Molly's 1 Year Pictures

I meant to post these a few days ago, but things got in the way. Specifically, my new photography business. If you haven't already, go check out my new blog and follow me! If you happen to be a local reader, let's chat. :)

Miscellaney Monday

one. If you haven't started following my photography blog yet, you should! You can also follow me on Facebook, just sayin'.

two. The Flying Rat Part II. Dustin caught the first flying rat, which looked suspiciously like a moth. I've decided it was a decoy placed here so that we wouldn't find the true culprit. This baby...

I swear he followed us to my ILs house. With this picture it is hard to capture the horror that is this thing because there was no way I was getting closer than ten feet. Trust me when I say that this baby was probably bigger than my hand.

three. The second horror at my ILs house.

Sugar used to have a personality that lived up to her name, or so I've heard, but old age has turned her wicked. It probably has something to do with her lack of hearing, bad eye sight, aching joints, and missing teeth. That pink around her mouth? Yeah, toothless gums.

four. I didn't inherit my mom's green thumb. Has anyone else managed to kill all of their flowers this summer? Because I did. I have tried to be diligent about watering them on hot days and making sure they are placed in the correct amount of sunlight/shade ratio. This is my first year planting flowers and maybe my last. I meant, I just spent $50 on something that died a week later. That is 50 goldfish I could have had the privilege of naming and then flushing.

five. Molly still isn't walking, but she can push herself up to standing from the floor with out holding on to anything around her. I think that if she just tried she would take off running, but she is content to be carried. My aching back hopes she learns to walk before Kindergarten. At least the elementary school is less than a mile away.

six. Speaking of Molly, I took her one year pictures on Saturday, here is a preview. :)

seven. One month until we leave for the Carolinas. One month until I need to spend the majority of my time in a bathing suit, bent over none the less as I chase toddlers. SO that means one month to achieve some sort of weight loss goal. Hello gym, we are about to become great friends.

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Big things happening in the Miller household.

Hobbies

As a stay at home mom I feel as though I need to have hobbies to hold on to any semblance of my sanity. Of course, the majority of my time is spent playing with the girls. Or rather, watching them play with each other while I follow behind and clean up their messes. But sometimes during naps or if they are with their grandparents, I find some time just to sit and do something for ME.

First, I LOVE to read. My goal for 2011 is to read 150 books. I have been keeping track of my progress on Goodreads and so far I have read 74 books! One more until I'm halfway. I get a TON of messages for book recommendations so I might start a mini book review blog here in a couple weeks, just so people can go there and see what I am reading. I LOVE to talk about books so feel free to email me anytime.

Another hobby I have is writing, which kind of goes hand in hand with my reading. The more I read, the more I want to write. For me, writing is just like reading and falling into a story. The imagination, the characters, the possibilities! I have started three books this year. I am pretty good at getting the story part out, it is the editing that gets me. I have two books that need to be edited and I am currently working on writing a third. I am not sure what I'll do with them. I could make them eBooks with Barnes and Noble and Amazon, so look out for that!

Lastly, my biggest hobby is probably Photography. I would LOVE to do this semi-professionally some day. I don't think I could handle shooting weddings or huge events, but I love doing families and children and just portraits in general. I am hoping someday in the near future I can take a few photography courses, but for now I take pictures for family and friends. Here is some of my work...

Be prepared for a lot of pictures in this post!

The Flying Rat

I'm convinced that there is a flying rat in our bedroom. Dustin however, refuses to believe that and assures me is it a moth. I still don't believe him.

Late last night I was sitting at the desk in our bedroom, the only light coming from the glow of the computer monitor since Dustin was trying to sleep. I was happily minding my own business, working on my soon-to-be best selling novel, when something zipped past my head. It was silent of course, but I caught site of it's large body as it bounced off the computer screen. I was thinking, Just your imagination Jess, you're tired.

Back to typing I went.

A minute or two later something straight out of a horror movie landed in my lap. And since I don't wear pants to bed, your welcome for that little tidbit of information, all I felt was a large, furry body on my thigh.

I froze.
It started to crawl up my leg.

I squealed and knocked it away, pulling off some inept dive move to jump into bed and landing on top of Dustin. Since he can fall asleep in a matter of seconds, he started moaning and grumbling, wondering why the heck I was jumping on top of him.

Me: There is an evil bug/rat thing over my the computer.

Dustin: What makes you think it is evil? Because this would be anyone's natural response.

Me: It tried to crawl up my shirt. I was whispering at this point in case the flying rat could hear us.

Dustin: Maybe it is just perverted.

After I smacked him once or twice he got out of bed and turned the light on. Nothing.

Me: I swear there is a flying rat over here. Notice this time I gave up on the bug theory.

