More from the garden

For those of you who might like a more detailed look at our back yard, we've taken some photos showing the spring blooms.

We are thrilled with how our yard looks - when we bought the home, since it was empty so long, and it was late fall/almost winter, everything looked drab and the weeds were growing like crazy. Now that the weeds are pretty well cleared out - that's an ongoing chore of course - we see so many plants blooming.

For the amount of money we've spent so far on flowers (not much), it all looks surprisingly lovely!

Our first rose in the back planters - we have this pink cabbage rose, and a red rose bush in the back, and six red rose bushes in the front. They are all flowering now, too.

This is taken from a spot right in front of our bedroom sliding door. At the moment, following Stacey's work over the weekend, there are more mums in the planter directly in front, next to the yellow-flowering bush.

From the same spot, towards the rest of the yard.

From the corner in front of that yellow-flowering bush. The white sweet alyssum is growing like a weed, which is great news as far as I'm concerned.

And the rest of the yard. Stace loves kicking the football (soccer) in the grass. The structure in the bed is what Stace built to protect the edible garden from the squirrels - and possums. Our neighbor tells me that the opossums are just as much of a problem eating their tomatoes each summer as the squirrels! And we didn't even know we had opossums in our neighborhood! I have seen a skunk, though. We also see hawks and turkey vultures all the time, and lots of other pretty birds. The big trees over our yard drop a ton of leaves to rake, but they also bring in a lot of nice wildlife.

Not everything in our yard has gone swimmingly. See the little yellow petals on the ground? Those would be from the single iris bloom I was so excited to see. The bud was about to open, and I could just make out that it was going to be yellow, when Cora used some of her backyard time to strip it to pieces. Of all the flowers, she had to pick the one that blooms once a year, and was to be the only iris we would have had! I'm hoping beyond hope that it will put out another bud.

First fruit

It was the first WARM weekend of the year, and we spent it outside doing gardening-activities.

On Saturday, Santa Clarita hosted an Arbor Day and Earth Day festival at Central Park, where we have our Concerts in the Park in the summer.
In the top photo, Cora and I are checking out our new ladybug friends, given out by city people to children. We took them home and put them on our roses.
For the first half of our time at the park, Cora pushed around her little stroller, with my old Cabbage Patch doll. It's fun seeing her share my doll, which I was so thrilled to get when I was six.

We then went to the plant nursery and bought our vegetable plants - four tomato plants, a six-pack of zucchini (courgettes) and a bell pepper.

We also bought the necessities for Stace's next project. Our yard has a raised bed around the perimeter, surrounding a large patio and a side grassy area. Right next to the back of the house, beside our sliding glass door and the spare bedroom, is a small dirt patch and the air conditioner. The sprinklers don't hit this area, so we have been (when we remembered) hand-watering a few mums and ignoring a number of weeds.
Stace transplanted the mums, dug up the weeds and smoothed the dirt down. He then laid down black plastic sheeting and mulch/bark, for a neat and tidy look.

We've moved our decorative pots to the patch now, and hope to get a few more. I also would like to put in a decorative storage bench, to keep the small gardening tools so I don't have to walk through the house to the garage, where we now store them.

No photo of this, but during the week Stace also set up a new composting bin.

The bottom photos show the vegetable garden, and the first handful of strawberries we enjoyed eating. Yum!

In other house news, on Friday we had a local company come out to measure our patio doors, for replacement! This is very exciting to us. Our current doors - one in the living room and one in our bedroom - are inoperable, and old ugly metal. It will be fantastic to have nice pretty new ones, and the bonus of being able to open and close them, and get fresh air in our bedroom!

But, you said a little piece!

Here's Cora showing off some chic new "footwear," the colored rings from her stacking toy.

She was quite impressed with herself, and walked around on tiptoes with the rings on for a few minutes. She also is modeling the Easter hat that she gave up in favor of the fireman's hat on Sunday.

