Happy Re-Anniversary Trip!

Taking advantage of the four-day weekend, Stace and I decided to steal away for a two-day trip up the coast on our own. What a fabulous time we had together, just a week or so after passing the eight-year mark of being together.

We weren't just recreating our days-before-Cora, we were recreating our ill-fated sixth anniversary trip to the same hotel in Carpinteria.

Those of you who know us well might have noticed my failure to mention our anniversary in September. We had made plans to spend two nights away (which would have been our longest trip yet without Cora), and then the morning sickness hit. We canceled one night, and tried to enjoy a one-night trip, but I was pretty sick for much of our little excursion. I think our biggest memory will be of Stace pulling over several times for me on our way home.

So, this time around, we really appreciated our time together. My family picked up Cora around 1 on Friday, and took her to Knott's Berry Farm for the day. We got on the road, and made it up to Santa Barbara by about 4. We did a bit of shopping among the throngs of Black Friday shoppers on State Street, got some dinner, and then watched a movie back in our room.

On Saturday morning, we headed down to the beach in Carpinteria, and then walked through the adorable downtown. We stumbled onto a Holiday Faire, with lots of vendors, live music and food. Such fun!

As much as I love hanging out with our daughter, it was great to walk along at our own pace (without stopping every few steps to hurry along a toddler), stopping in shops with breakable items we normally have to skip.

We then went back up to Santa Barbara. Stace got our bikes out of the back of the car, and we rode down to the wharf for lunch and then along the beach bike path.

It was just stunning in Santa Barbara, and in Carpinteria, and we truly enjoyed our time together on our own.

Cora was a good girl for Grandma and Grandpa; it's great that she's old enough to be away from us for an overnight trip. I do hope that when Ducky arrives, we don't let another two-plus years go by before we get away on our own again!

Thanksgiving blessings

Happy Thanksgiving, a day or so late!
We had a delicious meal at my parents' house, after Stace carved up the turkey. We brought roast potatoes, mashed potatoes and Yorkshire pudding, along with a pumpkin pie.

Cora had fun goofing around after dinner, wearing a box hat.

Stace and I have so much to be thankful for - a year ago we were moving into our first house. We are so thankful for that home, for our loving family, for our Cora, for our coming baby. For Stace's job, which lets me raise those babies. God has blessed us incredibly, and I never cease to thank Him for all the above, and for His love.

We spent Black Friday morning doing a bit of shopping, and then rewarded ourselves with drinks from Starbucks.

This is actually Cora's second official hot drink (warm soy milk) from Starbucks. The first time, I was so excited to see her with her own cute Christmas cup. Doesn't she look adorable?

(I suppose this only makes real sense if you understand that my family has been drinking Starbucks since I was 13 or 14, and one of my first jobs was at SClarita's original Starbucks in Granary Square.)

Cheers, my dear!

A few random photos from the past week...

I love, love this photo! Notice what Cora's smiling about - she's sharing her bracelet with the cat, who has "decided" to wear it as an earring.

Cora has been enjoying these glasses since Halloween. She continues to think they are hilarious.
A MOPS friend gave me this spider sweatsuit for Cora around Halloween time. Cora found it last week and needed to wear it for her nap.

These are from Veterans Day/Remembrance Day last week. It was a special thing to have our own house, so that we could put up our flags to honor our grandfathers' WWII service.


And remember my mentioning Cora's love for hiding? It continues. This is how we found Cora when we opened the car door recently.

The zoo, and Cora's friendly side

We took a trip to the zoo Wednesday with our Stroller Strides friends, and all went great.

All the kiddos were very well behaved, the weather was perfect and I felt good. Thank you, Lord, for great days like this!

The top photos show Cora before we left - I was very pleased that she let me put her hair in pony tails, and wore the hat Aunt Patty and Uncle Bill brought in the summer.

As you probably know, Cora isn't much for having her long hair done; lately though, she has asked for bows several days this week.

Next is a shot of all the kids - Lily, left, and then Keane, Cora, Brooke and Jimmy. Keane and Cora are both 2 1/2, and the others are all around 18 months.

For the first time, Cora played in the zoo's playground, and had a great time. She especially enjoyed the climbing wall here, and mastered it.

Cora also loved playing in the caves, an exhibit on spelunking that she finds scary and exciting. (My flash went off for the photo, but it is quite dark inside.)

