Christmas!

We celebrated our Christmas Day the day after, on Boxing Day.

It made more sense, since we were jetlagged on the actual day, and Dean, Jenny and Euan were able to spend the whole day and night with us on Boxing Day.

After a yummy roast turkey dinner, we opened a small mountain of presents. What a difference having two additional children makes to the present-opening fun! (Euan was there last year, but only a week old!)

In the morning, Cora was happy that Santa/Father Christmas brought her the Ariel doll she had asked for. When she saw the still-wrapped box, she said, "Oh, there's my Ariel doll."

She and Stace then walked up - well, Stace walked and pulled Cora on the sled - to his Nan's place. Cora entertained them by playing the organ.

Oh, and to update the sleeping situation - Cora is fully adjusted to the time difference after only one night. It's so much easier now that she's old enough to understand what the time difference means!

Violet on the other hand, is napping well but having trouble falling asleep for bed. And she continues to wake up at 2 and stay awake until 4. This morning, at least, we all slept from 4 until 10, so we got a good amount of sleep in the end. She is full of happy energy when she is up in the night, bouncing all over our bed and making cute noise, looking over at Cora in hopes of waking her up.

A terrific trip!

We arrived in England on Christmas Eve, and I am still amazed at how well our travel went.

I'm not even talking about how well it went relative to the amount of snow and havoc at Heathrow, or the icy, snowy roads connecting Somerset to London, in the days before our arrival.

I'm talking about how very well behaved our two little girls were on the long flight and long drive home to Martock.

Violet never made one cry. She played in our laps, nursed, ate food, and slept soundly. When it was time to try to put her to bed, I just swaddled her, gave her the pacifier and strapped her into the bassinet. She went to sleep soon after, and stayed asleep until the cabin lights came on shortly before we landed. Wow. What a difference between this flight and our flights with Cora for her first Christmas.

Cora also was excellent. She was pleasant and excited about going to visit Nan and Pop. She watched TV for several hours and then kind of dozed for a couple of hours. That allowed Stace and me to at least close our eyes for a while. We both felt better upon arrival than we normally do.

It was great to see Sue, Gord, Dean, Jenny and Euan again - Euan the 1-year-old! He and Violet had fun playing together when we got back to Martock.

Our first night, both girls went to sleep easily between 8:30 and 9 p.m. Violet woke up around 2 because of the jet lag, and wasn't sleepy. Cora also woke up around 3. Violet went back to sleep around 5, but Cora just couldn't stay quiet in her bed for any longer, so we went downstairs for an early breakfast.

You can't blame the girls for their bodies' confusion with the time difference. Hopefully tonight will go better.
Our Christmas Day has been beautiful - bright sun shining brightly off loads of snow. We had a roast beef dinner with Stacey's Nan. We'll do Christmas big style on Sunday, when we hopefully will all be a bit better rested.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

California Christmas

A busy week for us, as I post this update from England... To recap, we celebrated Christmas in California, it rained and poured, and the Rosens descended!

Bill, Patty and Alison and William left the soggy Northwest for Southern California, and forgot to leave the rain at home. We had six days of rain before the sun finally shone on Thursday.

We took advantage of a break Tuesday night and walked the amazing Wakefield Court Christmas light display.

On Wednesday night we had our California family Christmas.

Aunt Patty took over our kitchen and turned out a lovely ham and scalloped potato dinner, as we hosted their family; ours; Grandma, Grandpa and Melanie; and my cousin Staci and her family.

Cora enjoyed her dinner chatting with Staci's son Zack.

We then had a fun White Elephant gift exchange - my dad was duly gracious when he opened his Asian head thing.

And when we opened our real gifts, Cora was thrilled with her new talking Jessie doll from Auntie Mel.

(Unlike last Christmas, when she ungraciously dropped her new Woody doll while pronouncing, "Don't like him.")

Then, Christmas crackers and English Christmas pudding. Even in California, we bring in Stacey's traditions.

It was a great evening - well, at least, Stace and I had fun!

Zoo Day

While I listen to the rain fall for the fifth straight day, with the worst yet to come, I thought I'd take a (short) trip down memory lane to days of better weather and fun, outdoor activities.

Days like warm, gorgeous Monday last week, when we went to the zoo with Juliana, Daryl, Maya and baby Natalia.

We went after my friend Heather alerted us to a special opening of a new elephant exhibit, for zoo members only. We caught up with Heather and Libi, who had fun entertaining Violet.

The exhibit is really special, and I look forward to seeing it again with Stace.

We all had lunch at the zoo playground, and the girls had a lot of fun together. Violet and Natalia enjoyed their day out, too!

I forgot my camera, but thankfully Juliana shared her photos with me.

Class Christmas Party

Cora is having a few weeks off from school, and her last day featured a Christmas party.

Daddy got to help out in class and take some photos.

At top we have Cora with her little friend Matthew. They get along so well!

Then, a photo of Cora enjoying the nice food spread the parents all brought in.

And, a class photo. Cora still loves school, and Miss Diane tells us that Cora is very well-behaved and engaged during class.

In the little video here, you can hear a bit of Cora singing loudly.

Some random shots from the craziness of the past week...
On Wednesday night, Stace and I had an official date - a nice dinner (rack of lamb and surf and turf!) and the local theater's presentation of A Christmas Carol. The show was enjoyable, the company superb, but I must admit, the best part for me was coming home to both girls quietly in bed!

