Run, Clara, Run!

(on our "walk" home from the park today...)

Backyard Fun

While our friends on the east coast are enjoying the snowstorm of the century, we enjoyed a morning goofing off in our backyard.

Photos: Molly; Molly in purple, with purple; Clara; Clara.

molly's lego gingerbread house

I was watching a few online videos with Molly and she saw one where someone made a gingerbread house. She liked it, and I asked her if she wanted to make her own video. Here's the result - for the patient only, it runs a little over 7 minutes. She helped me do some light editing in Windows Movie Maker as well. Enjoy!

Clara's Faces

Clara's into making faces these days. Here's a few of them (there's a new one every day):

Takoma Park 2009 - Mall + Mud + Museum

I'm not sure why this is the first trip that we've made it down to The Mall and the Smithsonian. Maybe because we've found endless other things to do? Or because the last couple visits have either been in really cold weather, or during the mad tourist season. Either way, we went down to the Natural History Museum, which was a hit with Molly. And the mud puddles are always present and always popular - with the kids.

As a geeky landscape architect I'm curious about what they've tried to make that Mall drain. It must be tough: nearly flat surfaces, constant foot traffic, and I'm sure the soil is terrible.

Takoma Park 2009 - Sunday Market

Takoma Park 2009 - Around the House

Takoma Park 2009 - Riding Gallagher

Another highlight of the trip was riding Gallagher. The girls spent nearly an hour and a half taking turns walking around on Rhea's incredibly patient horse. Molly got to trot a bit, Clara wanted to "I-do-it-myself!" Even mama got to ride a little.

Takoma Park 2009 - Autumn Fun

We just don't get this quantity of leaves in Berkeley...

Takoma Park 2009 - Spring Park

We spent some good quality time at the park down the street...

Takoma Park 2009 - with Stacy & Charlie

One of the most amazing parts of this trip was having Stacy and Charlie come visit - all the way from New York!! Wow! It was so nice to see them, and to see how much Charlie has grown (and how funny and sweet he is!). Clara, especially, still talks about visiting with Charlie.

Takoma Park 2009 - Molly's Art/Work

Opa must have intuitively known that Molly would need an "office" while visiting. He set up this sweet space that was just the right size for her (with lots of space to overflow). It got tons of use.

One of her creations was the noses: I forget the whole story, probably it started with us joking about eating Clara & Opa's nose. So Molly offered to make them new noses. She colored and cut out the little noses, but quickly realized that the nose wouldn't stay in place, so fashioned the custom fit nose holders seen here.

Takoma Park 2009 - with Mary P & friends

We had a lovely walk in Rock Creek Park with Mary P and her dogs Henry and Tobey. Molly is still terrified of dogs, but it was nice to spend time with some dogs that are so well behaved that the most out of line thing that happens is Tobey licks, sometimes. And I think it was nice for Molly to see dogs being really gentle, and calm, and the dog's person being gentle and calm, too.

We took the walk after checking on Mary's horse at the barn there. This was the first time that Molly realized that you can have a horse that doesn't live at your house. The next time I tried to use the "we can't have a horse because we don't have any room for one at our house" line, she told me maybe we could find a stall for it at a stable in Berkeley?

Takoma Park 2009 - Thanksgiving Dinner in Lucketts

Thank you Anne for a lovely Thanksgiving feast! As usual, the food and company were amazing (particularly that delicious granddaughter of yours).

Takoma Park 2009 - Dinner at Woomi's

Another lovely dinner at the Korean restaurant. Yum! and Thank you!

Takoma Park 2009 - At Nona's Office

We were lucky enough to be able to go to Nona's office for their special Thanksgiving lunch. We ate yummy foods (and pie). And splashed in the puddles. But it was really nice to see all the lovely folks at her office! Hi everyone!!! The food was great!

Takoma Park 2009 - Dress Up

Nona's friend very thoughtfully lent us a whole bundle of lovely dress-up clothes. The girls loved them. Much of the week was spent with a revolving cast of characters. The witch, the fairy, and the mermaid had the most prominent rolls, but there were many others, including mix-ups and combos of several costumes. Thank you!

Thanks-travelling

We just got back from a lovely trip to Takoma Park (or "Koma Park!" as Clara calls it, and Molly says: "It's TA-koma Park, Clara! TA-koma!", to which Clara repeats "Koma Park!" with a grin.)

Thanks to everyone who made this an extra special trip.

Loads of pictures to come.

Unicorn

This is a unicorn puppet that Molly created last week (and wrote her name on).

