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!