Saturday, December 14, 2013

Birthday party

Today was Molly's friend birthday party (actual birthday is Monday). She's been so tired from late nights that we decided to skip ballet this morning. She was happy to stay home and get ready for the party instead.

Pink cupcakes. Again.

This time we frosted with whipped chocolate ganache. Molly chose chocolate bars with a hint of orange. YUM!

Birthday girl gets to lick the spoon!
We made Molly keep her invite list short, just cousins and her neighborhood/school bus friends. What a nice group of little kids they were!

They even indulged Molly's cherished idea of dumping a basket of candy on the floor. All the drama of a pinata without the fun, right? Surprisingly nobody cried.


There was some dress-up, some balloon play, some t-shirt signing and of course the cupcakes.



Happy birthday, dear 6-year-old Molly!!!

Saturday, December 7, 2013

Sinterklaas

Hay and carrots ready by the door...



And in the morning...


 



Monday, December 2, 2013

Thanksgiving weekend

New Black Friday tradition ... crafts!!!


And another special Thanksgiving treat... visitors!!!








Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Silly kids

What can Santa possibly bring little Kate? Her favorite toy is a pair of Jim's old white socks stuffed with rice and tied in a knot. She calls them her babies and carries them around.

A week or two ago she discovered a new favorite craft project. Rip a page out of a catalog. Put glue on it. Stick ripped up pieces of catalog pages to the glue. 


Meanwhile Molly has been experimenting with snow angel technique. Mommy look! Face down!


This is what we did on my birthday. On our quick mini-trip to Boston I dragged everybody to Gloucester.



We also got to play with baby Norah. The girls were great travelers. Happy birthday to me!!!

Saturday, November 9, 2013

Girls dancing in pretty outfits

I was at ballet class and at the end Mommy took a picture of us.


Once Kate and me dressed up fancy and pretended we were fairy princesses.

(post by Molly, typing by Mommy)

Thursday, October 31, 2013

Halloween

Kate and I just got back from the costume parade at Molly's school.

Molly's teacher leads her class around the bus circle.

Ladybug Girl!
Kate made last-minute decision to dress up for the  parade, even though she's a spectator.

It's purely coincidence that she was sweeping the floors. But maybe it's a Cinderella thing. Who knows.


Guess who had the most fun carving pumpkins last night.
Ready for Halloween night!

Monday, October 14, 2013

Falling leaves

Our trees have barely started dropping their leaves but one big tree at the little grassy park near our house dropped early. Last week a bunch of kindergarten-ish neighborhood kids spontaneously gathered there after school several days in a row to make a pile and play in it.



Molly wanted pigtails for school picture day. I wonder if this is how her formal photo will look.


We celebrated our anniversary with a date night. Molly made us these cards.


"Happy anniversary Daddy." If you look up close there appears to be a tear in my eye, of happiness, I presume.


"Happy anniversary Mommy." Lovin' Daddy's expression here.
Molly just finished up a 4-day weekend from school. Jim took the day off Friday and we went to the zoo. Sunday we met the cousins for a hike and a historical village.

Lucy reads to the others on the story trail.


How to 2-year-olds know instinctively how cute it is when they hold hands?



One-room school house, writing on slates.

Look, a stage!

Monday, September 30, 2013

This afternoon Kate tries to open the front door and the knob comes off in her hand and drops to the floor. She turns around slowly, looks down at the knob and says to me, "I'll get a towel for you."

Have I mentioned that Kate and I are having a good time in the afternoons?


This is from the weekend, Kate showing off what may be her first ever ponytail.


We went apple picking with friends yesterday. What a perfect fall day!




Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Blue skies

I just uploaded photos to help me remember what we've been up to these past couple weeks. The first one? A dead squirrel. We found it on our walk last week and the girls, after staring at it and speculating on the cause of death, wanted me to take a picture of it. I didn't have the camera so they agreed that after Molly got on the bus, Kate and I should walk back with the camera and see if it's still there. It was. Mmmm.

The best part was that Kate was confusing the words "dead" and "dried out" (which the squirrel wasn't, by the way) and so later on our walk she pointed up into a tree and told me there were "wet squirrels" running around.

Anywho ... it's been so beautiful this week and last week. Well, every day except Saturday when I dragged my family to the Honey Harvest Festival at Tinker Park in the cold rain. Kate was terrified the moment we walked in the door by a human in bee costume and Jim had to take her out in the rain. But Molly and I had a good time. :)

We had a girl day Sunday at the sheep and wool festival with Anna and Lucy.



Now we're back to the school week again. Molly's enjoying kindergarten. The only thing she hasn't liked so far was gym class on the first day. The second time she loved it and now she loves everything. I don't blame her for being skeptical of this particular gym class, though. The stuff she shows me strikes me as a very thinly veiled attempt to keep the kids from getting fat. The teacher makes them run, do crunches, even jumping jacks. Sure, the crunches are called spaghetti (when they lie out straight) and meatballs (when they curl up) and they say the letters of the alphabet while doing jumping jacks. But still. Really? No games? No obstacle courses? Given the opportunity won't any 5-year-old burn calories without even trying? Apparently the childhood obesity panic has reached down into kindergarten. This is one of my pet peeves ever since I read this article in Brain Child Magazine about childhood obesity.

Of course, you can never fully trust the account of a kindergartener about what goes on at school. One day she told me her classed lined up and went outside and came right back for no reason. It wasn't until much later that, out of the blue, she asked, "Mommy, what's a fire drill?"

Anyway, Kate went down for a rare afternoon nap today so I'm going to squeeze in as much stuff into this quiet time as I can. Hooray!

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

First Day





Everything went great.  Molly can't wait to go back tomorrow!


Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Meet the teacher

Molly's kindergarten open house was this morning.

We walked through the school, hopped on the bus for a short ride...

and then found her classroom.

The teacher had a craft project set up for the kids and informed us that she LOVES glitter.


We spent some time exploring the toys and books in the room, testing the bathroom and finding Molly's backpack hook.

Molly had drawn a picture for her new teacher. Here she is delivering it.


Her class will have 19 kids, nearly equal numbers boys and girls. None of the neighbors we've met so far is in the class, but that's OK.

Molly says ...

molly  love  d  the  classroom


Thursday, August 15, 2013

Lake day




Another lovely day, another little outing.

Today we indulged Molly's request to play mini golf.


Kate even tried it a little...
before giving up and climbing all over everything.

Another beautiful visit to Lake Ontario, too.