Lastly, we have Cora making friends with Keane. I was so happy with how friendly Cora was to him. Keane's a friendly boy, but Cora hasn't always been very nice back. At the zoo, however, they were sharing their snacks with each other and generally being kind and nice.

The trend continued today at Stroller Strides, when Cora was very nice and friendly to a little girl her age named Gracie - hopefully we're coming out of Cora's "unfriendly" stage. I even gave her a sticker on her behavior chart for her friendliness.

More from the weekend

On Sunday we reconnected with our friends Christy and Mitch, whose son William is Cora's "oldest friend," in that they met when Cora was about four months and William was about two months.

Christy and I became friends, and have stayed in touch since they moved to Northern California last year. Since we last saw them, they added John Paul to their family; he turned one last month.

They were in town for a quick weekend trip, and managed to fit us in Sunday.

The kids had fun playing at the house, and then had more fun playing at Vincenzo's Pizza.

It was great to see Cora and William playing well together, as they always did, and the three kids were all really well-behaved at dinner. In the last photo, Stace is leading a round of "Ring a ring of roses."

Wish they lived closer, it was a really nice evening!

Uncle Bill, Aunt Patty, and Traveltown

What a nice weekend we had!

On Saturday, we were blessed to spend time with Uncle Bill and Aunt Patty again. For Bill's 50th birthday Saturday, Patty arranged a surprise trip to L.A.

We were the lucky ones to get to pick them up from the airport, and we had several hours to fill before the big surprise birthday bash at Miceli's Italian restaurant near Universal Studios.

We ended up at Griffith Park's Travel Town, a museum with a number of old steam trains. We'd been hearing great things about this free experience from lots of friends, and finally had the chance to check it out.

It was great, and Cora loved it. (In the fourth photo, Stace is holding a sign warning against climbing on top of the trains.)

She also loved spending time with Uncle Bill and Aunt Patty - I love how she is old enough to remember them, and be excited about seeing them. They've now been down from Western Washington three times since July, so we definitely owe them a return trip!

Uncle Bill's party was also a lot of fun, and Auntie Mel even got to sing at Miceli's!

Long-winded musings on Cora Rose

An update on Cora, at 2 3/4...

Since this blog functions as our family journal, which I plan to print and keep, please indulge me as I recount some minute details on our Cora Rose.

In so many ways, we have an easy, easy time with our Cora. She eats well, sleeps well, naps well, talks well, uses the toilet, has friends, loves her family and her cat, and is very healthy, smart and obedient to her teachers.

She seems very excited about our coming baby, giving "Ducky" (via my belly) unsolicited kisses, and often talking about the baby on her own. Cora has a zeal for life - she loves dancing and singing, making up her own songs.

Our main problem at this stage is Cora's strong will. We try to be very consistent with our discipline, which tends toward the strict because we learned a while ago that she doesn't respond well to angry looks, stern words or simple time-outs. Cora now will respond appropriately when we ask her who's in charge ("Mummy and Daddy"), and a lot of the time, she does listen and obey.

But then, there are those other times! It can be very, very frustrating. At times she simply refuses to do what she's told, and would rather have lots of discipline, lots of corner time, lots of time alone in a dark, empty crib. During these times, she clearly does not accept our authority, which is maddening. We do know it's part of her development, and we just need to stay consistent, and that some day she will be a world-changer with her strength!

Some Coraisms lately: "I'm a girl. Johnny's a boy. Johnny's a big-girl boy." And, explaining why she rejected a particular dress for church: "Cuz... Cuz... it doesn't match my legs."
And whenever we drive past Ave and Johnny's house - which happens each and every time we leave or return to our home - Cora shouts, "Oooh, there's Ave's house!" She says it with the same thrilled and surprised inflection in her voice, like maybe the house would have moved while we weren't watching it.

Also, Cora continues to mix up her tenses, saying things like, "When I was older, I used to do that." She also uses that basic framework with her vivid imagination: "When I was Jonah, I was in the water and the fish, too." Or, "When I was Rabbit, I used to push Pooh Bear through the hole!"

