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!

First time on the ice!

This afternoon we took Molly to an open skate session at OSU's Ice Rink! She was excited when we arrived, was happy to have us put her skates on and happily marched out on the ice. Once she got on the ice, she was a little less sure of the whole thing! But with a some encouragement and a lot of patience, by the end she was asking for us to not hold her hands and to skate herself! Of course, she was no where near able to skate by herself, but we were excited about her enthusiasm! The skating intermission and appearance of the zamboni helped keep her excitement and interest to go out and try again, but we'll take whatever we can get. Below are some pictures and a video clip from Molly's first day on the ice. Enjoy!

Tri-cycling queen...

It's often the case that when we pick up Molly from daycare, she's riding the tricycle out in the playground. She really seems to love it and is quite good at it too! Friends of ours lent us their spare trike and go figure, Molly spent probably half of the weekend riding around in the house, down the block and at the park. She's a tricycling queen!

Time has flown this fall. I can't believe we haven't posted since August. We've had a busy Fall, so we thought we'd just give you a sample of that from the past weekend.

On Saturday, we took advantage of the nice weather (it's pretty much been nice weather since July with the exception of a few rainy weeks and a couple of hot days) to go out apple picking. Unfortunately the rest of Columbus also decided that a 73 degree day in October (without a football game) would also be a good day for apple picking. We went with our friends the Tomans,  got a couple varieties of nice crispy apples, and then went down to get some pumpkin and apple donuts.


Here's Molly "helping" pick apples

 and goofing around in the corn with Cadie

 And sitting on the bench with Asher and Cadie

 After the orchard, our friends invited us to their property out in rural Ohio for a bonfire to roast some hot dogs and marshmallows. It was a great night for it and we had a lot of fun. Molly got to go on a tractor ride with Daddy (thanks to Brian for trusting that I wouldn't run the tractor into a ditch like I had been known to do in my old job at Natural Lands Trust)

 And Molly ended the night being mesmerized by the fire (this is the best picture I could get with almost no light)

Then, the next day,  we were at it again. Molly "helped" Mommy bake some Halloween cookies for our friends who we were meeting for dinner that night

Molly got all dressed up for a night at our friends, but we had to make one quick stop first

 To visit Molly's teacher Grace and her new baby Arlo. Molly was in shock when Grace asked if she wanted to hold Arlo. You all know how much Molly loves holding and rocking and wrapping and shhh-ing her baby dolls. Well, she was very excited to get to hold a real baby (and also a little nervous from the look on her face).

And that has been our fall in a nutshell - we've been keeping busy and are starting to feel in the groove in Columbus...

First "Haircut"!

Well it's taken some time for Molly's hair to grown in, but finally over 2 years later, it seemed time for her first "haircut". I'm not sure if we can really call it a haircut, per se, but maybe more like a trim to get rid of the whispy mullet growing in the back. I wasn't entirely comfortable doing it myself, so we just went down the street to the local Great Clips for a $6.99 kid's haircut special and had them give Molly a little trim. Molly did a great job! She sat very still in the chair & didn't fuss one bit. We even got a smile out of her afterwards!

Cyclist in Training!

Molly's Auntie Meg landed a great yard sale find of a glider bike for Molly. It was a little tall for her when we first got it, but in the past week, we started to notice that Molly was able to reach things she wasn't able to just a couple of weeks ago. So we decided to give the bike a try again & sure enough she can reach the ground now! So yesterday Molly asked to try the bike outside & after a little encouragement, she gave it a whirl! She just scooted along, but we all have to start somewhere. Here's a picture and a little video clip from yesterday's maiden ride!

First hockey lesson...

So I try very hard to not get suckered into the dollar bins in the entrance of Target. Actually it kind of pisses me off how they so strategically place those bins full of cheap, plastic kid's crap to sucker in parents right at the door, but that's beside the point. Today there was a set of hockey sticks and a puck right in my line of vision that I couldn't pass up. So far they're a "hit".... Ha ha!

Yoga!

Molly's teachers frequently do yoga in the classroom with the children. Lately, Molly's been really into showing us her yoga poses, including downward dog, leg high, seated meditation/cross legs and recently, the tree pose! She's working on her balance with the tree pose, but isn't too bad at it.

In the last couple of weeks, she's also become really good at using the word "no"! She is very much into asserting her independence and will not let you help her with anything, wants to do everything herself and is not a fan of being told what to do. All typically 2-year old things, I'm sure, but someday...

Here's a little video clip of Molly doing the tree pose, followed by Molly's version of "namaste"!

Good day for the Scioto Mile Fountain!

Sunday was the start of some pretty hot & humid weather here in Columbus. So Sunday morning we headed to the Scioto Mile Fountain in downtown Columbus to cool off. Molly's school friend, Ines and her family had the same idea, so the girls got to run around in the fountain together. They had a good time!

