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.