Long Weekend

On Sunday afternoon, Stace replanted a back planter, moving plants around according to their size so the big ones stop blocking the sprinklers.

He and the girls put in some winter color, and the girls had a pack of pansies to put in their fairy house area.

I spent the time indoors, going through boxes of clothing. Cora found these Hello Kitty pajamas, loved them, and needed to wear them. Never mind the October warmth; she just rolled up the legs and arms.















On Monday, Cora had a random teacher in-service day off. It was so nice to have a quiet morning at home before we took Violet to Terrific Tots!

During Tots, Cora and I worked hard to tidy up the house, and then we picked up Violet and went to the park to meet Daddy at lunchtime.














When I left the workforce, Stace and I had nice ideas of meeting for lunch on a regular basis. They haven't exactly come to fruition, but at least we have the option.

 During Violet's rest time, Cora and I made a big batch of pumpkin-apple muffins. She was so happy to help, and now she is truly useful in the kitchen.

 That night, the girls and Stacey were being silly together after dinner. Lots and LOTS of happy laughter.

With our strong-willed girls, we have our share of tears and angry emotions; but boy, the laughter, hugs and love do make the hard times worth it.

Babies, babies

First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby in the baby carriage...

A year ago we were getting ready for Kelly's wedding, now we're happily anticipating her first baby!
She and Brad are expecting a boy in December, and on Saturday we showered her with love and gifts.

Melanie is due in three weeks with her second little girl, and Cora is an excellent caretaker to Cuddles, Fluffers or Fluffy (whatever his name is at the present moment).

Violet's favorite part of the shower was the cupcake!

 Cora also had a lot of shower fun playing with Abby, Kelly's other flower girl last November. The girls created a secret hideout by a tree in the corner of the backyard.

After the shower, we headed to the park for a Mom2Mom family picnic. most fun might have come when Cora ran into one of her classmates, who had brought her big pink jeep to the park and offered everyone rides.

 On Sunday, we spoke to our family in England, including Uncle Dean and little cousin Olivia.

Between the baby shower and seeing their newborn cousin, Cora and Violet had babies on the brain. Out came the box of babies and doll clothes and accessories.

Cora was an attentive mother to Velvet (later renamed Scarlet), and Violet took good care of Blueberry. Cora even took the stroller and Velvet with her to the park and grocery store. I never saw that coming with my 6 1/2-year-old!

Friday Fun

 Friday was the big day, the one Cora and Sophia were talking about for about a month.
The SLEEPOVER!!!

Sue offered to have Cora spend the night, and on Friday after school she took the girls to Magic Mountain, with some other friends of ours.


Grandma walked Cora in as her "buddy" on her buddy pass, and then used her discount to buy dipping dots.

The girls did a craft in Bugs Bunny World, along with the carousel and trick-or-treating.

They had a ton of fun, before heading home for dinner, more playtime and a movie.

 

 Meanwhile, Violet had earned 20 marbles, so Stace and I took her out for a Friday night treat: a trip around on the mall carousel. She was so excited, talking about it all through dinner. This is the first time we've taken her on the carousel.

 We also got a special dessert at Shave It. I had a buy one, get one coupon, so we went large, and took a lot of it home. Should have told Violet beforehand that we were planning to stretch this treat over a couple of days - she was in tears on the drive home about not being allowed to finish it!

Later, with Violet asleep, we got a call from Sue. Cora was overtired but not asleep, missing us and wanting to come home.
The next morning, she was distraught about what she'd done. It was hard to comfort her, and hard to hear her so disappointed in her decision to come home. These things happen; better luck next time!

Terrific Tots

Violet is having a lot of fun in Terrific Tots. I helped out Monday for the first time, and it was great to spend the time with her there.

I've actually been a bit sad to leave my little buddy at school sometimes. The three years since I was helping at Cora's Terrific Tots class, leaving baby Violet with Grandpa, have just flown by.

Violet gave Miss Diane a happy "Good morning" during the morning circle time. After greeting each child by name, Diane lead songs, read a story, went over the calendar, and did some letter identification with large plastic letters.

 I forgot to take photos of the fall/autumn crafts Violet made! But here she is eating her lunch.

 On Thursday, after Violet and Liana did gymnastics, we had Liana over for lunch.

The girls had a lot of fun playing together. Liana liked playing at our house so much, she told me that in a little while, she, her mommy and her daddy will move into our house. She said that we could move into her house.

On Friday morning, we played at the park and planned to take a walk with a friend, but it was too windy. Instead, we had the friends over for a couple of hours.

I think we can say that Violet had a good week.

Classic Car Sunday

On Sunday, while Paula looked after Cora and Violet, Bill, Patty, Lisa and I visited the Petersen Motor Museum in Hollywood.
Not only is the Petersen a great place to check out stunning cars, the last Sunday of the month is the drive-in breakfast. It's a chance for classic car owners to bring along their cars, park them on the roof to be admired by the public and get free parking and two-for-one entry into the museum. This month was the turn of the British cars. There was everything from Minis the E-Types. There was a nice collection of Austin "big" Healeys. Unfortunately there were no MGBs.