Next, a couple of photos from an Easter party we attended on Saturday at the home of one of Stacey's coworkers. They had a jumper out front, which Cora loved, and some Easter egg games. Cora is attempting to carry an egg on a spoon, and then she and I are trying some fresh cotton candy.

The next two photos are from Easter Sunday, when Cora was chatting to Stacey's Nan. Usually, Cora isn't very enthusiastic about talking on the phone. She is slow to warm up to people in person, and on the phone she is very likely to yell "No!" and turn away.

However, the last two times Stace and his Nan have spoken, Cora has been wonderfully communicative. She takes the phone and wanders around with it, chattering away. On this occasion, she also let Mary have a word with Somer.

I'll share a cute Cora story. I was preparing two chickens for the oven last week, so my hands were very messy. Cora needed her nose wiped - she's cutting her back molars now, so maybe that's why. I suggested she go to the bathroom and get some tissue to wipe her nose. I should have guessed what was to happen next - she brings to me a ton of tissue - actually, the whole roll, which she's unraveled as she's dragged it along behind her. The whole "tearing the tissue off" concept hadn't sunk in, apparently. I should have taken a photo of the pile, but I was a little too aggravated at the situation.

Fast forward to the next day. She again needs her nose wiped, so this time I carefully instruct her that she is to go tear off a very little piece of toilet paper. So she tromps away - and brings back a half-inch-by-half-inch fragment. Stace and I could hardly stop laughing.

On the potty front, Cora's streak stretched to five days before I ended up changing a dirty diaper. The last few days, she's been inconsistent with asking to use the potty. But, in general, she definitely gets the idea.

On the other hand, we've had several instances of bedtime or naptime problems because she wants to stay on the potty, or return to the potty, rather than go to or stay in bed.

Some photos from Easter Sunday...

Our church had a bunch of emergency vehicles on hand to entertain the kids - because kind of like the firemen and sheriff's deputies, Jesus saves!

When we picked up Cora she was proudly wearing her fire helmet instead of her pretty green eyelet lace hat.
And she even shared the hat with her Mummy.

When we got home, we spoke with Nan and Pop in England, and Cora was very happy to open her Easter chocolates. We were happy to eat them, too!

Later, after nap, Grandma, Grandpa and Auntie Melanie came over and Cora enjoyed her little Pooh Easter book and bubble-blowing machine.

We had a nice evening, with turkey, spinach salad, asparagus, roast potatoes and a strawberry cake for dessert.

Egg Hunt

Here's Cora loving her Easter Egg hunt at the park following Stroller Strides on Friday! She loves carrying her basket around the house, playing with her eggs. She talks about it too: "Eggs? Put eggs in basket." Etc.

Happy Easter, everyone!

Easter Fun

We had Elissa and Harvey over this week to decorate eggs and make and decorate cookies for Easter.
First, the two friends did a great job sharing the "Berry Farm" coloring book we were given at Underwood Farm on Monday.

Then, we colored our eggs and decorated the cookies.

The kids had a lot of fun with it, and it was a lot more enjoyable doing it with two adults than if I had done it with Cora on my own.

In other Cora news, I am very pleased to report that today was the third day in a row that our 26-month-old asked to use the potty, and was successful after sitting down! We've had the potty out for probably six months now, and have been encouraging her to let us know when she needed it. Though she has used it quite a few times in the last few months, it was always when we urged her to sit on it. This week marks a change, with her telling me beforehand that she needed it.

Harvey and Cora did lots of playing while they were together, too.

Strawberry picking!

Cora and I headed back to Underwood Family Farm in Moorpark on Monday, for our MOPS group's annual strawberry picking trip.
Cora had been looking forward to this trip for over a week, asking me throughout the last week about going to "pick staw-beahs."
It was another example of the fun things we can do together now that she is getting older.

