Classic Car Sunday

On Sunday, while Paula looked after Cora and Violet, Bill, Patty, Lisa and I visited the Petersen Motor Museum in Hollywood.
Not only is the Petersen a great place to check out stunning cars, the last Sunday of the month is the drive-in breakfast. It's a chance for classic car owners to bring along their cars, park them on the roof to be admired by the public and get free parking and two-for-one entry into the museum. This month was the turn of the British cars. There was everything from Minis the E-Types. There was a nice collection of Austin "big" Healeys. Unfortunately there were no MGBs.

The museum was great. As well as cars from every era, there are also street scenes, like the car parts shop above. There was a 1950s petrol station and a 1930s car dealer, complete with beautiful examples of cars from the decade.

 This Indian motorbike, once owned by a Mr Steve McQueen, was part of a small collection on show. I've read that there are many more cars and bikes stored in a vault underneath the museum and car park that get rotated every few months or so.

 There was a good collection of cars from the era when fins were all the rage. The then "new" jet age inspired car designers of the day to incorporate rear lights that looked like after burners and wing-like fins onto heavily chromed cars of the 60s.

We all popped into a local diner for a filling lunch before heading back to the museum to look around the last of the three floors.
I think I'll be going back to this place.Maybe I'll take the MG soon and see what other great cars they have to display.

Friendly Friday

 Friday was a fun day. After spending time with Cora in her class and watching her get her awards, she got out at noon. I love her Friday schedule!

We had her friend Vivan over for lunch, and the girls had a great time playing "Friends Lego" together while her mom Elaine and I chatted.

 On Friday evening, we went to Daryl and Juliana's house for dinner. We all had a great time together, as always.

The girls are all growing up together so nicely. It was lovely for we grownups to have adult time together while the big girls played in Maya's room, and the little girls played in Natalia's room.

It made me smile to see Cora and Maya dressed up; Cora doesn't dress up often anymore, and is very conscious of not doing "baby" things.

 The girls all got on this couch for a photo nearly three years ago, with a couple of 3-year-olds and two babies. This time they wouldn't stay put long enough for a picture, but you can see that Violet and Natalia were also dipping their toes into the dressing-up game.

After all the girls got into their jammies, a concert broke out!

We ended up staying out until after 11 p.m.! For the first time in forever, both girls fell asleep in the car and stayed sleeping when we carried them in.

Violet then took naps for the next few afternoons, a nice change from her recent pattern.

On Thursday night I went out with some of my school mommy friends, while Stace and the girls created an intricate castle world.

Clever girl

I was happy to get to volunteer in Cora's class on Friday, my first opportunity to do so this school year.
Cora has settled in very well, and hasn't minded the longer school day or not having lunch with me and Violet.

Her teacher, Mrs. Vasquez, told me that Cora is like her assistant teacher, always asking to help out in any way she can. While I was in class, she was chosen to watch her classmates during a lesson and give a penny reward to the student who listened most attentively.

Later, I helped with the class "store," where once a month the students can spend those pennies (or nickels, dimes and quarters) on little trinkets.

 Later on Friday, all the parents were invited in for the first grade-level assembly of the year, when various first-graders were given awards.

Cora was selected to receive a "Good Listening" award, and she also got her prize for being a "Clever Cookie" and learning all her first-grade sight words.





We all are so proud of you, Cora! Great job listening and reading!
 Mrs. Vasquez baked the cookies herself.

Cora's favorite classmate Sophia also received the listening and clever cookie awards.

Raging Waters Fun

 Summer must be officially over now - we've been to my dad's union party at a water park.

On Sunday, dad's deputy union put on a great day at Raging Waters, a water park about an hour east of us. Stace and I have always gone when the party was held at Hurricane Harbor, but this was our first time making the big drive. My parents went last year and promised it would be worth it.

It was! Much as we love Hurricane Harbor (and the 5-minute drive home), Raging Waters was bigger and cleaner. We enjoyed free admission and free food - hot dogs, hamburgers, chicken, beer and margaritas, and ice cream.

 After picking up lunch, we made our camp on the grass under one of the many water slides.

Then we headed over to the children's play area. Eventually, Violet surprisingly worked up the courage to go on the red tunnel slide in the volcano behind her. She didn't like it, but she did it!

 Violet loved the smaller slides better, going up and down them over and over again.

 Cora enjoyed the smaller slides, and the bigger ones too; she, Stace and my dad did the big one where you race lying down on mats, and she, Stace and my mom had fun on the family raft.

To cap off the day, Stace did this surfing attraction. He had a lot of fun with this, and we had fun cheering him on.

The only downsides to our day were that Cora was stung by a bee (but handled it much better than in the past) and Violet melted down about sharing Dipping Dots ice cream with her sister. But those were two minor problems at the end of a long, fun day. We look forward to doing it all again next year!

Week it the life of Skippy

 On the morning after Violet's first Pioneer Club, she had gymnastics class with Liana. I suggested we bring Skippy, the club mascot she was lucky enough to bring home, and she was excited: "Yes! Skippy can come and have an adventure!"
Here, Skippy wanted to check out the gymnastics center while the girls show off their ribbons.

