So thankful

2014 has been excellent so far. Molly is happy, we're all healthy, and the family continues to grow, with George arriving this August and another new nephew coming soon in Denver. Molly and James are really starting to play well together, which is so much fun to watch. And we were extra lucky this year to have my Aunt Suzie up from Florida and Archie's parents to join us for the holiday. Here are the best pics from Thanksgiving break with the family:

Pumpkin pie party at school

Sus with George, looking sweet in one of Molly's old outfits 

Two Aunt Susies and a George

Archie and B -- thanks for hosting!

Best we could get with Grandma, Grandpa, and the big kids

Handsome George

Go Wildcats!

Cousins enjoying the game. Unfortunately, Northwestern did not win...no bowl game for us this year :(

Neck wear

I've been a knitting fool so far this winter. It gives me something productive to do while watching TV -- and something else to look at during the scary parts of Walking Dead! Here are a few of my latest creations:

A scarf for Molly -- she helped me out by cutting the fringe

Selfie in the cowl I knit for Susie. I also knit a cream one for B and a black one for me

Make way for ducklings

I had intended to write a long post about our weekend in Boston, but my little duckling has been sick and I'm exhausted. So here are the pics from the weekend. Hopefully you can see that we had a wonderful (but cold!) trip to Boston.

Visiting the Make Way for Ducklings statues at the Public Garden. This is moments after Molly dropped her full cup of hot chocolate on the sidewalk and burst into tears. She seems to have recovered nicely

Family pic in front of the lagoon. We stopped traffic on the bridge for at least a minute, but no one seemed to care. 

Having fun with Carly, our hotel's Canine Ambassador

Taking a break at the Boston Public Library

About to take a Duck Tour around the city

Our tour guide even let Molly drive the boat for a couple of the minutes. Look at that face! Pure joy.

We didn't get to do quite as much sightseeing as I had hoped, due to the weather. Guess that just means we'll have to go back in the Spring!

Presenting...us!

Last week, we were the featured "family of the week" at Molly's school, which basically just meant we had to present a poster about our family to the class. It was pretty fun to make the poster. We printed out a bunch of our favorite pictures and pointed out our favorite places to travel on a map.

Molly was VERY excited to show off the picture of our family at Disney World. She also had fun telling her class about her cousins and grandparents, especially her Papa Steve, who is so funny and calls her "George."

Thankfully, Molly does not seem to have my fear of public speaking. She took over the presentation and hardly let us get a word in edgewise! I tried to channel her energy the next day when I had to present doomed video concepts to my client. Unfortunately, it did not go quite as well as the talk at Molly's school:

All about the O'Gradys

A little dose of George

I was scrolling through the blog and realized I haven't posted pics of my little nephew George since he was born. Poor second child! George is a super sweet baby. He's still in that wonderful phase where he'll just sack out and sleep on your chest for as long as you'll let him. We're all pretty smitten. Can't believe he's almost 3 months old now and about to start daycare with Molly and James!

He smiles!

Cable girl

Molly looooves watching TV. Is it any surprise? She IS my daughter and I have logged some serious hours over the years. But we needed an easy way to pry her away from marathon sessions of My Little Pony on Sunday afternoons. Enter the ticket system.

By eating her dinner, cleaning up her toys, or just randomly being a good kid, Molly can earn tickets for TV shows, movies, or You Tube / Netflix sessions. She has to have a ticket if she wants to watch. So far, it's going pretty well! She hasn't really figured out how to stockpile her tickets, so it's pretty much been one ticket in, one ticket out. The only problem is when Molly has a ticket, but I need to deny her access for whatever reason (bedtime, bathtime, dinnertime, etc). She'll whine a little bit, but overall, it's been easier than the pre-ticket era.

Hopefully we can keep this up though the winter, when I know our default mode will be to curl up on the couch in front of the tube!

Someone has been pretty good lately...