molly's words......

so it took her long enough to say something other than "mama" and "dada", but molly's finally starting to say all kinds of words now.......her favorite is "owl" - which i have to say she pronounces a lot better than you'd think a 15 month old should be able to......her other popular words are "duck" (well it comes out more like "uck" but it's close!), "oscar", "bird", "up", and "yeah"......she's so incredibly soft spoken and has this teeny cute little voice.......i can't wait for her to start chattering away like casey does.......although i could definitely wait on the whining and yelling that casey seems to be into lately!.......hooray for her finally talking though!.......

spring in february......

it's been so incredibly nice out this past week - today it's just about 60 degrees!.......of course it's starting to get a little cloudy and might rain, but still take that over the 20 degree days of recent weeks past......the 5ft piles of snow have dwindled to a mere 3ft and i can see patches of grass and mud in places......i didn't think we'd ever see the snow drifts go away - and they haven't yet, but i'm convinced by july they'll be gone!.......of course the next "wintry mix" storm is supposed to be monday and the temps for the next 10 days aren't supposed to get above the 30s, but i'm grateful for a week-long respite from the winter.......we can make it through the last few weeks of winter!.......come on spring!......

huge.....

i'm officially feeling HUGE......god i am not a "i love being pregnant" pregnant girl......and i still have 4 months to go!!......argh!.......

are you even kidding me???......

so we've just re-emerged from another week of being sick in our house........casey started us off about a week ago with a flu-like bug complete with fever and hacking cough/bronchitis, then it infected molly, then me, now back to casey........i seriously can't even believe we were all sick again.......of course, once again steve gets the bi on being sick - guess it's nice to know one of us has a functioning immune system!......healthy days please be on your way!!.....

beauty......

ok so raising 3 girls in today's society of "beauty is everything" has really been making me anxious lately.......i was fairly confident i could instill 1 daughter with a sound understanding that you need to take care of yourself and your body, yes, but that it's totally not everything.......that your brains, what's inside your heart, and how you treat others are equally, if not more, important things to cultivate.......but teaching 3 girls that and hoping they'll all end up as grown women with self-confidence, good healthy habits, smarts (both book and street), with a kind, good-hearted, humble disposition is more than i feel i can ask for.......there's so much around us that can lead to materialism, body image distortion, eating disorders, and superficiality that it seems nearly impossible that they'll all end up avoiding all that.......and by the time you realize something's wrong, the damage is done and it's really hard to repair!.......steve says there's just as much pressure in today's society for boys/young men, and i'm sure there's some, but i think it's a lot more with girls/young women......i just pray that steve and i will be able to help guide them to rise above all that and know what's really important.......