What a ham!

we gave molly an awful lot of praise this evening for her attempts at walking...and it all might have gone to her head a bit...what a ham!!

SO CLOSE to walking!

kristin and i are amazed at the growth period that molly seems to be going through right now- physically and mentally. as her 1st birthday approaches (where did that time go?), she seems to be finding her voice more, playing with things more interactively- i.e. rolling balls back and forth with mom and dad, feeding us scraps from her plate after we feed her, etc. most recently, she has made huge strides on her feet. she chases old shelly around the house with her walker, and seems to rely on it less and less with each passing day. tonight, for the first time, she began to let go of our hands as we walked her throughout the house. she'll stand for a few seconds, then slowly lower her little butt to the floor. she even took a few small first steps this evening, which we were fortunate to get on video- i'll have to figure out how to add that to the blog. she certainly makes us proud!

ski school

to top off her weekend of thrills, molly spent got to experience skiing for the first time. ben and sarah are back in the mountains- at least for a visit, and we headed up to copper mountain for the day to ski with them. it was a bit colder and windier than we would have liked it to have been for her first ride on a chairlift, but the cold weather kept the runs empty, and kristin felt comfortable with her in the backpack on some fairly gentle groomers as long as she didn't have to worry about who might be bombing down the slopes behind her. of course, some people noticed her in the lift lines and smiled, admiring our efforts to expose molly to the wonderful world of skiing, and others glared as if they were ready to call social services- but don't worry grandparents...we took no unnecessary risks and kept her out of the terrain parks- for now. molly was a champ- she sat completely still on the chairlift, bundled up and in mom's lap- and then coo'ed her way down the hill before literally falling asleep in the backpack prior to making it back to the base. both she and her mom made me ridiculously proud to be offering her such an experience- and we're now looking forward to spring skiing conditions even moreso- as warm weather means not only skiing in short sleeves, but skiing with "the bug" on our backs!

A big weekend!

molly had a really big weekend. we have been pummeled with snow lately- kristin and i talk about how it seems that we have gotten more in the past two weeks or so than we had gotten the whole winter prior- and yet our snowpack is way above average. last week, the snow caused a two-hour delayed start for my school day on tuesday, and canceled school altogether on friday...leaving dad with lots of playtime with mom and molly. we spent a good portion of the morning on friday down at the pool- and although you might be getting tired of seeing pictures of molly in the pool, we just dont get tired of taking them. between how happy the water makes her and the great natural light at the pool, it's tough to put the camera down!

Sharing with Poudre

Poudre is an incredibly good dog with Molly- she is constantly crawling on him, using him to pull herself up to a stand, laying on his back, etc. We though all this time it was just his good nature...we learned this afternoon that he gets a little something out of the relationship as well!

Just some photos from around the house

Took some shots of Kristin and Molly around the house today, and then realized how few I have of me with her, so Kristin took the camera and I took the bug. Its crazy how big she is getting- seems like she'll start to try walking soon, she communicates more and more with us daily- learns new tricks like "high five", "how big are you?" etc. Lots of fun. We actually received a mailer a few days ago from Babies R Us with suggestions for a baby's 1st birthday party. It took us by surprise a bit to think about the fact that its right around the corner!

A Day at the Zoo

We were blessed with a typical Colorado "break in the winter weather" a week or two ago, and took Molly down for her first trip to the zoo. It was a "free day"- and we learned quickly that we was much more interested in the zillion other little kids there than she was in the animals- for the most part. She took an immediate liking to the hyena group, as well as the sea lions, and tried to squirm out of her stroller to check out the peacocks!