A great week

What a nice week we've had!

Though we have our daily moments of frustration, in general my little family is in a nice groove. We are so blessed!

On Monday, Juliana and her girls came up, and we went to Kabuki for lunch.

Both girls enjoyed their (free) birthday lunch, and I especially enjoyed the large portions. No cooking for me, that night!

Cora did amazingly well with her chopsticks, on her first time using them. She didn't ask for or need a fork!

Violet also mastered taking food from the sticks.

We then walked over to the Undergrounds coffee house at our church, where coffee and pastries made for a nice dessert.

Undergrounds is a donation-only establishment, with some of the funds raised going to a local nonprofit.
All of our girls did great and had a nice time together.

Besides the chopsticks, Cora did something else that amazed me: When I was ordering our drinks, Cora was counting us, and counting the number of chairs at a table she wanted us to sit at.

It's a little thing, but such a grownup little thing to have done, and she did it all on her own.

On Tuesday, we had a MOPS leadership meeting, followed by school for Cora. Wednesday we went to a MOPS mom's house for a pizza-making playdate, followed by storytime at Castaic library.

On Thursday, Cora and I made muffins before she went to class; during class, Violet and I got my car's smog check completed. Violet was a sweetheart, affectionate and playful while we waited.

Today, Friday, after Stroller Strides the instructor brought a parachute for the kids. Cora was running around shrieking with laughter, and Violet was almost equally enthusiastic. We then met our friend Jaimie and her two, Mackenzie (pictured) and Luke, at a park for a picnic play date.

Good times! The kind we want to remember.

10 months

Violet is now 10 months old, and such a fun and affectionate addition to our home.

She loves us very much, and is pretty quick to give us her open-mouth kisses.

Her personality is generally happy, easy-going, upbeat. If every baby was this joyful, I'd love to have five more!

When she does something she shouldn't do - like touching the DVD player - and we firmly tell her "no," she is unhappy, but no tantrums yet. She definitely doesn't have the same strong-willed personality that Cora has. (Phew! I reread the blog and was writing about Cora's screaming fits at 9 and 10 months...)

Yet again, one negative (but kind of funny) thing I should note: I was out front with Genia and our kids, and handed Violet to her for a moment. Violet immediately started fussing, waved her arms at Genia's face, and then reached for me. The arm-waving looked a lot like hitting!

Violet pulls to standing easily, and climbs up on things like low storage boxes that slide under the bed.

She likes to put things in her mouth - everything she can reach! Still no teeth other than the bottom two, and her teething symptoms have lessened.

She generally goes to bed between 8 and 8:30, and sleeps until 7:30. She's still taking two naps, though the morning nap has shifted to 9:30ish instead of 9.

In the bottom photo, Violet had woken up at 6 and was so unhappy. I changed her diaper to find a lot of mess, which was making her bum very red and painful. No wonder! By 8:30, when she was having her breakfast, she was done!

Speaking of breakfast, Violet normally has oatmeal in the mornings, and whatever we're having for dinner, in the evenings. She especially likes yogurt, chicken, peas, corn and carrots, along with quesadillas and French toast. She ate an entire piece of French toast for lunch the other day, and the next night she nearly finished a chicken-and-cheese quesadilla by herself!
She also nurses four times a day - in the morning, upon waking from her naps, and before bed.

We also have a couple of other cute photos from the past few weeks. In the third one, she found my lipstick and knew just what to do with it. And next, she was very pleased with herself after pulling down onto herself a box of fun things.

Past the Point of No Return

An Open Letter

Dear Genia and John,

We love being your neighbors.

We love exchanging meals every other week and having that dependable friend from whom to borrow eggs, a ladder, or a weed whacker.

We love how our kids get so excited to play together. We love our quiet cul-de-sac where they all can ride their scooters/trikes/bikes together.

We love our little park we can quickly walk to for an easy picnic playdate.

It was fun having dinner and watching the Oscars with you!

We love how Ave is such a good friend to Cora, even though she's two years older and goes to the big school now. We love how Owen and Violet giggle at each other.

And we love how Johnny and Cora play together.

The other day, when Johnny asked me if he could have a date with Cora, I laughed inside, but also secretly hoped that these kids will grow up together, and reach dating age together.

So, from our family to yours, please don't ever move.
Sincerely,
Stace and Lisa

Editors' note: I asked Johnny what he meant when he asked me if he could have a date with Cora, and he said that she could come to his house and they could play. So I think he was meaning a "play date." And, for those of you wondering, "dating age" would be 23.

