We're slowly thawing out from a long winter here in Columbus. It' been a while since we've posted (as has sadly become typical for us), so here are some updates. We've been busy - mostly with work - but Molly has kept us busy too. We did her first set of gymnastics classes this winter and we went through another round of swim lessons, this time with Ines from school. And, Molly is getting close to 3, which brought with it some challenging mornings, afternoons, evenings, and all times in between... Here are a few highlights that I have pictures for....


Lauren and Molly spent part of the long winter baking. If I remember correctly, this was chocolate zucchini muffins - yum...

And who can resist licking the chocolate from the mixer

Next - we went with some friends to the OSU Vet School's open house day. Molly started by getting a cat painted on her face.

Then she got into her scrubs for some teddy bear surgery

Here is the surgical team - Molly, Asher, and Cadie. 

Then, we finally had a gorgeous weekend for an Easter visit from Hunter, Sydney, Uncle Chris and Aunt Meg... Thanks to Meg and Chris for bringing out some eggs to hunt for.

I got an orange one!

"Where do you think the easter bunny goes after he brings the eggs" - "you know, that's a good question. I hadn't though about that. Maybe he goes to the east pole?"

More easter stuff - yeah!

And, what was probably Molly's second favorite part of the weekend...helping to feed Sydney (her favorite part was sharing her bath with Sydney)

We're looking forward to a good spring and summer filled with camping, swimming at the community pool, a trip to Mtn. Springs, and lots of other fun stuff.

Cabin Fever (aka Ants in her Pants)

The winter is starting to feel long here. We at least had one nice sunny warm day here yesterday and I think the whole town of Grandview was out at the playground. But, that was short-lived as we went back to cold and flurries today.

A couple of weeks ago, when we were really in the midst of "stay inside" weather, Molly really started getting a little goofy. She even made up a new song called "Jump the holiday cheese". Fortunately, Lauren was able to get a few bits of the episode on video.

Here's clip one:

And another:

And one more...

We're all looking forward to Spring.

Wintery winter

It's been a real winter here in Columbus with VERY cold days and plenty of snow. Molly's been busy getting used to winter time fun by building snowmen, eating the carrots that were supposed to be the snowman's nose, making snow angels, catching snowflakes on her tongue, rolling down hills, sledding, shoveling snow, jumping in snow piles, eating (white) snow, knocking icicles down, and - Molly's personal favorite - coming back inside for hot chocolate with marshmallows.

We have a few pictures from the season and a video of sledding and "shoveling". The last couple of minutes are from the latest storm. Molly's playground has been iced over for a while and since it's been so cold, she hasn't spent much time outside, so I think she was happy to be able to get out and goof around in the snow - she had a lot of energy that morning.

And here's the video

Merry Christmas...

This was Molly's third Christmas, but her first "real" one in that she was moderately aware of the whole, Santa will come to bring you gifts if you've been good.

It was great that we were able to spend the Holidays at home since Molly's Grandma and Grandpa made the trip down.

We started off with a brisk, but fun night of Zoo Lights at the Columbus Zoo. I think they had every tree and shrub lit up across the whole zoo. It was pretty impressive, but also pretty cold.

On Christmas Eve day we had the Franklin Park Conservatory almost all to ourselves, and Molly definitely appreciated having the room to run around and stay out of the cold...Too bad we sent out our Christmas cards before we were able to get some of these shots.

That night we had Grandma's special Christmas Eve dinner of mushroom soup and Pierogis. I bet Santa would have liked to have stopped by our house a little early for some of it!

 
And, of course, we had to have a reading of "The Night Before Christmas" before we could call it an official "Christmas Eve"

 
Before we headed upstairs for the night, we had to make sure that we set out some cookies and milk for Santa and some reindeer food (oats and glitter courtesy of the Grandview Heights Library) for Rudolph et al...  and that lead to some nice videos on Christmas morning...

Merry Christmas everyone! Molly had a great week with the Grandma and Grandpa Pintor. We're looking forward to a great 2014.

Last swim lesson for the year

We're finished with Molly's swim lessons for the year and she's really starting to get the hang of it. Lauren was able to get some video from today. Not much more to say except have a look at her doggy paddling skills!