I wasn't sure how it would go with Violet, but she was sound asleep, after my mom gave her a bottle our bedtime/naptime routine of swaddling/pacifier/white noise. Since Cora refused to take a bottle when she hit 3 months old, I always put her to bed. We did a later bedtime with Cora, more like 9ish then 8ish, so we could still go out to dinner now and again. But still, when we got home, I was back into "mom mode." It was so nice to come home Wednesday and be DONE after kissing Cora goodnight!

Auntie Mel came over one morning to help Cora decorate a gingerbread cake-shaped house. When I tried to get them to pose for a photo, Cora put a book in front of her face. Melanie took it, causing Cora to fall across her while reaching for it - right into the icing.

We went to Linda and Steve's house one evening, and Bradley, Casey's husband, taught her how to spin a basketball on a pencil. It was quite impressive. Bradley is a big basketball fan.

More playing

Violet is growing so quickly! This morning I found her pulling herself up to standing, to reach toys on the train table.

She is very good at playing, and, like Cora, happy to play on her own.

It is great fun to watch she and Cora play "together" - as in, play next to each other.

Last weekend we went to our friend Keith and Tracey's house for a Christmas party, and they pulled out their grandson's cars. That kept our girls happily busy while Stace and I enjoyed adult conversation.

Cora makes up games and plays in an imaginative 3-year-old way, while Violet will pick up cars (or Little People), bang them together, put them down, pick them up, etc.

Vi definitely loves playing with all of Cora's Little People toys and playsets. Lucky second child - so many cool toys to play with!

Tuesday night

This week, our Chick-Fil-A had a family Christmas party, with face-painting (hand painting, in our case), ornament-making and a bouncer out front.

You can see Cora's writing on her ornament for Nan and Pop - it is proudly hanging on the restaurant's tree.

Cora and Violet both loved the bouncer - Violet was happy bouncing on the entrance rather than inside with the big kids.

After dinner, we all walked around outside the mall and posed like the silly people we are.

Cute baby, Cora in the leaves

We start today's post with some adorable (I think) photos of our Violet following Stroller Strides on Thursday. It was a gorgeous morning, and my happy little girl enjoyed finding leaves and grass.

I saved these photos to try to post them together with video of three cute things she's been doing a lot lately.
Of course, I then failed to adequately capture these things on video, so I should have just posted the photos last week.

The three things are a) blowing raspberries, b) curling her tongue and saying "oooohh oooh" like a monkey (third photo shows the face), and c) scrunching up her face and breathing quick, so it sounds like "he he he." That's in the last photo of the post, and basically, she's doing the funny face our friend Andy taught Cora when she was 8 months old.

You can also see here that Vi has been practicing standing on her own, with her hands on the ground. I guess she figures she's conquered crawling and sitting up from the lying down position. She also likes to climb to standing when she's next to a stool or small box.

For the past week or so, she's been working on her first tooth, too. You can see it when the light is right, so it's popped through, but isn't super visible yet. It hasn't seemed to give her any trouble yet, and I only discovered it because I periodically check her gums to see if one is coming!

The next photos are from Saturday morning. We all went to Cora's soccer class, and walked from the park to Granary Square for a coffee. On the way back, Cora wanted me to carry her, so I used the Hiphugger carrier that I often use for Violet. It still works for Cora, and she thought it was funny to be in a baby carrier.

On our way back, we found a huge pile of leaves. It's been pretty windy lately, so all the beautiful fall leaves fell and swirled themselves into a deep pile. A pile perfect for wading through and then collapsing into.

Our Family

Autumn 2010

Getting ready, seeing Santa!

It's Christmas time!

Our girls are enjoying opening a pocket each night on their beautiful Advent calendars. Thanks, Nan and Pop, for sending such lovely treats for them to discover!

Here you see Violet modeling the new headband she drew out of one of the pockets.

On Friday we had Genia and the kids over to decorate Christmas cookies and a gingerbread house to help get us in the spirit. And on Saturday we decorated the inside of the house and the tree.

Also Saturday, we visited with Mr. Claus himself, when he visited my MOPS group.

It was our best visit with Santa yet.

On Year One, Cora was 10 months old and just old enough to NOT like Santa. We got some photos, but she bore the "I'm going to cry" face.

The next year, Cora wouldn't pose with him without me and Stace in the photo too, and she wasn't anywhere near the Red-Suited One. Last year we didn't manage a photo with him, thanks to an unfortunate chain of events.

By next year, I wouldn't be surprised if Violet is scared of Santa. So, we had this one year to get it right. No smiles from Vi, but she didn't cry, either.

Cora was very quiet and demure, and asked for a particular Ariel doll we spotted at Kohls the other day. I think I need to get busy on that front!

Cora woke up Saturday night/early Sunday morning with a pretty decent fever and headache bad enough to make her sob, so our Sunday was spent at home. Her fever went away with meds, but kept returning, so we didn't make it out to the Christmas tree lighting at Henry Mayo hospital, per our family tradition.

We took her in to the doctor today, and she has a virus. They checked her for the flu, and that came back negative. Her fever was gone most of today, but at bedtime she had a mild fever again. No Terrific Tots on Tuesday for Cora, which will be a disappointment for her.

If nothing else, this little cold has reminded Stace and me to appreciate how very healthy our girls are! I can count on a couple of fingers the number of times Cora has been to the doctor because of illness. It also makes me re-appreciate being able to stay home with them. This little cold would be such a bigger problem if I worked outside the home.