My baby turned 12 today. You may think we're having a cold spell this week, but 12 years ago on this date, it was so cold that the governor of MN closed ALL the schools in the state! I'm not sure if the actual temp was colder than it's been this week, but there were wind chill factors ranging from -50 to -60 if I remember correctly. She came into the world at 5:10 pm, weighing 8 lbs 6 oz and was 21 3/4 in long. Molly was my 4th child, but came 13 1/2 years after child number 3! She was only 4 months old when her oldest brother graduated from High School.
Here's Molly at approximately 9 months of age. I had to dress her in pink, or in ruffles like this so people wouldn't mistake her for a boy, since she'd not been blessed with a lot of hair yet.
But by 1 1/2 she had ringlets of curls starting in the back. If you asked her how old she was then, she would reply, "Sixteen". I also caught her sitting at the computer around this age, too. I asked her what she was doing and she said, "Checkin' my eee-mail"! That's what happens when a toddler has teenage siblings, I guess.
This picture was taken at a little over age 2, which is about when we met her step-dad, Ray. Before they met in person, they had a little chat on the phone. Molly was a very early talker, and had quite the vocabulary by then. When I finally got the phone away from her after a few minutes, Ray said, "I can't believe I'm carrying on a conversation with a 2 year old!"Can you blame him for falling in love (with her)?
Here she is in her Easter best, a year later. She also wore this dress as the flower girl at our wedding the following Fall.
This is her Kindergarten picture. Notice the curls are gone. Just before Molly turned 5 (and right before Christmas of course), she decided she needed a haircut. It was one of those do-it-yourself jobs...I think I cried when we came home and I found little blonde curls on the bathroom floor.
Molly became an Aunt for the 2nd time at age 7 1/2, when CJ was born.Now, fast forward to a little over 4 years later...
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Today, she's my 5' 9" tall, beautiful, dramatic, enigmatic, sometimes silly tween-ager
...who loves to take lots of crazy pictures of herself like this one.Her "big" sister Jessica, (the one on the right), is going to help Molly host a slumber party tonight with a Hawaiian luau theme. She's invited 3 friends for it. We looked up all of their Hawaiian names, and hers is Moli, of course. They're going to do the usual slumber party stuff, like karaoke, movies, facials etc. I suppose they'll be up giggling all night long too. That should be great fun. Happy 12th Birthday, Molly!
