Painting & carving pumpkins!

On Sunday, we started to prepare our pumpkins for Halloween. Jeremy worked on carving and Molly helped with scooping out the seeds.

After that Molly worked on painting her own little pumpkin, with her eyes closed! No, not really she just happened to have her eyes closed in the picture. ;)

Here's a little video of Molly painting her pumpkin and also her belly!

Molly's final master piece...

PJ Friday!

Today was "PJ day" at daycare! Very cute to drop Molly off and see all the kids and the teachers in pajamas! One of the many fun and creative things that Molly's teachers do in the classroom. I'm hoping the teachers will send along pictures of the kids, but in case they don't we got a picture of Molly in her owl PJs & mom (for once!) before I dropped her off.

Turn & back it up...

Molly continues to be quite the character, or at least to me she seems like quite the character! For example, last weekend we were playing catch with the ball or maybe it turned into something more like monkey in the middle with Molly running back and forth between Jeremy and I while we tossed the ball. Anyway, all of a sudden Molly started with her backwards walking which she often finds very amusing to do. This time, however, she tossed a spin or turn in the repertoire. I have no idea why! But these are the sorts of quirks about Molly that I just adore; these glimpses of her individuality giving us insights into this amazing little person of ours! Here's a clip of Molly "doing her thing"... To be clear, even though I was narrating her turns in the video, she started doing this all by herself. I was just encouraging her to continue so that I could get it on camera!

Visiting Philly (a while ago)

Hi all - Jeremy is back "guest-blogging". It's been a while since I've posted anything. Lauren has pretty much taken over the reins since Molly was about 3 months old.

We've been a bit busy around the house with work, and doing things around the house, and getting ready for halloween. So, this post is a bit delayed. It's been almost a month since we've been back, but we all went out east to Philly for a wedding for my friend Josh's wedding. The trip included Molly's first trip on an airplane and Molly's first weekend without mommy and daddy, since we decided to go to the wedding childless (which was probably a good idea for everyone involved).

Molly did great on both flights (Lauren was well prepared for any and every occurrence with plenty of food, play dough, markers, books, toys, flash cards, and in case of emergency, her iPhone). Molly also did great over the weekend with mom-mom and pop-pop and their helpers Libby and Carter. She got to go to the Please Touch Museum and Upper Dublin Community Day, and took several trips to the park. Here are some highlights from the trip (courtesy of mom-mom and pop-pop).


Look - I can find my belly-button even when my eyes are closed!

You can't go wrong reading to Molly...

Or feeding her goldfish - thanks Libby

Taking a break from running around the yard

Taking Libby for a ride!

A rare photo with all the kiddos looking at the camera...

It was a great weekend back east - Molly still wakes up asking about mom-mom and pop-pop.

Enjoying Fall!

We've all been enjoying fall... the cooler weather, falling leaves, pumpkin picking, etc. At school the kids have been exploring the fall leaves in their exploratory table; feeling the textures, crumbling them as they dry, looking at the colors, etc. At home, Molly's been exploring the leaves as Jeremy attempts to rake them up in the yard! In other words, she, like most kids, loves running through and jumping in piles of leaves. Here are a few pictures and a couple of videos of Molly playing in the leaves last week.

And some video...

"More leaves" daddy...

inspiration for Halloween...

For the last month, I've been frequently visiting Trader Tot's, our local, second hand kid's clothing shop, in search of a Halloween costume for Molly. Finally, last weekend I found the perfect costume! The idea was inspired by the very friendly and loud stray cat that has moved onto our block. Well more specifically, it seems to have claimed the front porches of our house and our two neighbors. Anyway, as I mentioned this cat has a very loud meow, which Molly LOVES to imitate and actually imitates quite well. So you can probably guess that Molly will be a cat for this Halloween.

Here's a little video of Molly trying very hard to catch up to the kitty to pet her. You can hear Molly imitating the cat as she crawls up the stairs, but you'll have to listen closely. The cat, however, you should hear loud & clear!

Cheers!

A few weekends ago, we were out to dinner with our friends Ted, Sabrina & Ellie where Molly learned how to "cheers" with her sippy cup. Since then, Molly enjoys trying to "cheers" with mom & dad, "cheers" herself with two cups, "cheers" her cup with a fork, etc. I tried to get a little clip of it this morning. The video doesn't do her enthusiasm for "cheers" justice, but you should get the picture.

Names...

Sorry for the delay in posts lately... We were out of town last weekend for a wedding and then have been participating in a conference for most of the week. So we haven't had a ton of time behind our computers. We'll do a proper post on Molly's weekend with mom mom and pop pop Brooks and cousins Libby & Carter soon, but I first need to get the pictures from Jeremy. In the meantime I thought I'd post a little video of Molly "talking" about her other cousin, Hunter!

Molly's been doing really well with names lately. Admittedly, often only we know who's name Molly is actually saying, i.e. we'd need to interpret her words for other people! But still it's fun to watch Molly start to look at pictures of family and say the name of who's in them without us prompting her. It's also fun to ask Molly which friends she's going to see at school and see who she's excited to tell you about. Typically Molly always mentions "Addi" first. "Addi" is Adelaide, who I think is Molly's good buddy in her classroom. After that it's usually "Tom" but I think it's because she likes saying his name, which she says in this low pitched voice.

Yesterday, Molly took her box of pictures, grabbed the one of her and cousin Hunter on the swings and promptly pointed at the picture & said "Hunter"! There was no questioning what she said either. I managed to get her to do it again, although it's a little hard to hear. Just make sure to have your volume turned up!