Family Time

Daddy's here!
Cora gave Stace a very warm greeting when Dean and I brought him to Nanny and Pop's house from Heathrow on Friday evening. It was super sweet, and the next morning she kept speaking to him, with "Daddy this" and "Daddy that." It was especially gratifying since she hasn't been through much of a "daddy's girl" phase yet.

Saturday was a family day.
We spent several hours at Nan's house, enjoying a break of brilliant weather that Stace was smart enough to pack in his suitcase.

While it was rainy and cold for a good part of my first few days here, it's been pleasant and sunny since Stace arrived.

Stace and I took Cora to Ham Hill, Stace's favorite country park to run around. The views are stunning, especially on a day like Saturday. It was great bringing Cora here now that she can run around and pick wildflowers, which were plentiful and oh-so-varied.

We went out for a meal in the evening, at the same pub/restaurant we went to for my birthday a few months ago. Cora was a very good girl, and passed out kisses to a couple of her favorite men.

In the week we've been apart from Stace, he thinks her speaking has improved even more. Two notes: last night when I was putting Cora to bed, she was repeating, "I wanna sleep mummy's bed!" She then stopped, and started saying, "I wanna sleep your bed." This might be the first time I've heard her using that word properly.

And, an amusing story. When she uses her potty successfully, I've been saying how happy I am about it, and how happy Daddy is, and she will repeat those sentiments, and add in that she is also "so happy." Well, Nanny and Pop's house backs onto fields - they live in farm country - and Cora loves looking at the young cows when they are grazing in the field.
So the other night, when I said how happy I was about her using the potty, she started in with: "Nanny so happy?" (Yes, Nanny is very happy!) "Pop so happy?" (Yes, Pop is very happy, too!) "Daddy so happy?" (Yes! Definitely!) "Cows so happy?"
(Hmmm. Not sure the cows care one way or another where you poo...)

From England

Cora and I are having a nice, relaxing time with Nanny and Pop.
Today, Wednesday, we played with the Partridge girls, Lindsey, Chelsea (3) and Charlie (1). Cora did well sharing her blocks at Nanny's house before we went to the big park in Martock, or "Rec," as in Recreation Ground.

There, Cora and Chelsea had a nice conversation on the swings about animals - their favorite zoo animals, animal noises, and their cats. Cora called Somer by her proper name - a change from what she called her for many months ("Suh"). Interestingly, she pronounced it "Suh-muh," which sounded a bit English, rather than the hard American "er" at the end. We'll have to wait and see how her accent turns out.

And, in other Cora speech news, she seems to have given up her longstanding pronunciation for orange. It was "eee-ah" for some reason, for a very long time, but has changed to "oh-wejz," if that makes sense. She is a definite chatterbox these days. If she is playing by herself, it is especially fun to listen in. While I was getting her ready the other day, she said to me, "Stop it. Don't do that on purpose!" Today she properly used the word "remembered" for the first time. I'm now getting used to hearing six- and seven-word sentences.

In the afternoon on Wednesday, we joined Nanny and Nan on their weekly shopping trip in Yeovil. Cora was a very good girl, and we loaded up on English grocery items to take home.

Cora does her best to keep everyone entertained. When we visited Nan at her home Monday evening, she started wildly dancing while singing many verses of "Old MacDonald." It was wild, I tell ya, with headbanging and lots of spinning.

She also held court Tuesday evening when we visited Dean and Jenny. We had a lovely evening in their conservatory (a glass-walled addition common here) as the sun set, and Cora sang and played catch with Dean with Jen's Tigger stuffed toy. Cora also enjoyed chasing the rabbit around the garden - er, yard.
On Tuesday morning, we went to Rug Ratz, an indoor play center, and Cora had a great time. I think she'll go there again before we go home!

We plan to visit with family on Thursday, and Stace lands Friday! It will be really nice to all be together again.

