Disneyland!

This week was momentous for our family - we made our first trip to Disneyland since Cora was barely 2. It was, of course, Violet's first trip ever. The park was decorated for Halloween, the weather was great, and the crowds weren't too bad. In short, it was an excellent day together.

Grandma and Grandpa have annual passes, and also generously pay for a pass for Cora, so she has been a number of times the past couple of years. But Stace and I haven't been to Disney's main park since March 2009, when Dean and Jenny were over, so it was an exciting day for us all.

We made Winnie the Pooh our first ride of the day, since Cora fell in love with it when she was 2. Violet took it all in, wide-eyed, and every time we asked if she was having fun, she gave a big nod.
Then it was on to Stace's favorite part of the park, the former Tom Sawyer's Island, which is now a Pirate's Lair. He and Cora ran all over the place, making up games and make-believe stories.


Violet spent a bit of time walking around, wearing Cora's old monkey friend.
Violet really liked the Jungle Cruise, pointing to all the animals and the water.
Violet entertained herself in the line for Peter Pan, which, at a half-hour, was the longest we waited.

We managed to go on eight rides in about six hours, including Thunder Mountain and Splash Mountain. Cora was just tall enough (40 inches) for those two; I'm so glad we got to be along on her first time riding those big rides. Since Grandma was with us, she stayed with Violet. Cora loved the rides, though she was a bit scared of the big, wet Splash Mountain drop.
We made "It's a Small World" our last ride of the day. Violet had a great time pointing to the singing dolls and clapping along to the catchy theme song.


And then, it was time to make our way out, though there are always attractions I wish we could have taken in. The girls were falling asleep in the stroller as we walked to the front.
But, we woke up Cora, and Grandma took the girls into California Adventure for an hour while Stace and I got dinner in the Downtown Disney shopping district. It was a good chance to catch our breath before we got in the car for the long drive home.

Hurricane Harbor

A water park in October?

Sure, in SoCal!


My dad's union rented out Hurricane Harbor for their annual party Sunday, and what a party it was!

A DJ, free food, free drinks (including beer and frozen margaritas), raffle prizes and super short lines for the rides. The tubes were included along with the admission price, which was, yes, free!

You can't beat it. And you especially can't beat it when you have just a 10-minute drive home, and warm weather too.

We all wish they'd do the party at Hurricane Harbor every year. The last time we went to Hurricane Harbor for this same party, Cora was 8 months old and our friends Andy and Jen were in town from England.

Even though Dad is still recovering from his hip replacement, and wasn't up for a wild water slide, he was able to come and relax in the shade, with a good book and a beer.

We had some great fun in the wave pool, as both Cora and Violet loved the waves.

They also enjoyed the kiddie area, and later, while Violet napped, Cora had fun with us in the lazy river. Wearing her Dora life vest, Cora bravely swam along, away from our tubes.

The best part was that Cora was just tall enough to go on the family raft ride with us.

I believe going on "big" rides like that is just as big of a milestone as learning to walk or talk.

It's quite a step when your little one grows up enough to enjoy a ride on which they could get hurt, and they scream with joy (and a tiny bit of fear). Cora loved it so much (and the lines were so short), we ran back up the stairs to do it again. I wish I had photos, but water rides aren't really places to take your camera!

At the end, Stace and my mom and I went twice on the big ride called Tornado, while dad handled the girls. Violet occupied herself by playing with the buckles on Cora's vest, while Cora made a nest for any passing birds in need.

It was a fantastic day out and I hope we can relive the fun next year!

17 months

Violet is quickly approaching the milestone of turning one-and-a-half.

She reached 17 months this week, a week during which she continued to expand her vocabulary, and had her first experience with croup.

Cora had a cold this week, nothing too terrible, and on Thursday Violet's nose was runny. Again, nothing bad, and no fevers for either of them.

On Thursday night, about an hour after Violet went to bed, she was crying and coughing, and when I went to help her the cough sounded awful. I knew it was croup - the seal-bark sound and the gasping for air gave it away. When we got Violet calmed down, her coughing subsided, and her breathing improved.