 Over the weekend, Skippy came with Violet to the pool. He loves swimming, especially when it's 100 degrees!

 Skippy also came with us to school Monday, and enjoyed our morning walk.

 Skippy even went to Terrific Tots Monday, hanging out in Violet's lunch bag.

 On Tuesday, he came with us to our little park for a little pre-lunch swinging session.

And on Tuesday night, Skippy sneaked a lick of Violet's ice cream when we went out for dessert. Naughty boy!

Homeschool

 Here is Violet's first semi-official school photo.

Off and on for the last 5 days, she's been attending Homeschool, with Miss Cora as her teacher.

This was all Cora's idea; she set up a school one afternoon in the hallway, and David and Chris came over to help. Later, Cora moved her school into the playroom. She set up two desks (AKA the cardboard houses for Safari and Muffin) and a reading area, and put up a calendar and number chart.

Violet took right to this, and has been a very willing pupil.

 Cora taught Violet about the seasons, in a very scholarly manner: "Violet, what comes first? Winter, or summer?"

 Cora also tried to teach Violet about writing letters, after asking me to get her a dry-erase board and marker.

 Cora really relished reading to Violet before her naptimes over the weekend.

 We had been promising to take Cora ice-skating since she got a free entry from the library over the summer. This Sunday, she and I sneaked away for a few hours of fun.

I love doing things like this with my girl, when we're able to. She always impresses me on the rink - she's careful and cautious at the start, and builds to skating quite well, with decent speed. She falls quite a bit, but always gets right back up without any tears or whining.

While we were out, Stace worked on his MG while encouraging Violet to return to her nap. Sadly she hasn't fallen asleep once since we moved her to her toddler bed (though she has been doing much better at night, falling asleep by 8:30 most nights).

Stace has done quite a bit of work on the MG over the past month. He's focusing on some minor body work at the moment, and cleaning up the wheels.

On Sunday evening, we Skyped with the Roberts for the first time. It was great seeing their beautiful new house and huge green back yard. The kids really enjoyed talking to each other face to face, too.

Church Fun

 Our church again spearheaded the SCV Million Meals event this weekend, where hundreds of volunteers packaged thousands of meals for hungry children worldwide. While we waited for our turn to help with the bags of "chicken, spice, lentils, rice," the girls decorated the boxes the meals will be sent in, through relief organization Children of the Nations.

 On Sunday, Valencia Methodist hosted a block party, with free hot dogs, cupcakes and slushies, water slides and face painting. Since we do Pioneer Clubs, Vacation Bible School and the moms' group at this church, we have lots of friends there. Cora and Lucas had fun on the slides, of course, as did Liana and Violet.

 Speaking of Pioneer Clubs, it started up again this week, as did the moms' group. Violet is a Skipper this year! Our friend Morgan is her teacher, and I know she will have a great year. Walking in from the parking long, she announced, "I love church! I love learning about Jesus."
She was the lucky girl chosen to take home mascot Skippy for the first week. Skippy had trouble keeping his tongue to himself!

 Violet was excited to be on stage for the singing and dancing, and rushed to find Cora.

See Cora's vest? She's moved up and is a Voyager this year. We were glad to discover she is in the same class as her friend Talitha, with two mom/teachers in charge of the class who we know and like.

Growing up

Violet is officially a preschooler. She had her first day at Terrific Tots with Ms. Diane on Monday, with 17 new 3-year-old friends.

She was a little nervous in the morning before we went, but as soon as we got to the classroom she jumped right in, playing with toys. Later she said that the art projects were her favorite part of class.

I was certainly flashing back to Cora's days in Tots, first when I was still pregnant with Violet, and later with tiny baby Vi.

And really, it wouldn't do for a preschooler to still sleep in a crib, now would it?

On Saturday, we rearranged the garage and brought down the toddler bed. After a good wash, Cora and Violet moved the pieces into the house and moved the crib out of the way. (Yes, Cora and Violet moved the crib out of the way, before we even knew what they were doing!)

For Violet's first night in her big-girl bed, Cora asked to have a sleepover in her room. Violet had been sleeping on Cora's trundle for the previous several nights while Stace and I were away, so they must have really enjoyed sharing a room.

 We've been reading stories in Violet's room at night, too.

Cora fell asleep long before Violet, who has been loving her newfound freedom. Sadly, this also means she hasn't slept during naptime since the crib left her room.

Violet likes her new bed, though she actually said she was sad to say good-bye to her crib. As were her parents!

(And not just for sentimentality - let's just say it will be good when the novelty of "no bars" wears off and Violet stays in bed after lights-out!)

Now, for a couple of Violetisms...

Violet added a meerkat to her Beanie Baby "clips" collection, these cute stuffed toys sold at CVS that she admires every time we shop there.
We discussed new names, since its given name, Rebel, wasn't that appealing: Millie, like her "Millie the Meerkat" book, or maybe Molly.
Not good enough.
"That's a weird name. His name is Haleela," she said, using a classic created by Cora when she was three.

And Cora and Violet were talking about something or other, and Cora laughed at something Violet said.
"Stop laughing," Violet told her.
"But you're so funny," Cora protested.
"I'm not so cute. I'm not a bunny," Violet responded with a sulk.