A terrific traveler

We made it!
Praise God, Cora was pretty much an angel on our trip across the pond! I'm so proud of her, and thrilled with how it all turned out. She was very excited about our trip, and really understood what we were doing and who we would be seeing when we landed. She smiled so big at Nanny and Pop when they picked us up; it is very clear that despite the distance, she knows and loves all of her family in England.
On the plane, she really enjoyed playing with the Etch-a-Sketch we bought especially for the trip. She also loved playing with the control for her little television, and enjoyed some of the children's programming. She was awake and happy playing for the first five-plus hours of our journey, meaning until at least 2 a.m. California time. I was starting to worry a bit that she wasn't going to fall asleep, because each time I suggested it was time to go to sleep, she would protest, and I didn't want to push her into tantrum-mode on a packed airplane when it was so many hours past bedtime.
But she eventually nodded off on my lap, and slept the rest of the trip, so at least four hours. I dozed for an hour or two, and felt refreshed to deal with landing and customs and luggage, etc. It's been a long time since I've done all that without my Stace leading the way!

Cora and I both went to sleep Friday night around 11 p.m. England time, but she woke up in the middle of the night (the eight-hour time difference kicked in) and was wide-eyed and bushy-tailed, so there was no more sleep for that night. I had two long naps Saturday to try to make up for the lost sleep, and Cora had her afternoon nap. She and I both slept well last night, so I guess we're back to normal now! It's such a blessing to be traveling with her at this age.

We saw Nan and Dean and Jenny on Saturday, and I've spent a lot of Sunday with Jenny, my dear Pepperdine friend, and her husband Jim. I got to check out their church, where Jen helps lead worship, and we had a nice Thai lunch together. Cora has had a great time with Nanny and Pop, though the weather hasn't been good enough for them to do anything fun outdoors.

I think that's all for now, I'll have to start using Sue and Gord's camera so we can show off what we're up to soon.

While the cat's away.....

.......the mice will.... do some DIY.

This morning has been very busy. The cat woke me up at 4:30 and kept on screaming even after I fed her. I think she misses Cora. I finally gave up trying to sleep and got up at 6:30.

While Lisa and Cora are away I am going to take the opportunity to get on with the decorating in the living and dining rooms.
The areas where Dean and I cut holes in the wall to route the fan wires were patched and Dean plastered the hole area. This area and others on the ceiling needed to be texture sprayed.
Enter the amazing Keith Blanch and his incredible collection of tools. He gave up his Saturday morning and came over with his compressor and texture gun and helped me complete the job.

We started off by completely masking off the room.When the room was covered (walls and floors) we sprayed the walls with the texture material.

Applying the texture and clean up took about an hour and we were all done.

Thanks for your help today Keith. Lisa and I really appreciate it.It takes 24 hours to cure so I'll prime the room tomorrow afternoon.
This afternoon I'll put the final coat of paint on the living room walls and then that room will be done with painting.
This evening Keith and Tracey have invited me over for dinner and swim.

The Girls Adventure

Tonight I took Lisa and Cora to the airport for their flight to England.
They're going over to spend time with Mum, Dad, Nan, Dean and Jenny, as well as other friends and family. I will join them next week as I don't have very many days off work left this year.

Lisa will add more to this post as well as others (you know how she loves Blogging).
Unfortunately after I took the camera out of Lisa's bag to take the snaps below I forgot to put in back in. So, the camera is home with me. Not in Martock.

Here's my girls off on their little adventure together.

Getting ready for Airplane Ride!

Here's a few recent photos as I take a quick break from packing...

On Monday after Stroller Strides we went to our friend and neighbor Genia's house to play. She has a four-year-old, two-year-old and newborn and has been a part of my MOPS table this year, and it was a real blessing to learn she lived just a few doors down from us. I look forward to a lot of play time for our kids together this summer, especially in our community pool, with its kids pool.

Cora put her foot in that pool for the first time Wednesday night, when we attended our annual HOA meeting in the pool area. What a difference for us to attend this meeting, compared to our condo HOA meetings! There were no big needs to worry about, and everyone seemed genuinely happy to meet us and happy about the state of our neighborhood.

