Home Improvements

Here's some photos of our new carpeting. We're so pleased with how it came out! We got this type for the playroom, a sandy/wheat colored carpet with a tiny square pattern.

Here's a reminder of how the spare room (future nursery) looked before, with a lovely wine-colored carpet...

And now, with the new carpet.

I'm most pleased with our room - we had a dark brown color before, and this lighter color brightens the whole room.

A closeup of the carpeting in the three bedrooms... the speckles will hopefully help hide dirt.
And finally, Cora's room. Her room and the playroom had a sage green color, so this is, again a big improvement. The new padding under the carpets is amazing; everything feels so plush.

The carpets were put in Thursday, and on Friday we had our 70-foot-tall liquidamber tree chopped down by my MOPS friend's husband's tree-trimming service. The tree was healthy, but so big that we were concerned about large branches falling down onto our house. The roots were cracking the wall, too. I was amazed at how quickly the men took this huge tree down - in about an hour, all the greenery was on our lawn, and it wasn't much longer that the trunk was down too.

We plan to turn the trunk into a planter. I'm glad we got it done last week - though it was an expensive two days - because we're getting our first storm of the year. We won't have to worry when the winds blow.

Telling Cora

Stace, Cora and I headed to the doctor's today for my checkup. I'm now 11 weeks, and all went well with the nurse finding the baby's heartbeat.

We took the opportunity to tell Cora about the baby in Mummy's tummy, and she took the news well. She seemed a bit excited, and then got quiet. I think she understands what's going on; some of her little friends have had new babies join their homes this year.

Stace got a lot of work done this weekend, finishing the baseboards in our room and the spare room. You can see him removing the old baseboards in this photo.

Cora and I made dinner and dessert Sunday - she was quite the helper, standing on a chair next to me. She loved being so close to the action.

Her phrase of the weekend: "I don't think so." She used it often - very often.
Cora also has been putting herself in others' shoes a lot. For instance, while watching Cinderella, when the mice were picking up the beads from the broken necklace, Cora said, "When I was a mouse, I help them pick those up." She says some version of this make-believe at least once a day, often when I'm reading to her.

Giving up control

Tonight, I waited out a queasy stomach by spending some quality time coloring with Cora.
She hasn't been much of a colorer lately, but earlier today she found her box of crayons and settled down, occupying herself for maybe 20 minutes.

I colored a picture of Pooh Bear with the yellow and orange crayons, and then colored his coat and hat blue. Cora then took the blue, and, with vigorous strokes, turned Pooh blue. She seemed quite pleased with work. On the next page, I suggested she color Piglet pink, but no, blue was the color of the evening. Bold blue, the crayon ground into the page.

It struck me as humorous. I'm not that artistic, but I did have ideas of nicely finished drawings, with true-to-life colors, within the lines. Cora had other plans, plans she was joyful to implement, and I had to let her have her way. It was her coloring book, after all.

Stace has the same problem when he's building her Lincoln Log houses or block towers. I know it's just the beginning of a parent's lessons in giving up control.

Good Cora

I've been feeling a bit better this week.
Today, Wednesday, I felt good most of the day, until about 7 p.m. Not bad at all!

On Monday I took Cora to the park to play. She had a great time, jumping and swinging and sliding.
She climbed up the chain-net thing several times by herself, and up to the top of the very tall, twirly slide, and went down by herself. She has come so far from the little girl who early this year didn't like slides much at all.

Today we made our return to Stroller Strides, and it was surprisingly successful. I brought lots of food for me to eat, and between that and the distraction factor, I didn't feel sick once during our workout. It was great seeing the moms again, and Cora was an absolute angel. I wasn't sure what to expect since it has been a full month since we've Strided, but she listened and cooperated the whole morning.

I let her out of the stroller when we stopped for strength training, and she exercised too (see photos, where Cora works out with Instructor Jen). Each time, she hopped back in the stroller quickly and without complaint. I hope this new trend continues! She also was very good at the park, getting out of the swing when appropriate, and leaving without complaint. (I note this because this has been a big struggle in the past!)

