Happy Halloween!

Our favorite doggy. The only one who doesn't scare Somer.

We spent our Halloween evening at the mall, where most of the stores were handing out candy to trick-or-treaters. Cora was a bit overwhelmed by all the people (it was very crowded) and put off by some of the costumes (a pint-sized Spiderman sent her running to grab hold of my leg. We tried to distract her when we saw even scarier costumes coming our direction). She wasn't all that interested in getting candy, either.
As always, she had a great time in the children's play area, and then enjoyed seeing her fellow canines in the pet store next door.
By the end of the evening, Cora understood the concept a bit better - you go up to the people with the baskets, and take candy out!
And, just for fun, a photo of Cora earlier in the week when we tried on the costume for the first time. (These days, I've gotta post every photo I can of her smiling happily, she generally scowls when we ask her to smile for the camera.) She was so excited to be dressed like a dog, and the nose on her tummy barks when you press it!
Coming soon - photos from our Stroller Strides Halloween party...

Playing with the Farm

Cora was playing quietly with her farm today while I worked on the laundry. The first video here shows her playing - I thought she looked so sweet and grownup, entertaining herself like a big girl by moving the animals around.
Then, I asked her to say some of her words so we could get the sound captured for posterity.

She says, "More Ta" when asked to say "Please." It's a bit of Cora-speak we find adorable; I'll be sad when she starts saying the word properly. It came about because she says "Ta Ta" instead of thank you, and she kept saying "More" when she wanted more of something. When we'd encourage her to say, "More, Please," she said, "More, Ta."
The last phrase she's saying here is a new favorite. She is just starting to say two words together, and "Hello Mummy" and "Hello Dadda" are the ones we hear the most.
Speaking of that, today while we played at the park after Stroller Strides, she came over shouting, "Mummy! More Ta! See-Yah!" (Mummy! Please! Cereal!) (I generally have dry cereal with me as a snack for her.) I was so proud, three words together! She also now says "Bi" for bike and bite; "Ri" for rice; and she can differentiate the owls from the other birds in her bird book (a new favorite) and say "owl." She also can say "whoo" for what the owl says, as opposed to what other birds say. "Fee" is fish and "Fra" is frog; "fly" is butterfly and "Fla" is flower. She is a chatterbox!

Our girls

Around the house

Cora and Somer, best of friends

I was in the other part of the apartment the other day when I heard the unmistakable sound of mess-making. I came in to find Cora, with an empty bag and a large pile of granola.
Thankfully, she was more than willing to help clean up, putting handfuls in the bowl and trying to pour the bowl into the box.A few days later, I was vacuuming and Cora really wanted to help. In fact, she was attempting to step between me and the vacuum to push it around.

So, I got out the dustbuster and Cora was able to help.We recently got these rubbery floor tiles for Cora, from a person on our local Freecycle group. With Freecycle, if you have usable things you're through with, you can offer them up to the group instead of send them to the landfill. Anyway, Cora loves the tiles, and she especially loves piling them on top of Somer when Somer is in her basket. (Yes, Somer is under that pile in the above photo.)

More pumpkins

On Monday, we returned to Underwood Farms for a MOPS group trip on a tractor through the field to pick our own pumpkin. (MOPS is Mother of Preschoolers, a group I'm a part of.) I invited Harvey and Elissa to come along, and the four of us had a great time together. Harvey and Cora spent the first 15 minutes of the car journey giggling together.
In the top photo, we have the tractor that took us out into the fields. Then you see Cora picking out her pumpkin, making Harvey carry her pumpkin, and the two tots amazed by the passing tractor (out of sight).
After picking our pumpkin, we ate lunch in the play area, where Cora enjoyed playing in the sand. On the way home, we stopped at a Fresh and Easy Market, a new chain owned by British supermarket giant Tesco. It reminded me of Trader Joes, with some nice deals on fresh food, to Stace's joy, British back bacon. I bought a pack and he was thrilled. American bacon is a completely different meat than what Stace is used to in England.