The doctor called us back around 10 p.m. and gave us tips on what to do and what to watch out for. When Violet woke up again at 1:30 a.m., coughing and breathing heavy, I took her outside while Stace ran the shower to get steam building up in the bathroom. The combination worked, and once Violet went back to sleep an hour later, she didn't wake up again.

Friday morning, after we took Cora to school, Violet and I went to the doctor and got her a steroid medication to keep the croup at bay. I'm so glad I went in, because the doctor said that croup is often worse the second and third nights. It was definitely a worry having Violet sound so terrible, but thankfully it wasn't any worse than that - a bad sound.

These playpen photos are from earlier Thursday, when she didn't seem very sick and I was cleaning the house (we had an appraiser out for a possible refinance of the house - fixed rates below 4%? YES, PLEASE!).

Amazingly, Violet was happy and content playing for almost an hour! She likes playing with dolls, especially those with moving eyes or pacifiers/dummies. And she likes playing on her fake phones, especially pretending to talk to Nan or Genia.

Violet keeps on talking. She now nods her head for "yes," and it's a full-on, upper chest action (see video). Her (verbal) "no" is really cute, too. It's so helpful having her able to communicate her needs.

When she wasn't well on Thursday night and I was rocking her, I said, "Don't you want to go to sleep now?"
Violet answered, "No."
So I tried, "Would you like Mummy to sing to you?"
I got the big-nod answer. I could have cried, it was so sweet.

In general, we still marvel at what a sweet toddler she is. But, she is starting to show signs of naughtiness. A couple of times this week, she hit Stace when she didn't like what he was doing. We're trying to be firm and nip those behaviors in the bud.

In other news, Violet is doing well with the potty. I am probably changing one or two dirty diapers a week now, as she will wait to use the toilet. She probably wees on the toilet once or twice a day, as well.

When Violet is done with something, like food or a drink, she hands it to you and says "enough."
She now has too many words to count. Well, I could probably count them, but it would take longer than I have the patience.

I will share one more Violetism before I close:
We had fish for dinner recently, and she was calling it an egg. I told her it was fish, and she finished her small helping. She then pointed to the fish on my plate, and said, "Nemo!"
"Do you want more fish?" I asked.
Nodding, she said, "Nemo!"
Violet ate two more small servings, asking for more "Nemo" each time.
Something wrong with that picture, huh?

And in other news, in the last few weeks, Violet has fully weaned from nursing. Another baby stage over.

Weekend - Dave and the Zoo

Those who know me well, know that one of my hobbies is saving money and living frugally. I'm a bit weird, I know, but I find it a fun challenge to see how far I can stretch the money Stacey brings home.

A number of years ago I discovered financial expert Dave Ramsey, and his anti-debt, common-sense approach to money management struck a chord with me. Stace and I already followed the principles of not using credit to buy things and living beneath our means, so we didn't need to majorly change our lifestyle. But we did tweak things, such as switching to an all-cash budget rather than putting everything on a credit card and then paying it off each month.

Dave has a daily radio show with millions of followers, which I love, and it's now carried (finally!) in Los Angeles. And this past weekend, for the first time, he came to SoCal for a big "Total Money Makeover" conference.

I had bought tickets as soon as they were released back in April, and on Saturday I took Melanie and my dad for an inspiring dad/daughters day. It was as great as I had imagined it to be, as Dave is a tremendous speaker. We've been inspired to tweak things again, to put more money into our tax-free retirement savings plans, so (Lord willing!) we can be millionaires in a couple of decades!

While I was out gallivanting, Stace managed the homefront by taking the girls to the zoo.

He didn't have the camera with him, but Cora brought her notebook and drew the animals they saw.

Really, her drawings are just as good as seeing photos, anyhow. Check out the teeth on the tiger!

Stace would spell out the names for Cora, and she would then write them down.

Good times

Another nice week in the books...

Cora had school Monday and Friday this week, but was off on Wednesday because Miss Lorrie follows the school district schedule, and the district had a day off for teacher conferences.

We made the most of the day off by going to Scooter's Jungle with some friends, including Brooke and Michelle.

We haven't been there for five or six months, so Cora especially enjoyed it. Violet did too, though she was a bit nervous at first and wanted to hold my hand.

After our Scooters time, we all headed over to lunch - yes, four moms six preschoolers and two babies! After waiting a little bit, we managed to snag two booths next to each other. A fun time was had by all.