The last two photos are from a recent Mommy and Me class. We attended class today, and Cora again had a great time, overall. When we were on the playground, she wanted to swing, but both baby swings were taken and she didn't want a "big girl swing."

I promised her we would go to our little playground when we got home so she could swing, and that made things a bit better, though she still shed some tears. "Go home right now, go little park and swing, right now," was her repeated suggestion. It took a lot of cajoling for her to stay in class for the final songs and sticker-hand-out time.
("Right now" is a favorite phrase this week. She also is trying to appropriately use the words "today," "yesterday," and "last night." It's pretty cute. Ex: "Cora, do you want to wee on the potty?" "No thanks. I wee on potty yest-uh-day.")

Sadly, when we later went to the little park, the swings were in the sun and were way too hot for her to use. She was very disappointed, and cried and cried. Oh well, I assume when we get to England, hot swings won't be a problem!

Cora and I are excited about our trip. Though it would be better to have Stace come with us, since he doesn't get a ton of vacation time, we decided that Cora and I would go first and he will come in a week later. We have talked to Cora a lot about the trip, and she will correctly name off all our beloved family members we're going to go see. She also understands that she is going to go night-night on the plane. Here's hoping that "understanding" leads to action.

So this is the first time Cora and I have gone out in matching outfits. A bit silly, but hey, it was Mother's Day and we were in the family spirit.
We had a sweet, relaxing day on Sunday - an encouraging church service that really honored motherhood, followed by great progress painting our living room. (Still not quite ready for photos... soon though.)
In the evening we ate out and did a bit of shopping.

On Tuesday we had our final MOPS meeting of the year (which follows the school calendar), and the children had a special surprise - musical entertainment! I was surprised when even the older toddler class came out, including Cora, who danced her heart out.
After the meeting, we got Cora's hair cut. Rather than the pink Barbie jeep, Cora chose the classic yellow VW Bug to sit in, making her father proud.
We got about an inch cut off the bottom to even it out a bit more, along with a bang trim. She was such a good girl during her hair cut, sitting very still so she could have a lollypop. (Though, true to form, she didn't finish it - she did not inherit Stace's sweet tooth. She regularly eats just half a cookie, a part of a brownie, etc.)

Week of colds

Sorry it's been a while since the last update; there wasn't a lot to report.
We had a quiet week, as Cora got a cold on Sunday. We skipped Stroller Strides on Monday and Wednesday, and only left the house for the grocery store and a walk around Bridgeport.

These photos are from our lake time, where Cora enjoyed seeing all the semi-wildlife again. We saw at least six turtles and a number of fish - the top photo shows one fish jumping out of the water to eat our bread crusts. (Click on it to blow it up, if you'd like.)

At the doctor's on Wednesday, we were told that Cora did in fact only have a cold. That was a relief - her deep, wet cough didn't signal a more serious infection, and her contagious period was about over.

I was proud of Cora - her last two visits included a good deal of crying because she was worried about shots. This time, she listened as I told her beforehand what the doctor would be doing, and she didn't fuss at all as the doctor looked into her ears and mouth. In fact, this whole week she's been a good girl -her energy's been down, and so she's been less likely to throw tantrums.

On Friday, we had our friends Kelly, and David and Melanie come over for dinner. Then Kelly watched Cinderella with Cora (Cora's favorite) and put her to bed, while the rest of us adults went to see the play "Noises Off" at College of the Canyons. It was hilarious - it's a very funny, laugh-out-loud play, and the actors (including my dear sweet sister) were excellent.

The final two photos: the first shows Cora getting herself a drink. She decided she wanted some milk, so she got her cup and lid out of the drawer, and when I had the fridge open, she grabbed the carton and sat down to do the job. Thankfully she did let me help her with the actual pouring.
The second shows ever-patient Somer, the best friend Cora could ask for.

On Saturday, my friend Allison from my Valley Press days came over for a visit, and she got to see Stace working on our current house project: We're painting the living room! We primed it during the week, and now Stace has two coats of edging up. Hopefully by the time the weekend is over we'll have the color up on the walls and ready to show off.

