Stace and Lisa's Afternoon Alone

Lisa and I got away Saturday afternoon for our 8 year anniversary. Cora and Violet entertained Paula as we headed to Santa Monica for a bike ride along the beach.
We left behind the clouds and thunderstorms of Santa Clarita and drove to the coast for our afternoon together.

The weather was beautiful, sunny with a slight sea breeze. We rode a few miles south, past Venice Beach and down to Venice pier.















As the sun went down, we headed back up the 405 freeway and stopped off at the Getty Museum. We spent an hour or two there before heading home to the SCV for a late dinner at Stone Fire Grill.

We had a lovely afternoon together, just the two of us walking, riding, talking and eating.
I can't remember half of what Lisa said, but I'm sure it must have been interesting.

Happy Anniversary, Lis. Thanks for putting up with me all these years. Here's to eight more years, if you play your cards right.

Besides starting preschool on Wednesday, Cora had her first night back in Pioneer Clubs.

All the parents are asked to help out in some way, and my choice was to work playground duty once a month before the club starts. During this time, the children of the leaders play on the playground while their parents are preparing their rooms and generally getting ready for the club to begin.

Did I mention Wednesday the high was 105? Thankfully the playground was shaded, and the other playground volunteer mom brought spray bottles to cool us all off.

Then, we went to find our new rooms and meet Cora's teacher. This year, Cora is no longer a red-shirted Skipper, but a Scooter, in a blue shirt.

We were really happy to find that Cora and Johnny were in the same class.

As in other years, the highlight of the opening night of Pioneer Club was the ice cream afterwards! We found Lucas and Rigo and chatted a bit, though Lucas and Cora are not in the same class.

Final Pre-preschool Fun with Friends

Before our week filled with preschool excitement, we celebrated our "end of summer vacation" by inviting three friends, and their children, over for a lunch playdate Tuesday.

Here are the four "big" girls - Mackenzie, Cora, Ella (front) and Maya. We've all known each other through Gymboree and/or Stroller Strides since the girls were tiny. No surprise, the girls all enjoyed dressing up and pretending to be fairies. And, running around screaming, waving their fairy wings/arms, pretending the younger brothers were grasshoppers.

It was way too hot to eat outside, so we took turns eating around the table. The kids got the first crack at our lunch of barbecue chicken salad (thanks, Stone Fire!) and macaroni (thanks, Juliana!). Sitting next to Cora is Mackenzie's little brother, Luke.
Ella's brother Jacob loved Cora's horse, while Maya's sister Natalia had fun on the bike. Both enjoyed playing with the kitties, too, before it got too loud and they escaped to the bedroom.

You can tell Ella is a great big sister! She was so good with Violet, helping her play with the toys.
A group shot of the mommy friends - Jen, Juliana, me and Jaimie. Mackenzie took this one...
...leading Cora to want to use my "big" camera too, so she took this cute shot of me and Violet.

We had a great day! You might think it would be a lot of work having eight children in the house, but their moms were all so helpful, cleaning up after lunch and playtime, my house was no worse for the wear. We'll have to do it again soon.

First Day of Pre-K

Today was the long-awaited day, Cora's first day of three-day-a-week preschool. Cora's been excited about this since we first visited the Growing Hearts Preschool back in March.

Cora's main teacher will be Miss Lorrie, who is the wife of our pastor; several church friends highly recommended her class, and I was impressed when we visited.

On Wednesday morning, all the parents helped the children with a scavenger hunt, where we helped find Cora's name on the carpet, find her cubby, locate the bathroom, and check out the various play stations.

Here, she checks off one of the items on the list.

The children all were instructed to bring a favorite stuffed animal, and Cora chose her Marlin toy that Aunt Patty bought her from the Seattle Aquarium.

The school day will run from 8:30 until 11:30, which of course is a bit early for us, with Cora and Violet often asleep until (or after) 8. But, the past two days, Cora has been up at 7:15, and today she was raring to get dressed and ready to go.

It helped that Miss Lorrie staggered the arrival times today, and gave us the 9 a.m. slot! Friday, our real life of up-and-out-(kinda)-early begins.

After I picked Cora up, we picked Stace up from work and all had lunch together, so she could tell us about her day. She loved it! And she's excited to go back on Friday.

Our little girl is growing up! Just one more year before she's in "real" school and away from me every day. (sniff, sniff!)

Labor Day

We enjoyed a nice restful Labor Day weekend, highlighted by dinner Saturday night with Juliana and Daryl, and a gorgeous walk Monday morning.

We walked down the canyon above our neighborhood, where the paseo ends at a big park.

Though it's back to temperatures in the 100s, Monday morning was cooler, perfect for getting up and out by 9 (which is early enough for us).

See Cora swinging? She's pumping herself higher now! She needed a hand getting started, but then she pumped and pumped and pumped. Such a big girl - and all ready for her pre-K program to start Wednesday!

When we got home, we talked to Nan and Pop, and then went to visit our friends David and Melanie, and their beautiful baby Heather.

Heather is 9 weeks old and as sweet as they come. Cora enjoyed holding a little baby again.



In other news, Stace planted our winter garden, with peas, broccoli and spinach. We've been enjoying some lovely tomatoes this week, and a few zucchini.



Also, we visited my dad a couple of times in the hospital as he recovered from his long-awaited hip replacement surgery on Friday.

He had been in a lot of pain for many months, with no cartilage left in his left hip. He came through the operation well, and hopefully he will be feeling much better soon.

At any rate, he will be off work for a few months, so I'm sure we'll be seeing more of Grandpa than we have been. Get well soon, Dad!

16 months

At 16 months, Violet is taking strides in her speech.

