Fare well to William!

Cora's first best mate, William, moved up to Northern California last week, so I thought I'd share some sweet photos of them over the past month. We will miss William, Christy and Mitch!

The dynamic duo shared the cart at Costco when we went at the end of February. Christy and I met in our Gymboree class last summer, when Cora was four months and William was two months.

They shared toys at William's house, and William helped show Cora how to get around. William is much more physical than Cora, and started walking at 10 months old. Christy tells us he is loving walking around his new back yard, pretending to water the plants.
Generally, when Cora and I would visit Christy and William, Cora would have a FANTASTIC time for about an hour, and then wear herself out and become cranky. Cora is much more melodramatic than the even-keel William.
On Easter weekend, we had grand plans to take a family bike ride with William and his parents. We got the babies all settled and started off, but William wasn't happy in the trailer. He didn't get happier as we rode, so we went back home and decided to walk to brunch instead. We walked to the Egg Plantation and had a great breakfast.

The walk and breakfast did the babies in!

Outdoor fun

On Friday, with Stacey blessed with the day off, we took a nice family bike ride with Cora riding in her trailer. After stopping at the park, where Cora played in the sand and practiced her walking (see video below), we continued on to Panera Bakery for lunch,where Cora hammed it up with her daddy's hat and her mama's sunglasses.
I wrapped up some of our leftovers, and we got back on the road. When we checked on Cora a mile or so down the road, we found that she wasn't quite finished with her lunch. She had dug through my bag and taken out the cream cheese to snack on. She was reading her doggy book at the same time - or was she using her doggy book to hide what she was doing? Hmmmm.
Sadly, Cora got an upset stomach on the way to lunch and shortly before we got home, and was in quite a mess. She looked pretty miserable too. She recovered quickly, thankfully, and was in fine spirits once we got her upstairs and cleaned up. That was the first time she's ever thrown up.

The week is going well. On Wednesday, we picked Stace up from work and went to Vasquez Rocks, where we had a nice pre-dinner hike.

Easter Sunday

Cora enjoyed her second Easter Sunday. We went to Real Life Church in the morning, where Cora played with some animals in the special petting zoo. She was very gentle to the bunnies, though she did try to crawl over one to get to another one. She wasn't very interested in trying to pet the goats, ducks or chickens, however. She tried to feed the bunnies carrots, but they must have been stuffed by previous carrot-feeders all morning long.
In the afternoon, after a nap, we spoke to Nan, Pop, Dean and Jenny on the Web cam. Cora entertained us by sorting out her diaper covers, similar to the sorting she did in the blog post below this one. In the evening, we went to Grandma and Grandpa's house, where we had a nice steak dinner to celebrate both the Resurrection and my dad's birthday last week. Stace and my dad watched the Chelsea game, while Cora had her first splash-time in the spa with her auntie, while my mom and I finished making dinner. Cora entertained us during dinner by dancing. For dessert, we had chocolate-dipped strawberries and pineapple-upside-down cake I made earlier in the day. The pineapple cake was a specialty of my grandma's.
The last photo here is from the Stroller Strides Easter Egg hunt on Good Friday. Since Stace was off on Good Friday, Cora and I didn't go to Stroller Strides, but instead we rode our bikes to the meeting location to catch the tail end of the egg hunt. Cora is enjoying the little graham crackers that were inside the egg.
Don't forget, you can make any photo bigger by clicking it.
More on our weekend events, coming soon!

More Somer 'n Cora

Somer seems to like Cora more and more, and Cora is getting better about petting her gently, as we keep reminding her. This morning, I let Cora play with diapers fresh out of the dryer and Somer emerged from our bedroom and lay down right next to Cora. The cat could have chosen to hang out next to me, or jumped onto the chair or the spare bed. But no, she lay next to Cora and tolerated her petting. In the video clip, Cora was done petting Somer, but you can see her sorting out her diapers.
Cora is enjoying practicing walking these days, along with pushing her ride-on toys around the room. She doesn't push them while walking, however, but up on her knees. It's pretty funny to watch, and Cora is very proud of herself. She gets the biggest smile on her face while "motoring" around the room.
This afternoon, she occupied herself for quite awhile with her animal puzzle pieces. She played with them while knelt in front of her little chair in her room, and was having a great time. When it was time to get ready to go, and I picked her up, she threw a fit! She was not ready to stop her little game.

Zoo trip

We had a great family day Sunday at the Santa Barbara Zoo, with perfect weather. Cora was in a great mood and really enjoyed pointing out all the animals. She especially liked the birds, from the colorful tropical birds to the crows on the paths. This was our first time at a zoo since our trip in April to the Los Angeles Zoo with the Partridges.
The zoo's setting is gorgeous, with views of the mountains and the ocean and sand. My grandparents used to live very nearby, and I remember waking up to the sound of lions roaring.

