And I Quote...Molly turning 3!!

1. What is your favorite color: “ley-yow” *still saying “yellow” in her own sweet way!
2. What is your favorite book: “Princesses” *don’t know what exactly this means…I guess it means any and all books involving princesses.
3. What is your favorite movie: “Um…a princess one”
4. What is your favorite food: “um...rice and beans” *this girl still loves her Mexican food!
5. What is your least favorite food: “Peppers”
6. What is your favorite fruit: “pear”
7. What is your favorite vegetable: “carrots”
8. What is your least favorite vegetable: “I don’t like peppers…ley-yow ones or green ones.”
9. What is your favorite t.v. Show: “Um…Mom, I TOLD you…it was the princess one!”
10. What is your favorite song: “ABC”
11. What is your favorite thing to do with Mom: “Snuggle and read books”
12. What is your favorite thing to do with Dad: “Play tickle bed and play chick hugs.” *I wasn’t sure what chick hugs were, so I asked her and she added, “Mommy, it’s a thing that you play. It’s very blackish.” *???
13. What is your favorite game to play with friends: “Um…play dog-es with Anna and Ben”
14. What is your favorite store: “Um…the cookie store”
15. What is your favorite sport: “What sport?” *I explained what a sport was, and she added, “I like gymnastics and playing soccer with Ben.”
16. What is your favorite Bible story: “Um…Mommy, I’ll go get it. It’s a big book…The ship one.” *she bought be her children’s Bible and turned to the story of Noah’s Ark.
17. What is your favorite place to go: “Mama, I like to go and get those cookies with M&M’s” *they sometimes get a cookie when we are shopping at Schnucks.
18. What is your favorite restaurant: “Um…rice and beans” * she means Lily’s, the Mexican restaurant down the street from us.
19. What is your favorite toy: “Um…playing with those flowers” *she was looking at a vase of flowers on the table.
20. What is your favorite thing to do with Ben: “Um…when Anna’s here and my birthday came, then I like to play dogs with him.”
21. What is your favorite drink: “juice and water and milk”
22. What is your favorite thing to do at school: “Uh…I like to play there with all the other kids…like all the other girls and I like to talk to all the other girls”
23. What is your favorite thing to do outside: “I like to play tricycles with these!” *On “these” she pointed to the knee pads that she happened to be wearing.
24. What do you want to be when you grow up: “A doctor and a nurse and a fighter-fighter (fire fighter) and a Mommy”
25. What can you do now that you are 3: “I can go to Atrium.”
26. Who is your best friend: “Anna and Rosie and Ellie and Alex and my favorite is Gwennie’s Mom and Gwennie is my favorite too!”
27. What is Mom's job: “Go to work and help kids.”
28. What is Dad's job: “Go to work, too.”
29. What does Mom always say: “Do not put your hands in your bottom” *Um…don’t even know what to say about this one!!
30. What does Dad always say: “Go potty in the bathroom.”
31. What is your nickname: “Molly Ruth Schiltz”
32. What makes you laugh: “When something drops, then I laugh”
33. What makes you sad: “When we go to bed and you NOT sit in the hall for 3 minutes, then that makes me cry.”
34. What are you thankful for: “God”
35. What does Mom love about you: “Giving flowers to me!”

Driving my train!

So anyone who has met Mr B pretty much any time in his entire life will confirm that this guy loves trains. His addiction fluctuates...sometimes he is "completely driven", and sometimes he is just "nearly totally dedicated". I honestly couldn't even begin to estimate the number of days that my living-room-since-becoming-a-mommy has looked like this:

I really don't mind at all. In fact, when he wants to get out the wooden trains, I love it. As he has gotten older, the "real" model train, his Lionel, and the GeoTrax, as well as a few other train systems have begun to captivate him a bit more. But when he is randomly wanting to be a little more creative with track building, we head back to the good-old wooden tracks and have fun!

Though lately, he has been getting a little more creative with his Lionel train too. Just a few weeks ago, I heard him directing a train-building mission with his favorite accomplice. They put a lot of effort into getting the set-up just right. I was doing the dishes, so I couldn't overhear exactly what they were both so serious about.
Finally, I went in to check things out, and discovered this excellent tunnel creation:


But let me be sure to say, in the interest of full clarity, that M sitting ON the red chair was somehow a VITAL part of the set up, and she was totally on board with it. He would just sit and wait patiently with the train not running if she had to get up for a moment. And she really tried hard to stay in the chair for quite some time.

Ahhh...good times!

How to turn 3 in style...

When you are turning 3, and you really want to do it right, you've got to think through the details, and get everything just right.

For starters, you are going to need a chocolate cup cake, but MAKE SURE it is heavily iced....this part is VITAL.

Then, step one looks something like this:


Once you have completed step one, you can move on to the next step...step two looks pretty much like this:


Once you are well on your way to celebrating in style, it might help to add an accomplice. Pick carefully. You need someone who will truly support you and encourage you whole-heartedly. It might help to choose someone who will laugh with glee at each new step in the process. As a pair, you two might look something like this:


And finally, finish with a flourish. Really, you've already put so much effort into in. There is no good reason to pull back now that you are almost finished!


And now, Happy Birthday! Enjoy the fruits of your labor!

Ever wonder...

Ever wonder what goes through a 5-yr-old's mind as he angrily sits in a time-out for trying to crash a fort that his mother and sister are sitting in after being repeatedly asked to leave the fort standing? It goes a little something like this:

"I don't love you...you are the worst mommy ever...get me OUT of time out...I'm hungry...I'm thirsty...I'm very bored...Now let me get out...I mean it NOW...get me out...OK?...Molly, don't look at me!...somebody do something to get me out of time out...I will never give you kissies or huggies ever again...I want to build a train track where the fort is and you are NOT letting me...go away...somebody get me out...I don't want to talk...I don't care about time out...GET ME OUT!"

In fact, this is EXACTLY what is going through his mind, because it was also coming out of his mouth, and I wrote it down word-for-word.

Good times:)