Cora really likes Pooh Bear now. Lately, though she still loves playing with her trains, she asks for her Pooh Bear videos more often than her Thomas DVDs. I pointed out to Cora that her curtain, which my friend Elisabeth made as a baby gift, have little Pooh honey pots on them. The other day, during her nap, Cora shouted out, very excitedly, "Mummy!!! Mummy!!!! My pillow has Winnie the Pooh honey pots, too!!!!"
Her favorite ride at Disneyland, where Grandma and Grandpa have taken Cora a few times in recent months, is of course the Pooh Bear ride, and she can describe it in detail.

Cora likes hiding - nearly every time I get her out of bed, she hides under her blankie. When she hears Stace coming home, she'll often say, "Oh! Daddy's home, I've gotta hide!" She and Stace will play hide and seek in the house, and Cora is slowly catching on to the idea - that it's better to not shout your location when the seeker comes down the hall, for example.

Lastly, Cora likes sharing her love. She now often tells us she loves us, "soooo much!" and covers my face with kisses. Can't beat that!

Catching Up

Today we had our neighbor friend Johnny over to play, while his sister Ave was at preschool. Like I've said before, Cora plays so well with both kids, and today was no exception. I turned to see them both playing in Cora's house. Hmm, I thought, a rather girly thing to be playing...
...until I saw that they had all the trains lined up inside. This evening, I made a pot roast in the crock pot, and shared half the meal with Genia's family, since Genia is going out of town tomorrow. We're going to try out sharing meals with each other, making enough for both families, once a week or every other week.

We spent part of Thursday morning at Starbucks with about a dozen moms from my MOPS group, and a number of assorted children. Thankfully, Cora was a very good girl, listening well and playing nicely.
I was most pleased with how she played with this little girl, who just turned 2 but is the same size as Cora. Cora hasn't always played well with other girls her own age, but she and Ashlynn hit it off, holding hands and running back and forth.
Cora also was entertained by these two "big boys" and their big-boy toy. Aren't they cute, huddled together?

Lastly, we wanted to share our latest Freecycle score. ALL this track, with the trains, cars, houses and trees, was offered on Freecycle, and I was lucky enough to see the post quickly and promise a prompt pickup. We had been planning to get Cora some track for Christmas, but she didn't mind an early present!

Of course, she's been busy playing with it most of the time we're home, and the morning after we picked it up, her first words when I got her out of bed were, "Is my track still there?"

Fall Flowers

The mums are blooming!

Since we haven't had a lot of time or energy for the yard lately, it's been great to have these flowers look beautiful with little-to-no effort on our part.

While I was shooting the photo, this humming bird came up to drink from the Mexican sage. Sorry for the not-great quality, hope it is clear enough with my zooming in!

Also, to explain the lack of recent posts, our Internet has been spotty the last few days. Stace has pinpointed the problem to our router. Hopefully he can fix it, or perhaps we need to pony up for a new one.

First Pony Ride!

Cora had her first-ever pony ride this week! And I finally had my first experience driving OUT of SClarita since the morning sickness hit!

Some friends called Monday night and invited us to come along Tuesday to Griffith Park, where just past the Zoo and Gene Autry museum, there are pony rides and this cute train ride.

When I first told Cora about the pony ride, she declined. But when we got there, she was gung-ho, and very excited.

There are two types of pony rides to choose from, the one with the ponies and horses going around the circle, and another one where they walk freely down a track and back. Obviously, with Cora being a novice, we chose the more-controlled ride.

She wasn't a bit scared, and when she was done, she pointed to the big-kid pony rides and said she wanted a turn on those ones! (Not yet, my dear!)

Cora also really enjoyed the train ride, which was to be expected. It was sweet, with a tunnel (see her excited face as we approached) and a little Western town around a part of the track.

While by no means a rollercoaster, the ride did pick up a bit of speed on the hills, at least more than I expected.

After our rides, we all had lunch at the cafe at the Gene Autry museum. It was a great morning out - and when we got home, I needed a nap just as much as Cora!

While I felt good Tuesday - thankfully, with the driving - Wednesday wasn't so good. I was so grateful when Elissa invited us over to play with her and Harvey; it was just what Cora and I needed.

And on Thursday, I was blessed to participate in a consumer testing/focus group down in Beverly Hills on strollers. I made some money (yay!) and even won the "lottery" for $50 for those who arrive at least 15 minutes early. I plan to spend some of my earnings on a housecleaning - my house could use some elbow grease since I haven't had much grease to give since the morning sickness hit.