Unfortunately, I am coming down with Cora's cold. I'm taking lots of vitamin C and drinking orange juice. Hopefully I'll be feeling pretty well by Thursday, when Cora and I get on the airplane for our big trip across the pond!

Finally, a very Happy Mother's Day to all my mommy friends, and particularly to my Mom!

Frugal Fun, and Squirrel Spotting

One of my hobbies, now that I'm not bringing in any money, is making Stacey's income stretch as far as possible. I've always been frugal, and since having Cora and leaving the working world, I have come to enjoy making meals at home, cooking from scratch, and stockpiling food and household goods when the price is right. I pair coupons with store sales, and try to save 50% of the full retail price whenever I shop at traditional grocery stores (traditional as compared to the 99 Cent Store, which is a favorite of mine).

I don't blog about this sort of thing often, but after the grocery trip photographed above, Stace said I really ought to mention it. The above represents my recent trip to Ralphs. The full price was about $50; after Ralphs Club Card savings, the price dropped to about $32. And after coupons, which Ralphs doubles, the total was $5.81. I practically ran from the store in case someone stopped me for shoplifting! This was a very special circumstance, because our nearest Ralphs sent special coupons for us as "new neighbors" to "introduce" us to the store. One of those coupons was $10 off a $25 purchase, and four coupons were for free bread, eggs, orange juice and mayonnaise. So, I don't expect to catch this kind of deal again, or at least not very often!
Part of my frugal hobby involves keeping up on a couple of Web sites that alert the like-minded to great deals. My favorite is www.moneysavingmom.com. On that site a couple of days ago, the lady linked to a deal at Red Mango, a frozen yogurt shop in town: they offered free yogurt with a topping on Saturday, to allow customers to try out a new flavor they were unveiling. So, we all enjoyed our free yogurt.

Also, on the frugal fun topic, on Sunday night we had a nice time watching a free performance of the play "Beauty and the Beast" at an outdoor amphitheater in Stevenson Ranch. During the intermission, we planned to buy ice cream or a smoothie. But, the Jamba Juice employees were going around handing out free samples - quite large samples, too. So another free evening's fun!

Here we have Exhibit A of why Stace built the odd-looking contraption over our fruit-and-veggie garden.
On Saturday morning we had two squirrels racing around our yard, having all sorts of fun, and then one of them wanted to see what was on the other side of the chicken wire. Thankfully, he failed ... so far, so good.

Mesmerizing Marionettes

Cora and I experienced our first puppet show together on Thursday, at the 50-year-old Bob Baker Marionettes theatre near downtown Los Angeles. It was a fun event organized by our MOPS group, and Harvey and Elissa had a good time too.

The show was about life on the farm, and was very old, nostalgic and sweet.

I was concerned that Cora might be frightened of some of the puppets, but she was great.

It was pretty funny - all of the other 25-30 children sat on the floor and watched, and Cora could barely keep still. She jumped and danced around to nearly all the songs (see top photo, or video below), and liked telling me about what she was seeing. After the show, some of the theater employees commented on how fun it was to watch her enjoy the show so much.

She didn't like it when the puppets got too close, however. At one point, Peter Rabbit came by almost every child to paint his or her nose, and Cora fell into my arms yelling, "No!" when he came near her. The rabbit/puppeteer joked about it and went on to Harvey, who took it well. Cora liked watching that, much better.

After the show, everyone got ice cream and the adults had coffee, included in the show price. It was a great morning, and fun thinking that my parents could have seen the same show and eaten the same brand ice cream as small children.


In fact, Jenny (last photo) remembers going as a kid. We had two great days in a row - the puppet show on Thursday, and my dear friend Jenny (JT) on Wednesday. She is in town from England to celebrate her grandmother's 80th birthday, and she came up to SClarita to see us and the new house. She made friends with Cora by agreeing to read her books, so Cora brought her a pile.