I felt well enough for us to then run a few errands, throughout which Cora was a delight. She was so good, I gave her a good behavior sticker when we got home.

(It's funny to be writing this now, as she has had a rough half hour here with a lot of crying and screaming for no good reason. Life with a toddler!)

The last photo is from our dinner out Monday evening. We went to Wolf Creek, one of my favorite local restaurants. We ordered Cora the children's cheeseburger meal, and asked for fruit instead of fries. She was so excited when she saw her fruit - oranges, strawberries and raspberries. She concentrated on it and barely touched her burgers.

Cora has been interested in rhyming words lately.
It started when she was looking through her bird book and mistakenly called the eagle a seagull. Then she said, "Eagle, Seagull" and cracked up laughing, and then repeated it over and over the rest of the night. That led she and Stace to come up with lots of other rhyming pairs, each of which engulf her in laughter. It's really cute.
Also, this morning, she informed me that she calls her blanket "blankie" and her pillow (which she also likes to take around with her), "pillie," which sounds more like "pee-wee."

New doors and favorite blankies

Here's how Stace spent much of his weekend - working on the house again.

It started Friday when we went to the carpet store to sign the contract for the new carpet for the playroom and bedrooms. The playroom and Cora's room are being covered by insurance for the smoke damage (discoloration) from the fire, and we're paying for the other two bedrooms.

I had no idea how much work Stace had ahead of him for us to get the carpet installed in the bedrooms! (He knew, but we just hadn't talked about it.) All the baseboards in our room and the spare bedroom have to be replaced first, and to properly do the baseboards, we need to put in the new six-panel doors and moulding around the doors.

(OK, we don't have to, but we definitely want to, and this is the only right order to do it in - it's hard/impossible to put in new pretty baseboards over existing carpet.)

So, Stace did some demo on Saturday and we bought the new doors, and on Sunday he installed them. Cora was a good girl and helped her Daddy clean up. In the third photo, you can see our new bedroom door, and all the mess Cora managed to brush into her dustpan, by herself!

Stace also installed the new six-panel door leading to Cora's bathroom this weekend. Last weekend, when he removed the old door, he told her, "Cora, go look at what I did to your door." She replied, "Oh dear. What's wrong?"

It cracked me up - she sounded like she'd already lived through too many DIY projects gone awry - and so far, she hasn't!

In the next photo, you can see how Cora's been entertaining herself a lot this week. This brochure advertising all the Thomas products came in her new train package. She calls it a "map" and loves reading through it, pointing out all the different trains and tracks she "needs."

You see her blanket in the picture? That is Cora's very special "blankie." Cora loves her blankie, and insists on taking it around the house with her, and often, in the car. (We don't let her take it out of the car.) She talks about her blankie a lot. ("I love my yellow blankie. It's soft and warm. You feel it, Mummy? See how soft it is?")

And, Stace has had to give in to her name for the blanket. He tried to insist that she not call it "blankie," thinking that a soft, annoying American term. But, by herself, Cora chose that name and is very firm in her use of the word.

Cora thinks it's fun and cute to put "ie" on the ends of lots of words. "Can I have some juice, Mummy? Juicie? I say 'juicie,' " and she giggles at her inventiveness. Or, "Milk? Milkie!" and "Where's Somie?" Actually, she calls the cat "Somie" all the time.

A fabulous thing Cora has been saying for the last few weeks is, "I love you." What a great treat!

On Friday, we missed Cora's "My Buddy and Me" class because Cora had a wet cough. Instead, we met Elissa and Harvey at the mall - the toddlers had a great time together, as always, and we had lunch together. It was so wonderful to feel well enough to get out of the house like that.

Our weekend

I don't have any photos from Friday evening, but it was pretty darn great. I felt better than I had in a month, so I made a batch of muffins AND dinner. Then we took an evening bike ride to the drug store to rent a movie. This was the first movie rental in months... years?

