Friends and family

The holiday season has caught up with me and I've been delinquent with my posting! We had a small wonderful Thanksgiving celebration with Edie and Tim last month. We loved having their company (and their delicious pies!)

Nana and Pops arrived last weekend for both a conference (for Roy) near Philly and to help with the kids since I was heading to Seattle and Portland for the week. It was a long week for me away from the family, but the kids obviously had a great time with Nana and Pops! I had a good time reconnecting with veterinary and Williams friends and colleagues at a conference and during a little extra vacation time I took on the coast. I unfortunately didn't get any pictures of Seattle or Portland, but it was mostly rainy the whole time!

A trip to the Seattle aquarium with Amber and Cecelia (and Lila and Jay)

A night out with Honora in Portland!

Hurricanes and Halloween (sound familiar anyone?)

We hunkered down last week and rode out Tropical Storm Sandy as it hit the Mid-Atlantic. The winds were pretty incredible with significant tree damage in our area, but the loss of electricity was minor compared to the devastation in NY and NJ. We survived our 4.5 days of "indoor camping" but were very happy to have power restored this past weekend. Due to the storm our borough Halloween was delayed until Saturday. Our neighbors lent us some dress up clothes a few weeks ago and for the past two weeks Foster has been a bumble bee and Molly a lady bug (i.e. to the grocery store, on walks, etc). Foster had originally wanted to be a centipede for Halloween, so I had already made him a costume which he was not interested in until Halloween night. Luckily he wore it then! They also had a form of Halloween at school called "Imagination Celebration". Foster's class chose and made costumes of people who help other people. Even though most of his friends were firemen and policemen, Foster wanted to be a nurse. Pretty cute. They had a little parade around school with Molly's class as Dalmations. We enjoyed a visit from Papa and LuLu this weekend, and were happy they got to participate in Halloween!

Chris and I should have dressed up as Raid!

Not quite 100 legs...but as many as he could handle (and I could sew).

One of many pit stops for candy refueling.

Tired centipede after one long block.

Post trick-or-treating cooking with Papa

Imagination celebration (a Quaker version of Halloween?)

Fun fall Friday....

GS Hayride!

The leaves at the GS are so much more fun than those at home....

Puddle play....

After a long rainy day we finally saw the sun. The puddle across the street is always tough to resist....

First attempt with pigtails!

Camping with kids

Corralling the kids...

Foster getting launched by Chris.

A chilly breakfast

Most of you have seen these pictures, but for those of you who I do not communicate with on Facebook, here are few from our first family camping trip. It was at a very urban KOA site, but despite the crowds, it was the quietest campsite at night I've ever stayed at. Perhaps b/c all the families had kids and it wasn't the type of place for random drunkards yelling at 2am. The kids slept well in the tent for it being their first time, although we cheated and brought the pack-n-play for Molly. It helped that they had a great playground and a huge bouncing pillow to tire them out (see pic). The Mullany boys were tons of fun and old pros at this camping thing!

Late September wanderings

I realized I've been using my phone for pictures as of late (i.e. lazy shots) and just uploaded a few from the past few weeks. We've had absolutely lovely weather for almost all of September and still enough daylight to enjoy it after school for a bit. Mimi visited two weeks ago and we had a great time with her, and only wished she could have stayed longer. She even babysat the kids overnight so Chris and I got a night out in Philly. Thanks Mimi!

Our green car gets a bit greener.

A fall favorite, Slack Farm

Out walking with Mimi

Waiting for dad to get home

Foster and his tree

Where oh where is my daddy?

I'll have to get a few shots of Foster on his Strider bike...which he has recently become obsessed with and almost every evening after dinner we're out with the neighborhood kids riding (well, he's riding, we're chasing Molly). It's amazing how coordinated he is and how fast he gets around on that thing! A great invention...

Beautiful weekends!

The beautiful crisp warm weather has inspired us to take a few more adventures on the weekends. We love early fall in the Mid-Atlantic! If only it made up for the horribly humid summers... Last weekend we took the kids to the Grounds for Sculpture in NJ...really cool place for adults and kids. Foster was enamored with the statue of a man cutting the hedges. We had to stay and "talk" to him for about 15 minutes and joke about why he was ignoring us!

Making some music at the sculpture garden

"Excuse me sir....."

This past Friday we headed up to the local children's museum which is the perfect size for these two kids. They both found plenty to keep busy (planting gardens, weighing food, cooking, etc). Today we all hit the Philly zoo for the morning. It was the first time Molly was old enough to take in the sites, and also old enough to keep us chasing after her the entire time. She made need one of the child leashes...soon. You'll notice she has developed a bit of a binky issue....a bit obsessed as of late and tough to get it away from her. We missed our window of opportunity to wean her off of it easily!

About as close to matching outfits as I can get with these two...

Taking a rest after planting the flowers

Molly and "Coldilocks"

Climbing in the hive

Couldn't get her out of this flower!