Dustin: Or maybe just a moth?

Me: Doubt it

If you read my rabbit post, you know that we have a history with evil creatures.

I was standing close by his side during this, doing my own searching, when he thought it would be a great time to joke and start searching my hair for this flying rat. Not cool DMill, not cool. Eventually he turned off the light and crawled into bed. I followed, but chose to plant myself in the very center of the bed and clasp my arms around my legs. I was going to sit and watch for this flying rat, but alas, it never showed.

I finally laid down and told Dustin that if I woke up with a bug in my mouth it was his fault to which he responded. "Then don't sleep with your mouth open."

MY birthday

Sunday, June 12th, was my 25th birthday. I didn't make a post because Molly's birthday kind of out shined it, which is okay. Plus, my birthday kind of turned into a week celebration so I wanted to wait until it was complete to make a post about it. On Sunday my parents were still here so we headed out to lunch with my family and Dustin's, to my favorite restaurant Granite City. I mean, you really can't go wrong with that place.

With Jena and Kathy, my mother-in-law, outside Granite City!

With my parents

Sometime during lunch Jena gave me two cards. The first had a paper with a picture of an iPod on it, saying that for my birthday gift from them and Dustin, I got to go to the Apple store and pick one out. SWEET! The second was a poem from her.

Get ready for a Special Day
with your favorite sister, Jena Rae

A bunch of places we will go,
what they are you will not know

Brush your teeth, I'll do your hair
I'll even tell you what to wear

So be prepared to laugh and play,
I hope you'll enjoy your Special Day!

So this past Saturday we headed out for my Special Day. Jena picked me up around Noon and we were both armed with our wallets and dressed in pretty sundresses. We went to lunch at a cute sandwich and salad place, and then to this store called Charming Charlie. If you have never been, find one nearby and GO. We spent almost two hours in there, and we probably could have shopped some more. Then we headed to the mall to do some damage. It was so nice just to be able to look through racks and try on clothes with out a two year old pulling on my pants or a one year old crying to be picked up out of the cart.

From there we headed out to dinner, which was a surprise until we actually arrived there. We went to Bonefish Grill! I had never been there so it was a nice surprise. Also, when we got inside Dustin and Jena's husband, Wes, were waiting for us! I also had my first martini that night, which was super yummy.

Dustin and I. Hello forehead shine!



Jena and Wes

Outside Bonefish

Our matching sun hats!

Afterward the next location was a surprise as well, and we ended up at Strikes and Spares, a cosmic bowling place. They also had indoor mini golf and go-karts. We did the black light mini-golf first, which went fast, and then moved on to a round of bowling. We had a great time dancing and just having fun. Jena and I went to Old Navy after that and then ended the night with Ritter's ice cream.

We liked posing with the statues in the mini-golf course

Jena: Where are you? Me: Down here!



This guy obviously needed some help...

So as you can see, I had an AWESOME birthday. It was nice to have a relaxing day out and just laugh and play with Jena and our husbands. I don't get to hang out with Jena very much so it was a nice change of pace of the hustle and bustle of a life with two toddlers.

With the poem :)

Happy 1st Birthday Molly Moo!

Our sweet little Molly Moo turned ONE today. Can you believe it? Time really does fly faster with the second baby. And the fact that Molly is one means that Brooke is coming up quickly on her third birthday. My babies are no longer babies! Molly is quite possibly going to be our last child, and there is something upsetting about watching her leave that baby stage knowing that there will probably never be another one in the house [that is ours].

This time last year I had already had Molly and was recovering in the hospital, probably receiving visitors. Oddly enough, it was raining on June 15th last year and it is raining again today. Something I remember. Today we are just relaxing and watching movies. I backed some cookies with pink sprinkles and tonight we'll have a birthday dinner with Dustin's family.

Molly is not walking yet, unlike Brooke who walked at 11 months, but she is talking up a storm! She had a pretty decent amount of words for a one year old; Mama, Dada, Papa, Breh [Brooke], Dog [sometimes she makes a G sound which might be Jake], What's this?, What's that?, Buh-bye, Ball.

Molly has started with this ridiculous laugh that almost sounds cynical, and it seems to happen when she is getting food that she finds particularly yummy, like Eggo chocolate chip waffles. She LOVES to climb. On everything. Just this afternoon she climbed up on the chair of her table, and then up on top of the actual table. She also likes to get up on Brooke's toddler bed and jump.

I am not sure of her stats yet, since I forgot to make her one year appointment until today and we have to wait a couple weeks for an opening. I do know she is already much taller than Brooke was at this year, but possibly thinner. So I'm interested to see how their stats match up!

Happy Birthday Molly Grace! We love you!