Speaking of fun, Violet had a great time emptying the baby wipes out of the container.

When it gets too quiet... and the toddler has closed the door behind her...

Later, Stace, Cora and Violet played together in the cardboard house.

Yep, the house is still around! And it's still a source of fun and merriment.

Yum.

I've been on a bit of a baking kick the past week or so.

I saw a recipe for homemade goldfish crackers, and it looked so easy I thought I should give it a whirl. I've never even thought of making my own crackers, but it was really simple. The most time-consuming part was the rolling and cutting. I don't have a fishy cookie cutter, but I did find a small star at Grandma's house that was the perfect size.

If I make them again, I'll follow the advice I read in the comments section of the blog/recipe, to roll the dough into a log, freeze it and then slice the crackers.

Cora and Violet both loved our cheesy stars, and so did Stace and I!

Last week, Ralphs had a great sale on raspberries, with boxes for $1.

We picked up four boxes, which went into two batches of raspberry blondies (think brownies, but blonde - no dark chocolate - you can see just a few of them left in the last photo) and one round of raspberry lemon muffins (not shown).

I also made granola bars, a double-batch of chocolate pancakes (the leftovers are in the freezer, and are great to grab for Violet on busy mornings) and banana chocolate chip muffins (not shown).

Hello???

Violet continues to crack us up. I heard her yelling "hello" and assumed she was holding a phone/phone-like-toy up to her ear. But I didn't see her - then I found her! She was hiding, just like her sister loves to hide. Don't they just take it all in, every thing around them?

Hope you like this video as much I enjoyed participating in it!
And, it reminded me of a funny video of Cora I found the other day, which you can see on this post.

Pretty things

After Violet turned one, we decided to finish decorating her room.

We got a beautiful ceramic clock, appropriately girly for Violet's feminine room, and handmade by our friend Cindy. Stace put it up between the two framed pictures we've already been displaying.

Stace made a shelf, too, and I filled it with cutesy things. (Remember that you can click the photos to see them larger.)

This post is a couple of months late, with my apologies to Cindy! We love the clock and know Violet will cherish it as she grows up.

Stace then completed another small beautification project: he made a fence to hide our trash cans, so you don't see them as soon as you walk into the house as you glance out the sliding glass door.

(The two plants you see are cape mallows, a plant we read about in the gardening section of the newspaper. They're supposed to be extremely drought-tolerant and become big and bushy, with lots of pink flowers. We hope they take off and look gorgeous when Stace plants them over by our bedroom door.)

Stace put Cora and Violet's initials in the concrete when he set the post, as you can see in the photo.

And Cora helped paint the new fence, and the older gate. She's really becoming a great helper to Stace. She also helped drill in the screws as he built the fence in the garage.

Football and Farm animals

This weekend, Cora had her return to soccer class, and we checked out the Gentle Barn for the first time.

Saturday morning was cool and beautiful, and we enjoyed a family bike ride to the park where Cora's class was held.

Earlier in the week, Stace and Cora purchased a new football for her, and they had a practice kick-around session in the park.

Cora was very excited about going back to her class, and it went well. She paid close attention to the instructions, and followed along with all the drills.

Violet had fun watching, too, though I think we'll have trouble keeping her off of the playing area. She wanted to be with the big kids.

After the class, we rode to Starbucks for a drink. This could be a great way for us to spend our Saturday mornings for the next couple of months!

On Sunday, Stace went to my parents' house to watch the Chelsea - Man U game, which we won't discuss further.


Then we all went to the Gentle Barn, which rescues endangered animals and nurses them back to health.

We saw lots of horses, cows, goats, sheep, turkeys and chickens, with an emu and a couple of llamas thrown in for good measure.

You can feed the horses, brush and hug a couple of the big cows, and pet most of the other animals.

Many of the animals were abused, neglected and/or very ill when they were brought in. The Barn is only open for four hours each Sunday, so this was our first time to make it in.

The girls really enjoyed it, though it would have been more enjoyable if it hadn't been so hot. On Saturday, it didn't get higher than 82, but Sunday it was back in the mid-90s. Poor Violet and Stace - they don't do so well in the heat. We'll have to go back some day when it cools off.