Prequel - Aptos Beach, Ronan's Visit, and Random Shots

Yikes, it has been a while and so much has happened. I am sorry it has taken so long for me to post and I have a lot of material to go through so I'm starting with a quick recap of everything that happened before our trip to NY. I posted all the NY pics immediately and left out Molly's first trip to the beach at Aptos, Molly's Bon Voyage visit with Ronan and some other random shots. Enjoy. I hope to get back on track with posting soon.

My old roommate Annaliese stopped by with her son Ronan to say goodbye before moving to the east coast. It was a nice visit, but I am sad to see them go. Ronan was very interested in Blue.

He and Molly had a good time playing with her musical toy.

And playing with each other's faces!

Goodbye Annaliese, David and Ronan. Good luck in Massachusetts!

This was the day Molly discovered the toilet paper roll in the bathroom. This was what she had left on her by the time she crawled into the living room. You should have seen the hallway.

Enjoying the bells at story time.

Checking out vinyl with Daddy.

"So Molly, how you can tell if a record is a reissue is ..."

Our lovely trip to Aptos, CA. We are lucky enough to be friends with Amy Kurzer whose brother lives not far from Santa Cruz and needs an occasional dog sitter. The whole Pitts clan headed down for a few days in the sand and sun. Molly loved her first time at the beach.

Exploring the sand with her feet before heading to the water.

Molly really enjoyed the whole experience and basked in the sand sun and water.

Taking off Mommy's glasses was still a favorite game, for her.

Like Aunt Kate, she enjoys eating dirt and sand or sampling it at least.

Molly wasn't the only one who had a great time at the beach!

Making things out of sand is always exciting.

Here are Darby, Kelin, Delaney, and Dylan enjoying the cold waves.

Testing the water. Molly had a great time in the water and even tried to crawl into the surf a few times. It was a lot of fun to watch her kicking around in the water laughing.

Everyone pitched in to dig the hole.

Thank you so much Amy and family for the great weekend!

RIP Jake

Trip to New York

We returned home after almost three weeks in New York. It was a great trip that took us from New York City to Orient Point and many stops in between. Molly had a great time hanging out with her extended family. She loved the pool and the beach and even started walking on the trip so it was a pretty exciting time.

Reading with Cousin Lilah and Aunt Kate.

Playing in Finn and Lilah's playhouse which, sadly, has an evil troll living inside.

Finn showing us where the burgers go, a future griller.

Molly had a great time in the playhouse.

She also got to meet the Speciale family and they got along famously.

Here she is with cousin Connor playing in Nana and Pops backyard sandbox.

Cousin Aiden also had a ball.

Things started getting a little silly and Aiden crawled through the cat door.

Then Darby and Delaney arrived and we headed into Times Square. Here we are riding the 60 ft. ferris wheel in the enormous Toys 'R Us store, it was pretty cool.

Later, we met up with Jeannie, Katie, Maura and Emily in front of Bryant Park for dinner and a softball game.

A quick shot before Katie's softball game. Shortly after this picture we had to run to the subway to avoid a torrential downpour. Thankfully the rain stopped by the time we got back to Katie's apartment in the East Village. We had a sleepover which included Darby sleeping on an inflatable mattress in the kitchen, it was a packed house!

Playing with cousins Lilah and Finn in Orient.

Story time with Aunt Kate. Lilah's favorite was Humpty Dumpty.

The cousins got a lot of time to play together which basically meant making a mess all over the house.

The favorite game by far was bouncy bed. It consisted of putting the kids on a slightly deflated air mattress and shaking it around while chanting "bouncy bed, bouncy bed." It was a huge hit!

Chewing the fat with her godfather Uncle Luke during a bocce ball tournament.

More cousins time!

For some reason Molly loved this chair and spent a long time sitting and playing in it.

My parents bought this awesome picnic table for the twins on the way out to Orient and it was a huge hit the whole week. Of course Molly used it primarily to stalk Finn's food plate and pilfer what she wanted. Poor Finn was a bit confused as to what to do and didn't put up much of a fight.

More fun reading time with Uncle Dan.

A hungry seagull put on an exciting show and the kids had front row seats.

A lovely parting shot. It was a great trip and I was so sad to leave but it was great to get home and see Daddy. Can't wait until next year!

Cute Outfits, Daddy's Birthday, and Sock Eating

I absolutely love this outfit and sadly Molly already outgrew it! I knew it would be tight but I took it from bag of give-away clothes from a mother I know because I couldn't resist.

She did have a lot of fun wearing it though.

A lot of fun!

We dog sat while our friend Amy was away and Blue made sure Ginny knew exactly who was top dog in our house. He quickly took over Ginny's bed even though it wasn't the exactly best fit.

John's birthday was a lot of fun. First Molly and I crashed his field trip to Crab Cove in Alameda.

Molly is always a big hit with John's students.

John and his class doing their best crab impersonations.

Then it was off to the Giants v A's game. It was Molly's first baseball game and she did great! We saw a fight between two opposing fans and watched the Giants give a lackluster performance that ended in a 6-1 loss.

This picture combines two of Molly's favorite activities: taking off her socks, and putting everything into her mouth.

What a beautiful baby!

"Hey Molly, what do you think of the Mets staring lineup?"

(Not a flattering shot, but I couldn't resist.)