And a couple of videos...

First camping trip!

Well, we finally had a break in our wet weather and were able to get Molly's long-awaited first camping trip in this weekend. There were still some distant thunder-boomers on Friday evening and it sprinkled on us for a little bit as we were getting everyone ready for bed, but for the most part it was a nice, dry time for camping.

We went down to Lake Hope State Park about an hour and a half southeast of Columbus. We met our friends the Tomans down there at about 5:30 on Friday afternoon and got to work setting up the tents. Here are some pictures of Molly and Asher checking out the tents. Just below, Molly is sitting on her bed, which is just a yoga mat folded in half, with a down sleeping bag on top for extra cushion, topped off with her Mickey Mouse sleeping bag.

 Here are Molly and Asher checking out the Toman's tent next.

After we got the camp set-up and some food in our bellies, it was time for toasting marshmallows! Everyone got a few toasted, including Molly and Cadie. The extra-long, telescoping forks came in really handy with the kids.

It was a late night for Molly since she was having so much fun and since it stays light out so long.  Molly finally hit the sack between 9:30 and 10pm - and slept pretty well, right through to 6:30am. It was a bit of a challenge keeping Molly to a whisper, but she generally did OK not waking up the rest of the campground.

It was a nice morning, so we got up and slowly got ourselves moving to get ready for a hike. Here is Molly and Lauren showing off the new tent!

And here is everyone on the hike down towards Lake Hope

Lauren did most of the Molly carrying - and all of it on the way back. It's amazing how much faster you can move when you don't have a couple of two-year olds walking around on their own!

 We got back to the campsite in time for lunch and to do a little more exploring around the campsite. Here's Molly with an inch worm that found its way onto her chair.

Since it became pretty clear that Molly wasn't going to nap, we decided not too push our luck with a second night. The Tomans had to leave anyway, so we packed up with them and drove down to the beach at the Lake. Molly caught a few z's in the car - just enough to rejuvenate for about a couple hours of squealing and splashing in the Lake. We finished off the trip with an ice cream bar at the Lake Hope lodge and some nice BBQ at a restaurant near Logan, Ohio.  All-in-all, I think it was a successful first camping trip and we're looking forward to getting out there again and exploring more of Ohio. I think we're all a little bit exhausted today, but it was worth the wait for a break in the rain. 

As I'm sure you all knew, June 28th was International Mud Day! Molly's class at daycare celebrated by making some mud puddles and inviting the parents to join in the fun. It was a beautiful morning for Mud Day, and Molly enjoyed it while being her normal, cautious self (you'll notice that she's not completely covered in mud - most kids weren't but there were a few more adventurous ones). Here are some pictures of Molly...

making mud pies...

 Getting her feet wet...

doing some mud jumping....

and some more mud jumping...

some mud surfing (or mud karate - i'm not really sure what she's doing here)...

some mud painting...

 and finally, some cleaning up...

It was a pretty fun morning at Buckeye Village - and since Molly loves the water so much, we decided to do some running through the sprinkler this weekend to top it all off

Blueberry picking!

Molly's been enjoying picking our first crop of blueberries!

"Reading"

Over the past couple of weeks we've caught Molly "reading" aloud as she's looking at her books. Obviously she's just memorized the story as we've read it to her, and associated parts of the story with the pictures, but it's been cute to watch her read the story aloud to herself or to us if we ask her. Here's a clip of Molly with her nursery rhymes book, which she sings to rather than reads once she sees the picture, but she does read with some of her other books too. Enjoy!

Life on the farm

Molly got quite a treat this weekend - and she'll probably be talking about it for weeks.

Our realtor Susie, who helped us find our home, happens to live on a 200 acre cattle farm about an hour outside of Columbus with her husband Tom.  She was nice enough to invite us and our friends (whose home she also helped find) out to the farm for dinner and an evening feeding the cows.

Molly and her friend Ellie had a blast. Here they are riding on the "tractor"

After a great dinner (steak, of course). We all headed out into the fields to herd us some cows and bring 'em in for their dinner. Molly is supervising our friend Tom here (he is a retired faculty member from Animal Science Dept. at OSU).

 

And here she is getting ready to take some hay out to a group of cows

And here they are on the way back (Molly let Tom drive on the way back to the shed)

Then Ted, Ellie, Molly and I followed the rest of the group out to some more distant paddocks to check on a few of the other cows

 

 And here they are.

 

The rain held off until the way home, so we had a beautiful evening out on the farm. Nice and warm (a little humid) and surprisingly bug free.

We're not sure which she liked better - seeing the calves or driving on the tractor. Either way, it was a great experience for Molly and a fun way to spend a Saturday afternoon and evening in June.