Cora has begun saying, "Yeah!" She says it frequently, and it's such a nice change from her only being able to nod her head. She says it with such gusto; I'll try to record it and put it on the blog here soon. It feels like you're really having a conversation with her now, with her exclaiming, "Yeah!" if you ask her a simple question ("Do you want some water?" "Do you see the doggie?" etc). Today, when we were reading her stories, she would say "Yeah!" or "Whoa, Daa!" after nearly every page. Such appreciation!
I must say, Cora has been a lot easier to be with the last couple of weeks. She still requires patience, of course, but she is pleasant and cheerful more often. Perhaps she's adjusted to the apartment? Who knows. We'll take it!

Over the weekend, we really enjoyed seeing my sister perform the leading role in South Pacific. She was amazing, such a pro. I am in awe of her!
We also went to the Heritage Haunt event at Hart Park, where we had a tour of the Henry Newhall house (final photo). The house is decorated up as haunted house, and on Saturday they gave "behind the scenes" tours to show how they scare people. We also saw an animal show with the naturalists from Placerita Canyon.

Tag - I'm it!

Kimberly tagged me with this fun little blog post idea. I've known Kim since our very early, just-out-of-college journalism days. We both worked for a little L.A. Times-affiliated paper, and then we both wound up at the Antelope Valley Press. I'm excited to learn she's expecting her second child, big-time congratulations, my old friend!

You're supposed to list five joys, fears, obsessions/collections, and surprising things, and then "tag" five people. I did my best!

- 5 Joys ...
1. Since it's that time of year, autumn - the relief of a cool breeze after our long, hot summers, and the anticipation of Thanksgiving and Christmas.
2. Taking a long walk in our nearby canyons, or by the beach
3. COFFEE
4. Cora and Stace, for too many reasons to list
5. God's love and guiding hand, especially in this period of flux for our family

- 5 Fears...
1. Earthquakes
2. Going through morning sickness again!
3. Being the strong mama Cora needs
4. ...
5. ...

- 5 Obsessions/Collections
1. Obsession: Finding great deals and budgeting
2. GOOD coffee
3.I used to collect My Little Ponies;
4. sea shells;
5. and dolls. (Can't say I collect anything now, or am very obsessive in general.)

- 5 Surprising Things about you...
1. From someone who survived college on the simplest of foods, I have turned into a pretty decent cook
2. Even though I loved being a reporter, I don't miss working at the paper
3. I wear a prosthetic eye
4. I've been in 10 countries, mostly involving air travel (i.e, not involving a backpacking-across-Europe adventure)
5. Beauty and the Beast and The Princess Bride are my favorite movies

- Tag 5 People...
1. Jennifer Neal
2. Michelle Phelan
3. Jaimie Frieders
4. Ken Pellman
5. (I don't have enough blogging friends! But please, feel free to email me with your top five!)

It's Pumpkin Time!

This weekend, Autumn arrived and we celebrated it, Santa Clarita-style, with the annual trip to Lombardi Ranch. (See Cora last year here, when Andy and Jen were in town from England, just before a big fire came through town and damaged the ranch. Thank God the family bounced back!)
Cora loved her trip, running around oohing and "dah-ing" at everything. She picked up lots of pumpkins and loved all the things to climb in and on.
The temperature was in the 60s and it was breezy, such a nice change from all the heat.
We completed Saturday by making tacos at home. Yum! On Sunday, in the afternoon we went to the local pet fair, where Cora enjoyed seeing lots of dogs, before watching the Dodgers beat up on the Phillies (it was about time!) while we ate homemade hamburgers. More yum! A great weekend all around.
Cora was very well-behaved Saturday. She has started saying "Yeah" and "Bye," and likes to pretend to count things. She'll point to individual items, say within a row of buttons, and say, "eee," "eee," "dooo," "oh."

Fare Well

My family had the sad duty of saying good-bye to our old friend Luke this week. He was 13 and diagnosed with cancer late last year. Luke joined our family as a puppy, when I was 16. He was a sweet-natured boy who loved to lick, steal food and put his head on your lap. He was wonderfully gentle with Cora, seen here with him over the summer.