Cora this weekend has started saying a new word, and it's one that melts our hearts: when we give her a bit of food, she has started saying "Thank you." This morning at Stroller Strides, I gave her some cheerios and another mom heard her say it and commented on it.
She also says "nana" for food, especially bananas, of course, and she seems to say "mummum" for me. Her favorite word right now is "sadu," which she says often, though we don't quite know what she means.

Catching up with photos

I present to you, dear reader, and especially for Chelsea, photos!

Cora was glad to see her daddy when he returned from a four-day trip to Montreal for work
this week. He brought her a moose as a coming-home gift. Stace got to experience real winter
on his trip - driving through lots of snow, as the city had 13 feet of snow and is approaching
its record for the most snow in a season.

We stayed busy while Stace was gone. Christy and William came over to play one afternoon.

They brought finger paints.

A photo of the garage sale last weekend.

Before Stace took his trip, we had tickets to see the L.A. Clippers basketball game.

In other news, on Friday Cora had fun taking part in filming for a local producer's project for an infant-stimulation video series. A friend from Stroller Strides worked in the entertainment industry and is friends with the producer, and she invited us to come along. We had a lot of fun (and were fed really well) and we're looking forward to seeing the finished product (a pilot) when it's done. And even though she had such a long day, Cora did very well Friday at a nice dinner for my sister's 20th birthday. We went to an Italian restaurant near Universal Studios, and sitting near us were the actors William H. Macy and Felicity Huffman, with their daughter, who was also celebrating a birthday.

Tidbits

Well, with apologies to my regulars, I again am blogging without photos. The computer isn't recognizing the camera since Stace installed some stuff on it over the weekend.
Anyway, Cora is now doing much better. Christy and William came over to play today, and Cora was such a pleasant baby. What a change from last week! They again had a great time together. Christy brought finger paints so I could get Cora's handprint in her new handprint book. The getting ready and the cleaning up took a lot longer than the actual finger-painting - gotta love babies' attention spans.

Cora has a new - and extremely cute - habit. She is enjoying blowing her nose, or trying/pretending to. When she had her stuffy nose a month ago, Stace was diligent with showing her how to blow into the tissue. Yesterday, she found the toilet paper roll in the bathroom (yeah, uh oh), and pulled off a bit before I rescued the paper. She put the fragment up to her nose and blew! Today, she did the same thing with one of her papery diaper liners. And finally, on the changing table today, she has been very happy playing with this little stuffed beaver toy. Tonight, while getting changed for bed, she was pretending to blow her nose into its vinyl-like tail. I couldn't help but laugh.

In other Cora news, she is enjoying sorting things. She spent a good 20 minutes or half-hour on Sunday, while we spoke to Nan and Pop on the Web cam, moving her clean diapers around. She made piles, then threw the diapers, and then gathered them into more piles, and then threw them again. While doing this, she was making her "reading" noise of pure concentration.

She is getting better and better with standing up, and has even taken a few steps while holding onto her push toys.

Lastly, our garage sale went well this weekend. We "shifted" (as Stace would say) nearly $265 worth of stuff! Some of that will go to my parents, because a lot of the higher-value electronic stuff was actually theirs. But still, a nice amount of cash for us will go toward our anniversary this year - for number FIVE, we have to do something cool.
In other good news, we found out today we won a sweepstakes Stace entered at the Amgen Tour of California bike race! My father-in-law would love this - we won this Bissell vacuum cleaner. I only wish we had a greater need for a vacuum; the one we have isn't all that old. Still, how often do you actually win a prize like that?? Stace was disappointed it wasn't an awesome bike.

March Madness Sale!!!

Our condo complex is having a garage sale this weekend, and Stace and I are taking part in a big way. We've now been married long enough to have accumulated stuff we just no longer need. We had an early morning, Stace's morning a bit earlier than mine, with shoppers outside wanting to buy by 6:30. We did pretty well today and hope to sell a few more things tomorrow. It feels so good to get rid of stuff, and make a bit of money too. Our money will go towards a fifth-anniversary trip later this year.
Photos of today's festivities will have to be for another blog posting, as our computer isn't recognizing the camera right now and it's too late in the day to deal with it. Early morning today, another early morning coming up, and we also lose an hour of sleep because the time is changing. Not that I'm complaining about that, it's always great having that extra hour of daylight in the evening rather than in the morning (when I'm still not - um - OUTSIDE yet.)