4-year well check

Cora went to her 4-year well check Thursday afternoon, and overall it went better than I had expected. I had been nervous because Cora knows about shots now, but when I told her about the appointment - on the way there - she wasn't upset.

She is 32 pounds - 25th percentile - and 38.5 inches, also 25th percentile.

Cora cooperated through the blood pressure check, and her blood pressure is good.

Cora also liked the hearing test, likening it to a game.

The cooperation came to a screeching halt when she was asked to raise the eye cover up and "read" the pictures on the eye chart. For whatever reason, she did not want to do this. Stace, the nurse and I all tried to convince her, persuade her, push her into doing it. Stace and I both took turns reading the chart holding the shield up over our eyes. I gave her a big hug (she asks for these when she is in trouble/not wanting to do what she's told).

Finally, she agreed to cooperate, and then would tell us the symbols in a voice barely over a whisper. It was pretty aggravating. (Excuse the blurry photo, but Stace has Violet in his arms and was already quite annoyed at this point in the visit.)
Dr. Brockett knows Cora well, of course. She calls her "feisty," and that is a great word for Cora. As she kept talking to Cora throughout the visit, Cora warmed up to her, and cooperated later with the physical examination.

Cora got just one shot, the MMR, and with me holding her arms firmly down, we survived. It would have been a lot worse had she needed a second or third jab, as the first one kind of took her by surprise and she wasn't in full freak-out mode when the nurse came in with the needle.

We had discussed vaccines in the morning, so she understands the "why," but obviously they still sting!

We went out to dinner after the doctor's, and here Cora is playing doctor by listening to Daddy's heartbeat with her chopstick.

As another post-doctor treat, we went to Target so Cora could pick out something fun with the gift card from Aunt Patty and Uncle Bill. She looked over just about every single toy in the store before deciding upon the Play-Doh cake-making station. Fitting, since she always makes cupcakes with Aunt Patty. We got it out today and Cora really loved it.

As a final treat, Cora got an icee as we left, for her bessert. Hence the red mouth/pink teeth in the photo! I'm hoping that next year, when it comes time for her checkup (and shots), Cora remembers the fun we had afterward!

A new park

We've had a nice couple of weeks with friends!

We hosted our MOPS table last week (I'm now a table leader), and on Monday we went to visit Juliana and her girls.

They now live a short walk from a big park with nice new play equipment. Cora and Maya were excited to see each other again, and held hands on the way to the park.

Since it was President's Day, the park was busy, and as soon as we got there, Cora was off and running.

Juliana packed a picnic lunch for us all, and Cora liked mustard for the first time.

Back at the house, Cora helped clear Juliana's back yard of extra lemons and oranges.

Yum! We'll be having lemon chicken Saturday with one of them.

And Violet learned how to get Cheerios out of a Snack Trap container.

My little baby is growing up!

The girls playing

I've had some cute photos and videos of Cora and Violet accumulating on the computer while I posted other entries here on the blog.

In the top ones, Violet really wants Cora to share her apple. She was practically crawling onto big sister's lap and making all sorts of hungry noises. I love the look on Cora's face in the second photo.

In the next photo and videos, Cora and Vi were playing together. It was a tea party, if you ask Cora, and a chance for Violet to bang plastic toys.

They don't play together every day, but when they do, it's super cute. I'm so glad and blessed by our girls' age difference. Cora thinks Violet is great, and the feeling is mutual.

And the other day, Stace was working on the kitchen and I was washing the dinner dishes. Violet can be fussy and a little clingy some evenings, especially as she's been teething.

I put her in the Jumperoo, which she hasn't played in too much lately. I put batteries in the lights-and-sounds toy (for the first time), and she loved it!

Cora bounced all over the room on her space hopper, so our house was filled with the sounds of laughter, happy shrieks, and toy music. The joys of family life!

Kitchen Update

Insulation and drywall are up in the new wall sections on the west side of the kitchen.

Stace moved on to wiring in new sockets and switches on the north wall, where we soon will have a pantry, additional storage cabinets and small desk.

Every home do-it-yourselfer should have a qualified electrician to help with these sorts of jobs...

Don't worry. No 4-year-olds were harmed in the making of this blog post.

Stace borrowed a really cool recessed-light-hole-cutting saw to make holes in the new ceiling...

Bye-bye, florescent tubes!

Hello, recessed lights. So glad to welcome you to our kitchen!