Last week, she picked up at least five new words - hungry, help me, eat, more and muffin (muh-mee) - her favorite thing to eat. She also has been saying "thank you" with regularity and her version of "yes, please."

This is in addition to her older words down, bye (dye), night-night (for her pacifier/dummy), wee (for sliding, swinging and MORE - see below), cheese, various animal noises, her family members' names, "alguie" for water, "dada" for babies, and "gaga" for shoes.

"Help me" is particularly fun for me to hear - she just seems so grownup when she brings me her "gaga" and says, "help me!" Also charming is when she reaches up to hold our hand while walking, saying, "Hand? Hand?"

Violet doesn't say "no" yet but she will shake her head adamantly - handy at the dinner table!

She has been pretty picky the past few weeks, refusing lots of things without trying them. Thankfully, she loves oatmeal (and will eat lots of it each morning), along with yogurt, cheese, homemade muffins (which I try to keep stocked up on now!), chicken nuggets (uggh), grapes and applesauce.

Oh, and snacks! Did I mention she loves snacks? She has had a few decent tantrums when I refuse to open up some snack she's found when I've left the pantry door open. (Including one little fit on the floor, hands and feet flailing. It was hilarious.) Yes, we're into the toddler tantrum stage, though this little girl still has nothing on the tantrums her sister threw at the same age (and younger).

Now, for my exciting story of the day - I've been having Violet sit on the toilet a few times a day, and we have had frequent success with her using the toilet. But so far, she hasn't ever let me know in advance that she needed to go. Until Saturday! She started toddling down the hallway, calling out "Weee! Wee!" I raced to let her in the bathroom, and sure enough, her diaper was wet and warm, so she must have just went. But when I put her on the toilet, she went No. 2! Wow!

She hasn't repeated the feat, but I was very encouraged that she is getting the idea enough to have let me know in advance.

EDITED TO ADD: On Wednesday, Violet woke from her morning nap shouting, "Wee!" I ran in and put her on the toilet, and she immediately wee'd! And, even better, the diaper I put on her after she woke up was dry!

Fun with Friends, III

Our last full week of summer vacation is proceeding along very nicely, with more "fun with friends" - our Theme for the Second Half of August.



It's cooled off to our normal summer heat, which made for some fun today as the girls played in Genia's yard with her boys.



Cora and Johnny were happy picking grapes for what seemed like hours, and then they played house in the playhouse, with Violet as their baby and Ave (once she came home from school) as the scary wolf.



These 4-year-olds are so imaginative!



Violet and Owen played together a bit, before Violet turned fussy. Thankfully, she really liked the farm toy, and that turned her mood pleasant again.



On Wednesday, we walked Johnny to his preschool with Genia. We've done this a handful of times the past few weeks, and it's been nice to talk and get a little exercise.



Nice while it lasted, at least - Cora starts preschool next week and she and Johnny go on the same days, so we won't be able to walk together anymore.



Violet and Owen shared snacks in his stroller on our way home.

Once we got home, I spent the next few hours going through all of Violet's clothes, one of those never-ending jobs for a mother. But it's done for now, at least for a few months. (I went through Cora's clothes last week.)

To keep Cora entertained, she worked on a craft project (one of her favorite things) and played with this Number Wheel I found online.

I printed the number wheel, and then wrote the numbers on clothespins, the numeral on one side and the number word on the other.


Cora loved it and I was surprised at how she was able to count the dots and choose the right clothespin, based on the written word of the number, rather than the numeral.

Also this week, Michelle and Brooke came over to play, as did Colleen and Liana. Our time with Colleen on Tuesday was sort of a play date for the younger girls, who are 12 days apart.


We all had fun in the pool, and Liana, who already loves dressing up and carrying around purses, borrowed this tiny dress-up dress we have. We got it as a hand-me-down but Cora was more into trains than dressing up when she was smaller.

Ventura cool

After our 109-degree afternoon, we dashed to Ventura Saturday after naptime.

Phew! See the relief on Violet's face?

It should no longer catch me off-guard, but there is still something weird about traveling 40 miles and watching the car's temperature gauge drop 40 degrees.

Yep, it was 68 when we got to the coast. Not exactly "jump in the sea" weather, unless your name is Stacey.

(Saying that, it was "fall in the sea" weather for a certain 16-month-old, on her 16-month birthday... Oops.)

We made friends with a little boy who was also 4, and they worked together on a big sand castle and moat.

The final photo shows Stace, in his California cool shirt, with his current facial hair. He's been working this GQ stubble thing the past couple of weeks, an almost-but-not-quite beard.

Cowgirl fun

On Saturday morning, we went to a fun Cowboy/Cowgirl event at Hart Park, where our girls got to make crafts, sit in a covered wagon and lasso a (plastic) cow.

The whole morning was designed for children, and Cora loved it.

She dressed in her cowgirl best, minus her boots, since she's outgrown them since she dressed up as Jessie last Halloween. She struggled in vain to get them on, and shed some tears about not wearing them, but I digress.

There was a little scavenger hunt, where the kids chose a particular "brand" of cattle they had to find at two locations in the park.

They got to find their branded paper cow after answering a question from a volunteer about the park, or about William S. Hart.

Cora is still very much in a crafty stage, so she loved coloring her horse picture.

Violet even got in on the action, helping color her hat.

She refused to wear it, though, even after I modeled it.

Violet preferred sitting in the wagon. You can see in the photo of the girls together how red Violet's face became. The weekend has been incredibly hot - it reached 109 Saturday afternoon!

We got to the park not long after the event started at 9:30, and it was already in the upper 90s, and 103 by 11 a.m.

So despite plenty of sunscreen, Violet turned red and blotchy, more of a heat rash than sunburn.

She's been blotchy and red Sunday too, though she's not running a fever. I think it's just too darn hot for her.