New friends

Cora received these beautiful animals as a gift from my cousin Dara, who recently got married in Ohio. Dara comes from a very artistic family, and she designed them as part of her job, as a toy designer. Cora was very pleased with them!

Cora has decided that she LOVES Elmo, the Sesame Street character with the babyish voice. We don't even have cable, but we found on Youtube a clip of Elmo singing "Elmo's Song" with Big Bird and Snuffy, and she has fallen in love. You can see that by the above video; she asks for the video clip on the computer countless times each day. Below, you see Cora in heaven, watching the clip. We've decided to get a little Elmo doll and put it in Cora's room when we move into our new home, to welcome her into her new room. (And it won't be the singing, dancing, talking Elmo dolls you see so many places - we played with one today in the store and it scared Cora. After it ran through its spiel, Cora kept saying "All done! All done!")

Magical Day

We took Cora to Magic Mountain over the weekend, her first theme park visit since she has become old enough to enjoy it.
The yellow truck was her first ride - when we finished, she said, "More ta!"
Magic Mountain has been working on its image, trying to become more family-friendly and not simply a place for wild teenaged thrill-seekers. To that end, part of the children's area has been remade into "Thomas Town" with Thomas the Tank Engine featured prominently. Cora already likes Thomas - we've been watching a Thomas DVD this week - so she really enjoyed her ride on the train.
She also loved walking everywhere, and only fussed when we put her in the stroller when it was time to walk with speed back to the car.
Thanks, Grandma, for the tickets!

My, what big leaves you have

Cora found her Thomas the Tank Engine hat the other day and put it on her own head. Well done! We've been without cable television for over a month, but at the library last week we checked out two children's DVDs, including a Thomas DVD. She loves it. Stace and I, meanwhile, have been watching the World War II series by American documentarian Ken Burns. We've also enjoyed the movie Casablanca and the musical South Pacific, so you could say we've been on a WWII kick. It's heavy stuff, and very sobering. Makes you realize you have so little to worry about when you're just concerned with when you're going to close on your new house.
Anyway, back to Cora. The second photo shows her Thursday morning enjoying her cereal. It was a new-to-her cereal and she asked for seconds and thirds. The last photo and video show the joys of fall.
We had some excellent news this week. The bank that owns the house we're buying agreed to put in the appliances we need to for our sale to move forward. (Our lender required a furnace to be in place to give us a loan.) We hope to move in before Thanksgiving.
In other good news, I filled up my tank yesterday for under $30! The fall of the the price of gas has been amazing. From a high of $4.67 (at least that's the highest I paid) to $2.60 now, it's hard to believe.

Stroller Strides Party

On Friday we had a Halloween party for the kids (and us!) after our workout. Above, you have Cora the Doggy and Harvey, the cool 80s' kid. If I'm not mistaken, the shirt he's wearing is his dad's, so it's VINTAGE cool. Below, you see the kids playing with bubbles and eating cookies.

Cora enjoyed her cupcake, or at least she enjoyed the frosting.
After eating the icing off her cupcake, she then re-iced it.
Yum!

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.