Fall Color

 Autumn comes late in SClarita, with brief breaks for warmer weather, but it comes nonetheless.We've been oohing and aahing at the beautifully colored trees over the last month.

Pajamarama

 Cora performed Thursday in the first grade's Christmas show. They sang "Up on the Housetop" and "Oh Hanukkah," but the big deal was "It's a PJ Pajamarama," a fun song about all types of animals, wearing pajamas.

Cora played the part of a leopard, and got to wear her costume to school all day. Most of the other children wore their pajamas, with their headband-masks showing what kind of animal they were.

Cora was so animated and loud. We will have to think of some sort of music/theater classes for her.

 After the songs, we went back to the classrooms for breakfast. Cora and her buddy Tyler clowned around for the camera while they enjoyed their bagels, pancakes and fruit.

At recess and lunch, Tyler participates in a game called "the pinecone hunt," that it seems that Cora leads. She plays with a lot of third-grade girls, along with other first-graders. They are on teams, with Cora's team collecting, hiding and guarding pinecones, while the others - a few boys - try to steal them.

 Back to Thursday morning... after breakfast, the children played a few games. Cora, Sophia and Violet drew snowmen.

Sue, Sophia's mom, then read a story to the children while we cleaned up the feast. It was a really nice morning, and a great almost-last-day-of-school before Christmas break.

Christmas lights and snowmen - the wooden kind

 Our Saturday was a full day of fun. After a relaxed morning at home, we had a birthday party, our church Christmas concert, and in the evening, we met up with friends to look at Christmas lights.

Our Mom2Mom group planned the night for us to go to Wakefield Court, SClarita's best "Candy Cane Lane."














These two decorations are actually in a home's front lawn and driveway.

 We then went to Morgan's house for hot chocolate, cookies, and after-bedtime playtime. Hey, what are Saturday nights for?

 On Sunday, we stopped after church at Hart Park, where we visited with a 6-month-old deer. We'd seen an article in the Signal about some new animals at the park, and thought the baby deer sounded worth meeting.

 The deer agreed, getting up close and personal with Stacey.

Later Sunday, Stace cut out a wooden snowman for the girls to paint. When finished, it'll go in the front yard.

Christmas at Knott's Berry Farm

Taking advantage of a deal for law enforcement officers, Grandma and Grandpa took the girls to Knott's Berry Farm earlier this month. They had a great time in Camp Snoopy, riding all sorts of rides. They also enjoyed the Christmas decorations, and met up with Santa Claus. 

Meanwhile, Stace and I played Santa Claus, getting some Christmas shopping in along with dinner. It was a win-win.

Random Violet moments

 Violet decided to make her own bed!

 Reading time before bed with Daddy... Violet remains a sweet and snuggly girl much of the time. She likes crawling in bed with us on Saturday mornings.

 Violet was proud to take her new Snoopy lunchbox to school this week.

 The girls had fun icing some Christmas cookies.

 Last week, Stace took a couple of hours to volunteer in Violet's class. Violet was very excited and happy when she saw him.

One of the projects that school day involved handprint antlers on a reindeer face. Later that day, she decided to do some more handprints, with watercolors.

Parks, cookies and friends

 We had fun this week with JT, Jim, Callie and Jonah.

On Tuesday, Violet and I had a Mom2Mom-free week, so we went to visit JT and her little ones. We took a nice walk to lunch, and then stopped at a fabulous park on the way back.

 Jonah is one now, just starting to walk, and as cute as can be.

On Saturday afternoon, the whole family came up to spend time with us. After my incident with the trunk lid, I was glad to have JT's help with Christmas-cookie-making. 

 Cora was very helpful with Jonah, making him a slice of buttered bread to munch.

 Stacey and Callie played a duet.

And Cora made an assortment of animal sketches to sell to us and our friends. She enjoys sketching, and likes to find ways to make extra change.

Placerita crafts and concussions

On Saturday, we made our return to a fun annual event at Placerita Canyon Nature Center, where children can make Christmas crafts and adults can make wreaths and centerpieces.

The crafts were $2 each. Cora dipped two pre-made candles in different colors of hot wax. Both girls made a styrofoam snowman, and Violet painted an owl on a rock.

The last time we attended this event, I was pregnant with Violet, and we brought along Ave. It was our trial run of being out and about with two little girls.

After we were through crafting, we were a bit hungry and followed the "food" sign to a room where a local market/deli was serving up tri tip. It was good! We had a nice view of the canyon, with shelter from the drizzly weather.

 Then we got ready for a little walk/hike into the canyon.

I look alright, considering I was suffering the effects of slamming the trunk lid onto my head. I suppose it's been a while since my last head injury...

After two Advil and a nap, I felt well enough to be up and about, though I was tired all weekend and had a nice red mark on my hairline.

A Big Day

Tuesday was an exciting day for Cora Rose.

First, after waiting for weeks, that wiggly top tooth came out at school. Cora said her teacher sent her to the health office after she was pushing it out parallel to the floor with her tongue.

She looks so different, and so very much like a first-grader. She is having fun with her new lisp, too.

So far, we've managed to not lose this tooth. We're two-for-four on the holding-onto-lost-teeth scoreboard.

In the evening, Cora's school hosted a fun fund-raiser at Barnes and Noble. Many of the teachers dressed up as book characters, and read to the gathered crowd. It was a big crowd, too! What a great turnout- it was hard to walk around.

A percentage of profits went back to the school, and little "autograph books" for the characters to sign went for $5, and counted as a homework pass for the night's assignments.

 Here's the first-grade team, with Mrs Vasquez playing the part of the fire-breathing dragon.

Cora went to bed with high expectations. She left the following note under her pillow:

"Dear tooth friey

I lost my tooth at school in the helf ofice. It was own uv the big owns! I love you so mutch.

May I plees have some piktse dust. Thank you for comeing to my House. plees put here."

 

She's been hoping for pixie dust ever since Ave received the magic powder from her tooth fairy a year or two ago. This time, since this was a "big" tooth, the fairy complied.
Cora was so excited to show her jar of dust to Chris and David in the afternoon. After school on a very windy day, I noticed glitter in her hair and asked about it. She said she thinks the pixie dust worked, because she almost felt like she had flown.

Back Home

 Our trip home went very smoothly Friday.

We had a 1:30 flight from Billings to Denver, where we then had three hours to kill (and pose for photos) before our flight to L.A. This was preferable to our short time between flights the previous week, when we were racing through Denver's terminals to make our second flight after our first was delayed.

Cora brought her Build-A-Bear on the trip, and it didn't fit in the luggage. She played with these larger stuffed animals at Vivian's house the day before we left for Billings, and then had to get hers off the shelf. She's named her "Sherbert."

Even though she's growing up in lots of ways, Cora still loves to play and has a great imagination. Whatever stuffed animal she chooses for the week becomes a big part of her life, even if for a very short while.

 We relaxed Saturday, and concentrated on unpacking and cleaning up. We also took a nice walk up to the Summit, and down through the valley into Summit Park. It's a beautiful walk we should do more often.

 While at the park, Stace and the girls played hide-and-seek.
Violet liked to "hide" and then sing/chant loudly, "You can never find me!"

Cora decided she needed to wash Sherbert's clothes, and hang them to dry. I offered to throw them in with all the other laundry, but she wanted to do it by hand in the sink.