Here are the lights, and the new ceiling on the right side. As you can imagine, knowing Stace, the light tray is equidistant to where the new upper cabinets will be placed. And you should see his colorful diagram showing how he decided where to place the lights. (Each bulb casts its glow down in overlapping arcs, to maximize the amount of light. I truly don't understand how he comes up with this stuff. But I do appreciate it!)

This shows the new wall connecting to the hallway, the new ceiling, the covered-over old air conditioning vent, and the new kitchen wall, with its switches, sockets and phone jacks. The main lighting is on a dimmer switch, like we had and loved in our condo. The other switch will control undercabinet lighting above the desk. The top socket will be within a cabinet, for the undercabinet lighting and for our cell phone chargers.

Tonight, Stace removed the pantry and set it up in the corner you see pictured above. The fridge is next to it, and he's working this week on moving the electrical wires and water pipes so our fridge can move into the corner space vacated by the old pantry. Then, he'll move the wires so the stove and microwave can shift down into their new positions. This means a lot of cabinetry and counter space will be demo'd soon!

Cora and Nemo

An orange plastic bath toy has stolen the heart of my older daughter.

And, "Finding Nemo" has taken on much deeper meaning in our house, where we have searched for the little squirter far too often in recent weeks.

Cora loves to take Nemo with her, playing games with him, talking to him, talking about him, telling us his thoughts on the world.

The top photo was taken after one of our busy Tuesdays, when we went from MOPS in the morning straight to Terrific Tots. When I picked Cora up at 1:30, she found Nemo in the car and got excited: "Nemo missed me because I was gone for such a long time. I take care of Nemo because I am his mummy. He is my daughter."
Cora often dreams about Nemo, putting herself into the movie (which she calls "Nemo Finding").

Describing the three types of dreams she has: "They use a rocket to get away from the sharks, and sometimes they come to our house, and sometimes I'm in the river with Nemo."

One morning when I was tired of the tears as we again searched for the fish, I told Cora that we were going to make a bed for Nemo. When Nemo wasn't right with her, he should be in his bed, so we know where he is. This was the suggestion of a friend of mine.

So, in the middle photo, you see Nemo in his bed. The little wooden crates for her play food have previously served as a tank for Nemo, when she pretends he's trapped at the dentist's office.

Cora then put together a hiding place for him for when they play hide-and-seek.

Growing up, part 2

We took our girls out the other night to Chronic Taco, a Mexican quick service restaurant. Normal, right?

Well, yeah, but it was one of those nights that showed in little ways how they are getting bigger.

For one thing, Cora was eating chips with guacamole and salsa. She loved it!

And Violet was really happy to eat about a third of Cora's quesadilla. It was a breakthrough to have something new to feed Violet for lunches and dinners.

Several times since then, I've made Cora a tortilla-n-cheese, and cut off some for Violet. She always finishes it.

Violet also ate a lot of pasta the other night, which made me happy. Before, she would just spit out pasta. But the other night she couldn't get enough. So I now have more options for Violet's meals.

Growing up

On Sunday our family took a couple of steps forward.

First, in the morning, Cora moved up into the pre-kindergarten class at church. She said goodbye to Taylor and Josh, her teachers for the past year, who do such a great job each week.

(I would have liked a nice photo of Cora giving them a hug and the cards she wrote out, but Cora isn't into such cheesiness.)

Cora was so happy to move into the next class, with the "big kids." It's a mix of 4s and 5-year-olds who will enter kindergarten in the fall.

As we walked away, I got teary. I'm not that mushy of a mom, so it hit me by surprise.

Then, after naptime, we went to Lowe's for drywall and other odds and ends for the kitchen.

We were there for two hours, and it was another time of realizing that our little family is growing up. Cora was an angel on our long trip. She played with Violet, helped feed her to keep her busy, and made up games to entertain herself.

She also - for the first time - used the toilet by herself. As we went in, she told me she would do it all by herself, because she is now four. Right then. We didn't lock the stall, and I was right outside it. But she managed to handle it all, by herself. She also washed her hands alone.

(Since then, she still asks for help at home. The days of "I need some wipe!" aren't over yet.)

Back to Lowe's. Besides Cora acting so grownup, Violet also is growing up. She is so very different from the tiny baby entertained with a rattle. This time around, she was happy as long as she had snacks. She ate through the Cheerios, several toast sticks, and part of a banana.

Happy Valentine's Day

My Valentines!

I love each of you so much!