But, we both stayed up too late with the movie, and I felt pretty yucky for a lot of Saturday. So, Stace took Cora for a bit, and they went to Hart Park to feed the animals. They took with them Skippy, the Pioneer Clubs Skippers' mascot/class pet. Cora was lucky enough to get Skippy to take home for the week, so she and Stace thought he might enjoy seeing the animals. (You're supposed to take photos with Skippy, and write up his activities in the Skippy Journal.)

Later in the day, we ran some errands.

We got a new web camera at Best Buy, air conditioner filter at Orchard Supply Hardware, and then checked out Trader Joes' in the their new location, next to the aforementioned shops. TJ's is in a much bigger spot now, and it was nice to meander the wider aisles. Cora was our little helper, as you can see from the photos. She loved pushing the mini cart, and was a very good girl for all our errands.

And, she used the toilet in all three stores! It was kind of funny, we were gone maybe two hours total but she needed to wee three times. The potty training is now going very well, and I think we'll be switching to her new regular panties from her trainers very soon. Maybe it's helped that we've been home so much the last month, with me not feeling well.

On Sunday, we went to church for the first time in a while, and in the evening we enjoyed the pool. We're getting another crazy heat wave so we might as well take advantage of the pool. Unfortunately, since we haven't been much lately, Cora has regressed in her swimming skills and confidence. She's much more scared than she was in June or July, and won't do many of the skills she learned at her June class.

But she did, at least, get in her boat again. See here for the last time she had been in it!

Soldiers and trains

Here's Cora enjoying a Daddy-made dinner/snack of soft-boiled eggs and "soldiers" - this is a food Stace grew up on.

You soft-boil eggs, put them in egg cups and cut open the top. Then you dip "soldiers" - strips of buttered bread or toast - into the yolk. Yum! Cora liked it a lot.

Stace has been in charge of a lot of dinners lately.
This morning-sickness thing really stinks. Our normal life has come to a complete halt; we haven't been to Stroller Strides in weeks, and it's hard to imagine getting back soon. Even though I feel better now than I did two weeks ago, I still feel awful about half or two-thirds of the day. I'm lying down a lot, and just trying to get through each day. I'm also taking zofran every day, a very expensive drug for chemo patients to keep you from throwing up. They are helping in that I'm not actually throwing up as much as I remember with Cora, but they don't really help with the nausea.

I did manage to make it to our first MOPS meeting of the year this week, and I've taken Cora to her art class yesterday and will take her to her "My Buddy and Me" class today. We'll see how that goes.

Cora, for her part, has been wonderful. She offers me her blankie when I'm in bed, and brings books for us to look at together. She asks if I'm feeling OK, or if I feel sick, and tries to give me water or my "Preggie Pop" sweets that are supposed to ease the nausea.

Even better, she loves playing with her trains, and will play happily for hours each day. Also, she is watching an hour or so of her Thomas DVDs each day, so that helps get us through the morning until it's time for lunch and nap. She's never watched so much TV in her young life, but we're in a special season of life.

I'm so grateful for my little self-reliant girl! There is a reason we didn't get pregnant any earlier, because I knew with my morning sickness I couldn't deal with a young toddler. Cora is really at a great age for us to get through this together.

The next two photos show the good behavior chart we've made for Cora. My mom, who works in early childhood education, gave us the idea - rather than just correcting Cora for misbehavior, we wanted a concrete way to encourage good behavior. We've written around the chart "good listener," "loving," "polite," "helpful," "kind" and "friendly," to remind Cora of the behavior we want to see.
When she gets five stickers, she gets a treat, and we take a photo of her with her treat to paste into the last box.

The last photo here is on her chart - for her first reward, we went to Toys R Us and let her pick out a new train. This kid is amazing with her Thomas trains - she knows all their names and the songs, and reenacts what she sees on her DVDs on her train table. She told me yesterday that she needs new trucks, to hook on the back of her current trucks, and maybe we can go buy them. Also, this morning, she told me she could have Toby the tram, and we could go buy him.