For the Cora update - she has had a great evening, after a rough few days. Nothing too serious, but that measles shot last week made her an unhappy camper this week. She had a fever earlier in the week, and then on Thursday (one week after the shot) she broke out with tiny bumps all over her arms and midsection and a very red, blotchy face. All a normal reaction, but she also was very fussy/cranky, and her solid-food eating slowed to barely anything.
She also might be teething, as she has started chewing on her finger again a little bit. She hasn't sprouted any new teeth since Christmas, and in the last two months she hasn't shown any real signs of teething until now. I gave her some teething tablets today and she has been in better spirits. Tonight she was back to eating more again.
She is much more confident in her standing now, and even will take a few steps when you hold both her hands securely. Today, during the garage sale, we had her in the playpen down in the garage and she "cruised" the perimeter, taking steps while holding onto the sides.

New Toys

Here you see Cora playing with some of her birthday toys - the ride-on toy from Grandma and Grandpa, and the farm from Great Aunt Patty and Great Uncle Bill. She loves all her new toys!
Cora did a lot of sleeping today. She has a mild fever; I'm not sure if it's related to the measles vaccine she had last Thursday or if she's fighting something else. She's acting fairly normal, other than a little fussier and more tired.
I spent a lot of my day Tuesday in the kitchen. Stace was thrilled.
Lean ground beef was on sale, so I made a cottage pie for dinner Tuesday, and I also made a lasagna for dinner later in the week. Since the oven was on, I threw in a (super easy) peach crumble for dessert tonight.
On Monday, after Stroller Strides we spent the rest of the day at home, and I wrote my cloth diapering story for the magazine. It feels good having that done, and I can move on to some other projects. Like getting ready for our garage sale this weekend!

Cora's first bike ride

This morning we had our first-ever family bike ride. It was pretty cool, and the first time I've been on a bike since I got pregnant, so almost two years now.
For Christmas, my parents gave us a bike trailer to take Cora around in, and last weekend we put it together but it was a bit rainy. All week since then, the weather has been gorgeous (we even went in the pool!). Of course this morning for our ride it was a bit cold and cloudy again...
We rode along the paseos to the bike trail, and rewarded ourselves with breakfast at Dink's, a local bagel bakery.
Cora seemed to kind of enjoy her ride - well, she didn't intensely dislike her ride. It was good that we brought along a little bag of cheerios and her doggy book. She enjoyed meeting a few doggies along the way.
On Friday, we Stroller Striders were recipients of a complimentary kids play class at My Gym, which was something like the Gymboree classes we took over the summer. It was fun hanging out with the moms and babies we see several times a week, in a different environment. The class was fun, but just like Gymboree, I have a hard time justifying the cost. It's about $65 a month for four 45-minute classes (plus an additional "free play" time each week). Maybe we'll give it a try in the summer, when it's too hot to play outside.
And on Thursday, we had Cora's one-year well-check. She is well. Cora is now 19 pounds, 8 ounces, which is the 25th percentile - meaning 75% of girl babies her age are bigger than her, and 25% are smaller than her. She is 29 inches long, in the 48th percentile. Her head circumference remains in the 82nd percentile. She also had her measles vaccine. We decided to split the MMR vaccine into the M, M and R rather than getting the combo. There's all sorts of controversy about it, and every official study keeps saying it's safe, but there are so many anecdotal reports of people thinking it caused their child's autism. So, I figure splitting it up will let us rest easier.

Super Somer

Have we mentioned lately how absolutely wonderful our Somer is? She puts up with a lot from Cora, and seems to almost enjoy it. There are times when I'll be in one part of the house and I'll go off to find Cora, and there is Somer, right with her, watching her a) empty out my purse or b) empty out her kitchen drawer or c) empty out the cupboard under the microwave table.
In these photos and short clip, Somer is patiently letting Cora pet her and poke her in the face.

Cora is showing us more affection these days. Stace and I get hugs, with back pats!, and kisses. She leans into us and says, "mmm," mimicking the exaggerated sound we make when we give her kisses. She also has started using her pointing skills to identify things, in addition to signaling things she wants. I was very proud when, at Stroller Strides on Monday, another mom was talking to Cora and asked her where her mama was. Cora pointed at me! When I related the story to Stace that evening, he asked her the same question, and she pointed at me again.
Lastly, I'll mention that Cora is getting a lot better in dealing with being separated from me. Both the church nursery workers this weekend and the MOPS (kind of a moms' club) workers today said that she did brilliantly while we/I was away, and had lots of fun playing.