She loved the wagon ride, and kept talking about the "tac-tor" pulling the wagon. ("I go tac-tor ride! I pick staw-beahs! I go farm!") It was all very exciting.

In the photo of Cora showing off our strawberries, she is smiling her "smile for the camera" smile; it's not a grimace.

Cora again loved all the other activities Underwood offers. She admired the animals, climbed the hay bales and wooden train, and played in the shaded playground area. I think that, next to the wagon ride, her favorite part of the day was playing in the sand pit. She loves playing in the sand.

On the way home, we stopped at the Fresh and Easy market in Moorpark. The new chain is owned by British grocery giant Tesco, and stocks some English things that are hard to find here. It's a treat for Stace to pick up some proper English bacon, especially for "only" $4, since the same type of bacon at a British import store will run twice that.
Cora fell asleep on the way home, and it's about an hour to Moorpark. Lucky for me, she stayed asleep when we got home for more than an hour, so I was able to get some things done. I made this baked three-cheese spaghetti meal, which was delicious. I'm so glad I doubled the recipe and have an extra dinner in the freezer for another night.
Cora has been very polite to me lately. She frequently says "excuse me," ("stew me!") and thank you.

She'll thank me for lots of things that I wouldn't expect: I was scrubbing the bathroom floor Tuesday and she was sitting on the floor, tearing a box apart.
I picked up her foot and moved her over, so I could clean where she was sitting. She said, "Thanks, Mummy!"
I responded, "You're welcome, Cora. Thanks for what?"
"Thanks for moving foot!" was her reply. Um, of course!
I've started to say "God bless you" to Cora when she says "Excuse me" after she sneezes or coughs. Up until this morning, I don't think she got it - she would keep repeating "excuse me" until I would also say, "you're excused." But this morning, she started saying, "God bless you" after I would say it, when she would sneeze/cough. There is just so much to learn!
She has learned something very important (to me at least) - that her Auntie Melanie works at Starbucks. On the computer, the Starbucks logo popped up as an advertisement, and she saw it and shouted, "Auntie Melly!" And yesterday, we were in Starbucks getting a drink, and she was thinking very hard, and said that we were in Auntie Melly's house.

Final window, installed!

This time, we're showing some before and afters.
Well, before, DURING and after...

This window looks so great, and I'm so proud of my super-smart husband for turning into a window-installer-extraordinaire! He really can do anything!

First play class

Cora and I started taking our first play-and-learning class since she was a little baby - it's kind of a pre-preschool. We had a great time and are looking forward to our next class, which is run by the city with a very nice, experienced teacher.
To start with, the kids have open play time, top photo. Then there is circle time with a story and songs - we go around say hello to each child, by name, and (no surprise) when we got to Cora's turn, she fussed when everyone said hello to her. Other than that though, she did very well and really liked all the activities.
Next up, we did crafts - Cora decorated a paper with her name on it, by which she will put her art projects each week.
She also decorated a paper "egg," by squeezing out paint onto the egg within a box, and then rolling a golf ball around to spread the paint. She also decorated an Easter Bunny picture.
Then came snack time, outside play (at one of our favorite nearby parks, where the class is held), and a final song back inside.
The last photos show Cora waiting to get her good-bye sticker, and showing off the stickers.

We've had a nice week. On Thursday, I tried out a pilates class and loved it, though I'm still sore a day and a half later! It was held at the instructor's house, and though it's not set up for tiny children, I was amazed at how well-behaved Cora was. She was so good, I think we'll try to go occasionally.
Cora likes to tell us little stories - she likes to recount our day at Disneyland, and our day at the beach with Dean and Jenny. Yesterday we were in the car, and she randomly said, "Pooh Bear ride fun!" I agreed, and she then started talking about what else she saw and liked at Disneyland. And today, she told me (again, pretty randomly) about the sea, and the cold water, and how she ran away (from the cold water once it touched her feet), and how she showed her shoe to the baby (a little tot who came up to us to share Cora's toys).