The museum was great. As well as cars from every era, there are also street scenes, like the car parts shop above. There was a 1950s petrol station and a 1930s car dealer, complete with beautiful examples of cars from the decade.

 This Indian motorbike, once owned by a Mr Steve McQueen, was part of a small collection on show. I've read that there are many more cars and bikes stored in a vault underneath the museum and car park that get rotated every few months or so.

 There was a good collection of cars from the era when fins were all the rage. The then "new" jet age inspired car designers of the day to incorporate rear lights that looked like after burners and wing-like fins onto heavily chromed cars of the 60s.

We all popped into a local diner for a filling lunch before heading back to the museum to look around the last of the three floors.
I think I'll be going back to this place.Maybe I'll take the MG soon and see what other great cars they have to display.

Friendly Friday

 Friday was a fun day. After spending time with Cora in her class and watching her get her awards, she got out at noon. I love her Friday schedule!

We had her friend Vivan over for lunch, and the girls had a great time playing "Friends Lego" together while her mom Elaine and I chatted.

 On Friday evening, we went to Daryl and Juliana's house for dinner. We all had a great time together, as always.

The girls are all growing up together so nicely. It was lovely for we grownups to have adult time together while the big girls played in Maya's room, and the little girls played in Natalia's room.

It made me smile to see Cora and Maya dressed up; Cora doesn't dress up often anymore, and is very conscious of not doing "baby" things.

 The girls all got on this couch for a photo nearly three years ago, with a couple of 3-year-olds and two babies. This time they wouldn't stay put long enough for a picture, but you can see that Violet and Natalia were also dipping their toes into the dressing-up game.

After all the girls got into their jammies, a concert broke out!

We ended up staying out until after 11 p.m.! For the first time in forever, both girls fell asleep in the car and stayed sleeping when we carried them in.

Violet then took naps for the next few afternoons, a nice change from her recent pattern.

On Thursday night I went out with some of my school mommy friends, while Stace and the girls created an intricate castle world.

Clever girl

I was happy to get to volunteer in Cora's class on Friday, my first opportunity to do so this school year.
Cora has settled in very well, and hasn't minded the longer school day or not having lunch with me and Violet.

Her teacher, Mrs. Vasquez, told me that Cora is like her assistant teacher, always asking to help out in any way she can. While I was in class, she was chosen to watch her classmates during a lesson and give a penny reward to the student who listened most attentively.

Later, I helped with the class "store," where once a month the students can spend those pennies (or nickels, dimes and quarters) on little trinkets.

 Later on Friday, all the parents were invited in for the first grade-level assembly of the year, when various first-graders were given awards.

Cora was selected to receive a "Good Listening" award, and she also got her prize for being a "Clever Cookie" and learning all her first-grade sight words.





We all are so proud of you, Cora! Great job listening and reading!
 Mrs. Vasquez baked the cookies herself.

Cora's favorite classmate Sophia also received the listening and clever cookie awards.

Raging Waters Fun

 Summer must be officially over now - we've been to my dad's union party at a water park.

On Sunday, dad's deputy union put on a great day at Raging Waters, a water park about an hour east of us. Stace and I have always gone when the party was held at Hurricane Harbor, but this was our first time making the big drive. My parents went last year and promised it would be worth it.

It was! Much as we love Hurricane Harbor (and the 5-minute drive home), Raging Waters was bigger and cleaner. We enjoyed free admission and free food - hot dogs, hamburgers, chicken, beer and margaritas, and ice cream.

 After picking up lunch, we made our camp on the grass under one of the many water slides.

Then we headed over to the children's play area. Eventually, Violet surprisingly worked up the courage to go on the red tunnel slide in the volcano behind her. She didn't like it, but she did it!

 Violet loved the smaller slides better, going up and down them over and over again.

 Cora enjoyed the smaller slides, and the bigger ones too; she, Stace and my dad did the big one where you race lying down on mats, and she, Stace and my mom had fun on the family raft.

To cap off the day, Stace did this surfing attraction. He had a lot of fun with this, and we had fun cheering him on.

The only downsides to our day were that Cora was stung by a bee (but handled it much better than in the past) and Violet melted down about sharing Dipping Dots ice cream with her sister. But those were two minor problems at the end of a long, fun day. We look forward to doing it all again next year!

Week it the life of Skippy

 On the morning after Violet's first Pioneer Club, she had gymnastics class with Liana. I suggested we bring Skippy, the club mascot she was lucky enough to bring home, and she was excited: "Yes! Skippy can come and have an adventure!"
Here, Skippy wanted to check out the gymnastics center while the girls show off their ribbons.

 Over the weekend, Skippy came with Violet to the pool. He loves swimming, especially when it's 100 degrees!

 Skippy also came with us to school Monday, and enjoyed our morning walk.

 Skippy even went to Terrific Tots Monday, hanging out in Violet's lunch bag.

 On Tuesday, he came with us to our little park for a little pre-lunch swinging session.

And on Tuesday night, Skippy sneaked a lick of Violet's ice cream when we went out for dessert. Naughty boy!