We had a relaxing day together and treated ourselves to Chipotle and a margarita at lunch, and Red Mango frozen yogurt for dessert.

And the video of our dancer (the puppets are weeping willow trees):

Cowboy Festival

It's April, and in SClarita, that means it's time for the Cowboy Festival! Stace and I love this annual event, and were happy to return after taking a two-year hiatus. (We were in England last year and had a 2-month-old the year before...)
We volunteered for the city-run event in an area designed to entertain children. Stace helped kids throw a lasso around a metal calf (if you blow this photo up, you can see it a lot better). I helped in the area right next to his...
...where little ones (and bigger ones) could ride rocking horses with real saddles. Cora loved this area, and we visited it several times.
The Cowboy Festival is held at Melody Ranch in Placerita Canyon, where countless movies and television shows (including the HBO series Deadwood) have been filmed over the decades.
In the couple of years since we last attended, the organizers have added some great activities for kids. Besides the area where we helped, in the pioneer living exhibit (above), they could pan for gold, play with folk toys, grind cornmeal and cut biscuit dough. It was fun and informative, with the static displays teaching all about what life was like for the Westerners of the 1800s.
Also new this year was an exhibit on the Buffalo Soldiers, the African-American U.S. Army soldiers of the 19th and early 20th century. Re-enactors set up a mock army camp, and Cora was able to pet one of their horses. This was another great exhibit, and I would have loved to have spoken to the re-enactors further but it was a little hard with Cora wanting to run around.
Stace and I volunteered at the festival on Saturday, and on Sunday he played golf and I took Cora back to the ranch. We listened to some music, did the gold-panning and had kettle corn - above, Cora is feeding her new pet horse some kettle corn.
Grandma and Grandpa, whose festival volunteerism led to our own involvement, got Cora her new little friend, whom she's trying to lasso above.

Cora was a very good girl at the festival, and it was fun to watch some live music with her. She really enjoyed listening to the Western Swing trio Hot Club of Cowtown; their final song sounded like a locomotive, and Cora immediately picked up on it and said, "Choo choo train!" The weather was perfect - though some years it's scorching (and it was boiling earlier in the week), this weekend was cooler.

Here's Cora panning for gold:

More from class

Cora and I are still enjoying our Mummy and Me class.

In the top photo, she's showing off her cheesy smile at the lego table. During the free play portion last week, she spent the entire time with the legos.

After a story and some songs, the kids do three little art projects - here, she's water-coloring a heart and then finger-painting.


The next photo is from today's class - she spent the free play time in the play kitchen. What a yummy spread, huh?
Doesn't everyone like a nice glass of milk after snacking on a head of lettuce? We worked on sharing the food and kitchen today when another little girl came over to play. At first Cora was trying to push her out of the way by opening the oven door into her leg. But after we went away and had a little chat, Cora did much better.

I'd love to report more good news on the potty front, but alas, Cora has taken a couple of steps back. She will still use the potty successfully every day, but she has been using her diaper for messy jobs nearly every day for the last week.

Oh well, I knew she was quite young to make the switch, but a mom can't help but hope for quick and easy success.

The last photo is the happy ending to a typical Cora-Daddy story. I was out when Cora woke up from her nap, so Stace went in to say hello to her. She said she wanted to stay in her bed and play. Stace had his hands on the crib rail, so Cora tried to forcibly remove them while saying, "Daddy go. Daddy go. Daddy go away."

An hour or two later, while I finished up making dinner, Stace and Cora were in the play room with the Lincoln Logs. Cora noticed that Stace had closed his eyes while he lay on the carpet beside her. She hopped up and jogged into her room, saying, "Dora get Daddy blanket."

I followed, knowing she wouldn't be able to get the blanket out of her crib by herself. I first picked up her pretty quilt blanket and asked if she wanted to take it to Daddy. "No," she said, "this blanket," pointing to her special yellow blanket she sleeps with every day.

She brought it out and covered him up gently, and later went and got the pillow to put under his head. Awwwwww!