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).