Twelve years in two minutes. Here we go.
1. The year she was born: ex-step-cousin Nikolai does a photo shoot a few weeks before Christmas of her first year on the planet and we make sure to get the indispensable “laughing baby with a bare butt” shot:
2. On the brink of her first birthday, we spend a summery week up at Morfar’s house (later to be our own), and Molli takes some of her first steps in the back yard — and in a fantastic wardrobe:
3. In the USA, we have a blustery day at the beach right around her second birthday.
4. About a month after her third birthday we’re in Lake Garda, Italy:
5. Just four years old, she’s bewildered by Daddy’s insistence that she stand in front of Christine Rhodes’s house so Daddy can get a shot of her and the house across the street:
6: For her fifth birthday, she gets a swing set in the back yard of our new house:
7: And by age six she is a proud and loving big sister:
8: Not long after her 7th birthday, she’s with her whole American family in the White Mountains of New Hampshire:
9: And a few months before her 8th birthday, she’s running amok on the beaches of Portugal:
10: Now she’s about nine, posing with her sister and cousins:
11: And by age 10 she’s performing in a Broadway-sized production of Evita:
12: The eleven-year-old Molli Malou is looking good!
13: And in 2016, Molli Malou is the handball animal!
Dear Molli Malou: you are a smart, talented, athletic, wonderful girl, well on your way to becoming a smart, talented, athletic, wonderful woman. Mor and Daddy love you wildly and have enjoyed every minute of our time together so far, and cannot wait for all the adventures ahead!
So good to have been able to wish you a happy birthday via Skype. AML Pop-pop