Sporting Saturday

Saturday was a dream for Stace and a great day for Santa Clarita sports fans - first, a big turnout and a fantastic finish at the Amgen Tour of California cycling race, a world-class event here in our backyard, and then a Major League Soccer game (for charity) here at College of the Canyons.
In the top picture, the man in yellow was the stage winner on Saturday, Luciano Pagliarini of Brazil, though he finished second to Brit Mark Cavendish (the rider on the right). Race officials gave the win to Pagliarini after deciding Cavendish got too much help from his team after a crash earlier in the race. You can read about it here.
We were very proud that our city was such a big part of such a major event, the biggest and best race in the U.S. and one which some riders said rivals the big cycling races in Europe. Thousands of fans lined the streets, and a big cycling expo between the mall and the Hyatt was fun to walk through. (Mike Mitchum, you woulda loved it!) Stace even bought the t-shirt, and plans to wear it when he rides his bike to work.
Cora cheered the cyclists too, when she wasn't too caught up in picking at the ivy growing on the wall and collecting sticks and leaves. Jumboton televisions in the street showed the cyclists' progress as they approached the city from the Santa Barbara area.
In the evening, we went to watch Chivas USA (who share the Home Depot Center with the Galaxy) take on the Columbus Crew in a match benefiting a local children's cancer charity, the Michael Hoefflin Foundation. Being that we had been out for so long, we weren't sure how Cora would handle watching a football match. She was outstanding! She was quiet on Stace's lap throughout the first half and through half-time, when two SClarita kids' teams played a short game. She started getting antsy maybe halfway through the second half - this was with the weather turning rainy and cold; I'm sure she was wondering why we were still sitting outside. After the game, we went to Chipotle for dinner, our first time eating out in a while. Cora did something there she hasn't done in many months - she slept through dinner, out in public! She fell asleep in the car and settled into a nap in my arms, and then on the seat next to me, and slept for nearly an hour.

Drawer fun

Every time Cora goes into the kitchen these days, she heads straight for her bottom drawer. She likes to take out lots of things to play with. The other night, she occupied herself for quite some time with the yellow cap (top photo) and a pink cup. She put the cap in the cup and shook it around, making her own rattle, until the cap would fly out and land a few feet away. Then she'd crawl over to the cap and start again.

This week I'm changing Cora's schedule a bit. She's been eating more food, so I'm trying to give her more at dinner and skip that nursing session. Then, she is ready for nursing around 8:30 and bed around 9, about an hour earlier than how we've been doing life for many months now. On Wednesday night she went down around 9, and amazingly was still asleep until about 8:45 Thursday morning!
At dinner tonight, Cora had some turkey, cheese, carrots and a WHOLE baby yogurt for dessert. She also had cow's milk for the first time, and seemed to enjoy it. That was her first non-water drink.

Here are a few more photos from Cora's birthday, courtesy of my dad. We have a kestrel, Cora taking in the animals, and an owl.

We haven't taken many photos in the last few days, but I'll catch you up on what we've been doing anyway. On Monday, Cora and I went up to the Antelope Valley for a "play date" of sorts with two moms and their little ones. The moms both use cloth diapers, and I interviewed them for a story I'll write on cloth diapering for the newspaper.
Cora had lots of fun, and was a very good girl. One of the ladies had a daughter a few days older than Cora, and she's been walking for FOUR months! She seemed a lot older than Cora since she was so steady on her feet, running around. The family had a little doggy that Cora loved. She says "doddy" quite a bit when she's excited to see a dog.
In the late afternoon, she and I walked out to meet Stace on his bike ride home from work. She gets very excited when she sees her daddy riding up.
Speaking of speaking, a few mornings ago, Cora greeted me with "Mummum" when I came in to get her. That made my day!
She also has pulled herself all the way to standing a few times recently.
Over the weekend, we cleaned out our shed on Saturday and enjoyed the afternoon in Torrance with John and Linda's family on Sunday, for Mikayla's birthday. We had a nice, relaxing time with our friends and their family.

Second Valentine's Day

Cora says, Happy Valentine's Day! And, thanks for the cute outfit, Auntie Linda and Uncle John! (To see Cora's Valentine's Day post a year ago, when she was five days old, click here.)

Here she is in her new Pooh chair, which matches the decor and our colors perfectly. She isn't quite able to get into it on her own, but she does like kneeling next to it. When we put her in it, she is getting a bit better with her exit from the chair. She basically falls out head first onto the floor, onto a pillow. Cora says, Thanks for the chair, Nan and Pop! Somer also loves the new chair. Today I found her curled up in it (no surprise!).

On Sunday while Stace played golf, Grandma took Cora to see Winnie the Pooh at the Canyon Theatre Guild. She loved it! She watched the whole show and pointed and was very interested, I'm told. Here she is getting up close and personal with Piglet, and below, with Rabbit.