Househunt, Part II

Stace and I are thrilled to be in escrow to purchase this house near the end of a cul-de-sac in a nice, tidy Valencia neighborhood. The small tract features an HOA pool and spa, a tot lot and paseos.

There is a nice size patio in the back yard...

...and a nice grassy side yard.

The home is a foreclosure and needs a lot of work. You can see the stove was removed from the kitchen, as were the garbage disposal, air conditioner and heater. The microwave left behind is broken. But, we are getting what we believe is a good deal on the house, and (God willing) will be able to make it livable quickly.
Here is the dining room, looking toward the front door and living room. That's Michelle, our fantastic Realtor, on the right.
There are a couple of things that could be hangups to escrow going smoothly, which is why I haven't mentioned the house on the blog until now. Still, we're very hopeful things will go well and we can move in later this month or early next month.

In other house news, we found out the sales price for a house we put an offer in on last month. We offered 10% over asking, because of what we've seen happen with foreclosures in good shape in Valencia, and we didn't get it. Surprise, surprise, the house went for it's asking price - way under our offer. We think something fishy went on, and the bank was never given our offer. Thankfully, we believe we're getting a better house for our family, should our current escrow go through. But it's really annoying to see what looks like shady dealings.

First Hike of the Season

Sunday was a beautiful fall day, cool enough for our first hike since spring. (Here, hiking is a non-summer activity since it's so hot.) We went to Placerita Canyon, and Cora seemed to really enjoy it. "Hike" isn't exactly the right word, more like a stroll on a dirt path. We listened to the woodpeckers and kept our eyes peeled for squirrels.

On Saturday, we had a near-40-degree temperature drop from earlier in the week and even a bit of rain. We went to check out water-wise gardening ideas at the Castaic Lake Water Agency's public garden, where you can see which plants grow well in our climate. We're planning ahead for when we have a yard of our own. We also took advantage of a great sale at Orchard Supply Hardware on paint - buy a gallon, get a gallon free - and brought home four gallons of a creamy neutral color for under $35.
As cool as Saturday was, we weren't well-prepared for it, and you can see Cora trying to stay warm in my emergency car coat (bottom photo).

Dodgers Win! Dodgers Win!

Obviously, my writing earlier this week about how good Cora was at a restaurant jinxed us for the next time. Here is Cora during a happier moment this week at a breakfast out:
Yes, she is knocking back flavored creamers. When your kid is whining and crying as much as Cora was Wednesday morning, you'll do what it takes to buy a few moments of peace. It was one of those occasions where we really should have just put a couple of dollars down on the table to cover my coffee and left before ordering our food. Oh well!
Stace was off several mornings this week, as he worked a later shift to train one of the night guys. It was a nice change of pace for both of us, and we enjoyed going to the park on two mornings. Cora and I had dinner one night with Elissa and Harvey, and the other two nights at my parents' house, where I kept my dad company while my mom was out of town. Oh, yeah, and watched the Dodgers win TWO playoff games against the Cubbies. (It figures, doesn't it, that for the first Dodger playoff wins in years, we don't have television service???) The games were awesome, and I think I scared Cora with my shouting when Loney and Martin cleared the bases with their big hits. (James Loney hit a grand slam Wednesday night to put the Dodgers ahead, 4-2, and Russell Martin unloaded the bases with a double Thursday night, dealing a knockout blow to the game and, maybe, the best-of-five series.)

In the video below, we have Cora playing. The other afternoon, we found her in her room, singing to herself as she read her books. It was absolutely precious, so I grabbed the camera. Unfortunately, by the time I was back, she had moved on to playing with a different toy. And then she heard the camera turn on, and needed to investigate.


Cora is better at playing by herself lately. She will empty her magnetic fridge letters out of the jar, put them back in, and empty it out again. She occupied herself in the sand at the park for what must have been 15 minutes, scooping and pouring sand into a bucket and dumping it onto herself. (She then would scrunch up her face and say, "Uh oh! Dirty!")
Also at the park, this week Cora managed to climb onto the play equipment and go down the slide, all by herself, without my help getting up the big bottom step, or holding her hand down the slide. She's getting big!