It's A Small World

In Santa Clarita, at least, things are getting back to normal after the fires. It's still bad in other parts of the state, but here most of the fires are contained or out. I believe more than 90,000 acres have burned in the fires near us.
This is from our trip to the mall Tuesday. The smell wasn't too bad, though you can see the smoke on the horizon. The strong winds have driven the smokey smell away for the most part. I took Cora to the mall because we needed to get out of the house. We did a little shopping, and then stopped at the indoor play area upstairs so she could watch the bigger kids playing. My little social butterfly enjoyed that. It seems like she wants to play with the bigger kids. She smiles and talks and is starting to wave at them.
On Wednesday, Stroller Strides classes resumed, and after class two of my friends and I met for lunch. Here I am with Thomas, the six-month-old son of my friend Sarah. Thomas is still big for his age - about 22 pounds! I weighed Cora tonight and she is about 17 pounds, 12 ounces (and 27 1/2 inches, for the record).
Elissa and her son Harvey also came to lunch. Harvey is a few weeks younger than Cora, but bigger of course, being a boy. He also is more active, crawling around everywhere and pulling himself up on things. Cora will stand briefly when you hold her up with her feet on the ground, but not for very long. She hasn't done any true crawling yet, and is happy getting around by rolling and scooting in circles.

Here's Cora with her other boy baby friend, William. I met William's mom Christy through our Gymboree classes. William is about six months too, and scooting everywhere. When I'm around more active babies I realize how good I have it with Cora - it's much easier with her not moving around so quickly! In this photo, she's making a scrunched-up smiley face she started making when Andy was at our home. He would make a similar smile at Cora and she would imitate him.