Until about a month or so ago, Molly's artwork was mostly scribbles. Then, it seems, the stars aligned and her artwork exploded. Just about the time that we (finally) set up a dedicated, kid-accessible "art corner" she also seemed to hit her stride with coordinating her fingers, hands, etc. Was it the steady stream of paper, markers, scissors, and tape that was suddenly at her fingertips? Was it an inevitable developmental leap? Either way, these last weeks (months?) have given us an increasing flow of creations. There's the writing (she calls from the other room while I'm cooking: "what are the letters in..."), and the cutting, and the folding, and the drawing. It's exciting to see what she creates! The day we made pumpkin pie (from scratch!) she constructed a vine with two 3-d pumpkins - with cut up yarn pieces inside to represent the "stringy stuff".

molly's pictures

Here's what happens when you give a super-intelligent, super-careful 4-year old a camera:



Molly had accompanied Zach on a trip to a GRID install. He let her use the camera while he schmoozed. We do this from time to time, and I'm always fascinated by the results. This is typical of much of her work: lots of feet (especially hers) and lots of pictures of the ground. So many, in fact, that I'm convinced it's not an accident. Perhaps she has an intrinsic interest in flooring/paving materials?

Z-F girls

here we are in mid-October and mid-September. In all our glory.

at Yerba Buena Gardens (September 2009)

Way back in September we had a lovely morning running into SF to drop off the VHS and Hi-8 tapes (that I refused to throw away) for digitizing. We stopped by and ate lunch on the lawn at Yerba Buena Gardens. It was really sweet watching the girls run off and play with each other in the lawn (and come back frequently to check in/ask us to play with them).

Painting Sisters

In late August we let things get a little crazy with the paint. The girls had a blast. In the end, we turned the sprinkler on and Molly ran through to (start the) cleanup. It all started because Clara found a blue marker and put it to use. On herself. These types of events (Clara coloring on herself) have been somewhat limited since the more recent introduction of the self-service art corner that has more appropriate surfaces to color on readily available. However, this body-painting event has led to many many more requests to do this again and again (see post about Seth and the Blue Paint).

Painting in Blue

The other day the girls convinced Uncle Seth to paint with them. I think Uncle Seth was worried that he'd let them go too far. But the girls and I remember the fun we had when we took the easel out back and the girls enjoyed painting on the paper and on each other.

Molly - fall 2009

Molly (mid-October)

looking
with Mama - taking a trip on a turtle
rocking out on the bouncy-thing
in motion

LA - October 2009

At last! the pictures from our trip to LA for Pop's 90th birthday party! Click once to view slide show. Click twice to get to picture viewer. enjoy!

Clara's First Day of School (October 2009)

Pictures from Clara's first day at preschool. Not pictured are her tantrums prior to this (throwing herself on the floor, negotiating for Kika). Well pictured is Molly's current picture taking face.

Farmer's Market Bike Ride Fun

We've been having the most spectacular biking weather these past couple weekends. These are pictures from two weekends ago when we biked to the Temescal Farmer's Market with Rylyn's family. Molly loves biking on her trail-a-bike next to her friends!

Clara-Molly-Rylyn-Tegan-Dave listen to the music;
Bike with trailer parked with car;
Clara mad that she can't play with the camera (after she dropped it);
Clara enjoying the fresh berries;
Molly & Rylyn at the art table on the back porch.

Clara - fall 2009

Clara:

enjoys a tomato with gusto (October 31)
with Baby (October 9)
waking up from her nap (October 10)
with her pumpkin (and Sofi's hand-me-down overalls) (November 4)

backyard picnic (September 2009)

way back in September we had a lovely convention of Franklin family members in our back yard. Two of those pictured have since moved to New Zealand (Judd & Tybe). We can't wait to hear stories of their adventures!

Clara Paints

Clara enjoying painting at the Adventure Playground...

Adventure Playground Adventure

It's a beautiful fall day - perfect for a bike ride to Adventure Playground with Molly's buddy, Chaidan. Molly and Chaidan rode down in their matching trail-a-bikes, and Clara toughed it out in the trailer. Clara got the spotlight in the pictures today due simply to the fact that Zach followed Molly and I followed Clara (we respected the Playground's very reasonable close parental supervision rule). Clara got a huge kick out of the painting (find enough trash, nails, or broken wood and they give you either paint & paint brush or a hammer & nails to do whatever you'd like with). Molly got into the nailing this time.

As I write, Molly & Zach are presumably still there - Clara had to head home for her nap.

Zoo Day

We joined the masses out of school today (Veteran's Day) and had a lovely morning at the Zoo with friends. Here's Molly going in for a kiss on the head, Clara posing for a picture of the hat (by her request) lent to her by Karuna, and an elephant enjoying a tree branch.

Slide Ranch 2009

Last weekend on Halloween Day we took a day trip to Slide Ranch. Clara was thrilled at milking the goat (she still talks about it!) and Molly was really interested in the Bone Grove (the farm has a place where they leave their dead animals for scavengers, and they did a dia de los muertos thing with the kids that day).

Halloween

The Princess and the Bee had a lovely Halloween with the neighbors. Clara was thrilled to be part of the "big kid" crowd and gathered loads of candy *just* *like* *Molly* (and Nate and Oscar). Thanks to Nate's family for sharing the Bee costume. And thanks to Oscar's family for hosting.

We experimented with the "let them eat as much candy as they want for 3 days only) approach to the candy. It seemed to go okay, until about 1:30am when Molly puked all over her bed. We revised the rule to something like "you can eat candy during the day for the next few days, but we're not going to let you gorge on it all at once". Molly seems on board with it. Clara, less so.