Lastly, on the Cora front, I'll note that this week she's been using the question "why" a lot. I always thought that was a 3-year-old thing? But no, I'm hearing it about all sorts of random things.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have an announcement

Stace and I are thrilled to announce, we're having another baby! That's right, Cora Rose is going to be a big sister, come April.

I'm nearly nine weeks along, with a due date around the third week of April. We had our first ultrasound today. The picture isn't all that great, but it was exciting seeing the ultrasound images in person. Stace and I also got to hear the baby's heartbeat - that quick, rhythmic beat was incredible to hear.

Unfortunately, like my pregnancy with Cora, I've been having a lot of morning sickness. Like clockwork, when I hit six weeks pregnant, I started feeling terrible, and had two really tough weeks. Thankfully, it's eased up a bit, in that I can get dressed and leave the house again. Still, I'm having lots of bad moments, and need to rest a lot. I know it will all be worth it in the end, and having amazing days like today, listening to that heartbeat, make it that much easier to handle.

We haven't told Cora the news yet. We decided we will wait until I'm past the 12-week point, and showing more, so that it makes more sense to her. We have been talking to her about babies a lot though, because she's going to have a new cousin in December - Uncle Dean and Auntie Jenny are expecting their first baby then!

Weekend Camping

This weekend we decided to go on our first camping trip. We got the tent out of the garage, packed bedding for the night and some of Cora's bedtime animals and books.
It didn't take too long to reach our campground and get the tent set up in a nice spot.

After some fun in the cooling afternoon sun we grabbed a bite to eat for dinner at a local restaurant, just a mile away from the campsite, called Carl's Jr.
After several nighttime stories and a spot of running and bouncing around the tent we settled down for a night's sleep outdoors in the fresh air. Since it was Cora's time sleeping in a tent, it took a while for her to settle down, but in the end she, Lis and I fell asleep for the night.
We awoke to the sound of birds and frolicking squirrels as the morning sun penetrated the tent walls. In a short while we were tucking into a hearty breakfast of fried eggs and pancakes conjured up on the camp site facilities.
The campground, although a bit basic, had a small kitchen, hot and cold running water and toilet facilities.
As morning turned to noon we packed up camp and readied ourselves for the journey home.

1 Tent from the Saugus swap meet: $25
Camp Ground fees: $0
Fuel Costs: $0
Reliving your youth and having a fun time in your own back garden: Priceless.

Day for Kids

On Saturday afternoon we had a great time at a free event called a Day for Kids, organized by the SClarita Boys and Girls Club and the city.
There were booths with games and crafts, inflatables and free food and drinks. Incredible!
We had popcorn and tiny slushies, and decided to avoid the long line for the hot dogs, chips and sodas.

A new young band called "Letters to the Editor" played, and some cast members of a new TV show called "Glee" were on hand for autographs.
Cora decorated a medal to wear, and loved all the activities. I think her favorite part was dancing to the live music.

She danced, and danced, and danced, and quite a few people pointed her out as they walked by or watched the band play.

A new club for Cora

On Wednesday night we took Cora to her orientation for Pioneer Clubs, a Christian Scouts-like organization sponsored by the same church we meet at for MOPS.

A few months ago, the Pioneer Clubs lady came and spoke at MOPS, and I learned that several of my friends take their children. Last year they started a class for 2- and 3-year-olds, so Cora is old enough to participate.

Doesn't she look adorable in her "Skipper" t-shirt? That's the name of the level she's in.

Every week, she will hear a Bible story, make a craft, do fun activities and have a snack. After each unit, she'll earn a patch. And, her Daddy and I will get an hour to ourselves while she's there! They even serve dinner before the club meeting, so if we like what's on the menu, for $3 a person, we can eat there together beforehand. No cooking or dishes!

On Wednesday, we parents got "oriented" and then all the children came in to sing a couple of songs. Cora wasn't with them, because she didn't know the songs, since she didn't participate last year. Well, watching those kids up front was too much - she had to join in. She ran up and joined the bigger kids (her small group of red-shirts was on the other side of the stage), and did her best to sing and dance along, a huge smile plastered on her face. No stage fright here!

Afterwards, there was ice cream for everyone.