't very willing to elaborate with his answers, but what he did say was pretty funny.) This is how the conversation went.
Me: Would you like to be a daddy and have kids when you grow up?
Bo: Yes.
Me: How many kids do you want to have?
Bo: Two.
Me: Do you wants boys or girls?
Bo: I want boys and girls.
Me: So you want a boy and a girl. What will you name them?
Bo: Little Miss Muffet and Jack Horner.
Me: And who are you going to marry?
Bo: Miss Mary with the lamb. And I'm going to be a fireman!

Needless to say, he's got his future all planned out! With the dance moves that he'll show you in the video below, the nursery rhyme ladies are going to line up to marry him!

Mostly Molly Update

It's time to baby-proof our new house because Little Miss Molly is now mobile!!
Yesterday was the first day that she officially crawled...

...and today she's shown that a day of practice pays off. She's much faster today!

At 8 months old, Molly is busy as can be trying to keep up with her big brother. She is a great little eater and she puts EVERYTHING in her mouth.
When she's not trying to put something in her mouth, her little tongue is usually sticking out of her mouth because she is still getting used to the feeling of having two front teeth.
She's putting those little teeth to good use as she's eating plenty of rice cereal and baby food, and she has tried some table foods too. She will sleep through the night most nights, but she still wakes up once a night one or two times a week for one reason or another. She likes to wave to tell us hello but she usually will not wave to say bye. She tries to babble (mostly saying ba ba ba) but I'm doing my best to teach her to say ma ma. She's very aware when we leave the room and she would let us hold her all day if we could because she loves having our attention on her. Playing peek a boo with her big brother is one of her favorite games.

Last month, she would make the cutest little face when she smiled. She would wrinkle up her nose and close her eyes when she smiled. I was able to get a video and a picture of the smile, and I am glad that I did because she's not smiling that way anymore. It's so sad that she's grown out of that because it was precious.

Since the Christmas blog was full of pictures of Bo, I don't feel quite so bad about the fact that I only have a few pictures of Bo for this post. Bo's favorite things right now are Alvin and the Chipmunks, playing the game Hullabaloo, drawing, reading, writing, going to Chuck E. Cheese to play Super Mario Kart, going to basketball lessons and playing at school. Here he is doing two of his favorite things:

No place like home for the holidays

We enjoyed having a new house to spend Christmas in. These are some of the pictures and videos that we took during the holiday season.
Bo and Alf, our Elf on the Shelf:
Making cookies for Santa--Bo insisted that Santa would want purple frosting on his cookies.
Bo's version of Joy to the World. He learned the song during play practice while he was preparing to be an angel in our church's Christmas play. It was very dark in the room while the play was going on, but after the play was over and the lights were on, Tyler was able to get a little video of Bo showing just how unafraid he was to be in the spotlight.

On Christmas morning, Molly woke up at 5 to see what Santa brought her while Bo slept in until 8!! Molly was ready for a morning nap by the time Bo woke up. :)
Bo was excited that he got games and toys, Lincoln Logs, and lots of treats in his stocking. His favorite gift this year was the game Hullabaloo. We still play it at least 10 times a day.

Santa brought Molly lots of fun floor toys, cute clothes and some new treats to try now that she is able to eat more solid foods. She amazed us with how much she grew over the Christmas break---she started waving, sitting up very well, trying to "point" to pictures in books, eating little cookies and crackers and growing new teeth.

Far more than the gifts that we found under the tree, we are so grateful that 2011 brought us our sweet little Molly. People have asked how it has been having two children and they comment that it must seem that Molly has always been a part of our family now that she's already almost a year old. It's funny because the more that I think about it, it surprises me that I could feel such different things about Bo and Molly as far as how they complete our family. With Bo, it's easy to say that I can't imagine life without him. For four years, I've watched him grow into a little person with a sense of humor, opinions and an need to be so independent. He is definitely a part of the fabric of our family, and life without Bo wouldn't make sense. With Molly, it's different. I suppose it has something to do with the loss that we went through when we were trying to get pregnant. Not only did we have two miscarriages before we finally got pregnant with Molly but we also lost Tyler's mom and my dad in the years between when Bo and Molly were born. I think those experiences made me much more aware of how quickly life can change and that each morning that we wake up with the people that we love in our lives is a blessing and not a guarantee. Does it feel as if Molly has always been a part of our family? Yes and no. Yes, it's hard to imagine life without her, but also no because Tyler, Bo and I all wake up each morning eager to see Molly and kiss her sweet face. Every day we are humbled that she continues to be a part of our lives reminding us that we can never take anyone or anything that we've been given for granted.

Christmas Picture Photo Shoot

These are some of the pictures that we had taken for our Christmas card this year. We could only fit three on our card, but there were many more that we loved. We are thankful for Tyler's co-worker Carol Looney who took these for us.

The House That Judd and Bubba Built-Home Sweet Home!

The day has finally come...we get to move in!! We'll either close tomorrow or on Monday of next week which means we'll definitely get to spend Christmas in our new house. We're so excited!! These are a few pictures of the finished product:

Language Arts Work

Bo's interest in reading, drawing and writing has really increased lately. Here's a bit of his work:

His message and signature on his birthday card for Tyler: (It's too bad Tyler doesn't drink or this card would have been even more relevant for the occasion. :)

A lot of his drawings look like this. He likes to draw houses, and we are thinking that it is because he is anticipating our move into the new house.

He has enjoyed having an Elf on the Shelf who writes him letters that he can read every morning. Here he is reading one of the letters from Alf the Elf.

He also worked on writing a letter to Santa. I didn't explain much about him writing Santa a letter, but when I told Bo he should start working on his letter to Santa, Bo said, "Okay. How about g?" and he wrote the lowercase letter g in the middle of his paper. After a grammar mini-lesson, Bo worked on his letter. I didn't give him any hints about spelling, grammar ex.
but he still did a good job!

It says: "Dear Santa. Please bring me Lincoln Logs." Love, Bo

Working on writing the names of days of the week: