Cora's Skating Party

Our Cora Rose has turned 6, and to celebrate, we had a party at the Ice Station ice skating rink in Valencia. Cora has enjoyed ice skating for over a year, and this seemed like the right year to throw her a "bigger" birthday party. The Ice Station's sign out front even had her name in lights.

 

 The party was held in an upstairs room, with everything provided for a set cost. The pizza, cake, favor bags, a party "hostess" and ice skating were included, up to a certain number of participants. For Stace and me, it was pricey but easy - nothing to bring, no serving, no cleanup.


Cora had a great time, and was  friendly to all her friends and their parents.

Humorously, she was very annoyed when Violet helped her blow out her candles, and Marley followed Violet's lead.

 Here are most of Cora's favorite playmates this year - from left, back row, Johnny, Chris, David, Gabe, Lucas, Cora, Alexyss and Ave.

 In front are Owen, Brooke, Violet and Marley. Heath and Maya and her family had planned to come but unfortunately were ill.

Cora was fantastic on her skates. She's been practicing a lot on the roller blades she got for Christmas, so she was much more sure of herself on the ice than in previous years. 

 With her new skills, Cora and I could skate together easily; I wasn't having to slow down whatsoever. We were all very proud watching her!

 Even Stace bravely ventured onto the ice.

He had been skating once before, and it hadn't gone very well. But when he saw so many of Cora's friends' dads tightening their skates, he was convinced to give it another try.
















In general, he did just fine.

But that's not to say there weren't a few, um, stumbles. Genia told us that she hadn't laughed as hard in ages, as she did watching Stace on the ice.


















All in all, Cora enjoyed a fantastic birthday party. Thanks to all our friends and family who celebrated Cora with us, both at the Ice Station and in spirit! Cora is blessed to be loved by so many.

  

Here's Cora ice-skating, and with her birthday cake.

Cora's school week

This week Cora's school had its 100th day, which is cause for a big celebration. They learned about the number 100, made a Froot Loop necklace with 100 pieces, brought in 100 items each to count together, etc.

 

On Friday morning, the K, 1st and 2nd grades had a field trip to the theater at College of the Canyons to watch a children's play. Many schools in the area also attended, but we were the only ones who walked! The weather reports forecast rain, but thankfully the showers held off until the afternoon.

 I was a chaperone, and got assigned to these two - Cora and Heath, who is one of her favorite friends. I'm not sure why neither of them could stand up straight for the photograph.

 On Friday evening the school put on a family dance, and Cora and I went while Daddy stayed home with Violet, who has had the flu this week. Cora had fun (mostly), when she wasn't anxious about dancing with so many people.

The dance was 80s themed, and I was amazed at how the vast majority of the students (and many parents) came dressed up. Cora had no interest in dressing up, and I don't know what I would have put on her anyway last-minute. She was probably the only one wearing a Valentine's Day dress among the neon, side-swept pony tails and colorful leggings.

Out with the old...

 This week we sold Stacey's trusty Honda CR-V to a friend of my sister's, and then bought a new-to-us Hyundai SUV with room for the whole family, plus grandparents.

It all happened rather suddenly...

We've been thinking of an SUV with a third-row for the last several years, as it would be really handy when Sue and Gord are with us.

A few weeks ago, we realized our "car savings account," which we've slowly added to since buying my Pontiac in summer 2006, might afford us a larger car.

We mentioned to Melanie that we might be willing to sell Stace's car, which he bought shortly after moving here in 2003. She had a friend who needed a reliable car and had the cash. Only thing was, she was ready to buy his car immediately.

We did our research on what we were looking for, and had decided on a Honda Pilot. Uncle Bill came down to help Stacey look over a vehicle in Irvine, but they knew as soon as they saw it Sunday that it wouldn't do.

On Sunday night, we found this Hyundai Veracruz online, at a Volvo dealership in Orange County. It's a 2007 with 51,000 miles, and a little Internet research showed us that it was priced well below its Kelley Blue Book value, and even below the price the dealership likely gave its owners when they traded it in.

On Tuesday morning we completed the sale of Stacey's car, and at lunchtime we made a trip to the local Hyundai dealership to check out a new Veracruz, to make sure we liked it. It's not a very well-known car, and Hyundai stopped making them for 2013.

But we loved what we saw, and on Wednesday we made the long drive to Santa Ana to check out the car.
We knew it was the car for us; it's much more luxurious than we're used to, and seems to have all the features we were looking for (and then some).

The price was outstanding, leaving us with a bit of money to save toward a replacement for the Vibe, which Stace will now drive.

It's amazing the way things work out sometimes. We are blessed and thankful.

Week recap

 Here's a peek at the week that was... Violet helped herself to the strawberries, telling me excitedly, "I can wash them better all by myself!" Sure enough, she could just reach the faucet handle when she stood on the chair. Likewise, Cora can now reach the bathroom sink handles without standing on the stool.

 After we walked the children to school, Genia and Owen stopped in for a half hour to catch up. The little ones busied themselves in the play kitchen. See the mess of play food? This is why Genia gave the set to us!

 On Wednesdays we often go to the park with Genia for lunch. This week, we finally gave Johnny a gift for his 6th birthday, which occurred while we were in England. He's loving the Lego Ninjago sets, so the Ninjago comic books were a hit.

 After work Stace sometimes sets up games with the neighbor kids. Our street is crawling with kids most evenings! This time it was baseball, with cat litter buckets for bases. Here, Johnny is running the bases while Stace fields the ball and throws it to Chris.

On Friday night, Ave spent the night. The girls played games before getting ready for bed. This time around, Ave and Cora stayed up late talking and drawing; it was so sweet to hear their giggles.

Potty Prize

Violet has turned the corner with using the toilet, I'm so happy to report. She earned 10 button/magnets on her "Dry Days" chart in 12 days, and stayed dry during the daytime all weekend for Grandma and Grandpa. On Monday evening we made a family trip to CVS so she could get the kitty key chain she's been eying for months.

Cora spent her own money to buy this little hamster key chain, which she brings to school hanging off her lunch bag. She's named him Chippy, and he likes to go everywhere with Cora, be tucked into bed, and eat meals with us. He speaks in a language only Cora can understand, so she translates for us. Cora hasn't played with a stuffed toy like this for at least a year, maybe two, so it's pretty funny to hear her doing it again.

Violet also really loves her new kitty, who she helped use a pen to write.(Violet has been liking writing with a pen almost more than coloring lately, and pretends to write letters she puts in the family mailbox in the playroom.)

Vegas Weekend

Stace and I were the thankful recipients of a 3-day, 2-night Las Vegas getaway over the weekend.

My parents had each won a stay at the Paris Las Vegas Resort on a talk show they went to last year. They took one of the trips for their anniversary, and they generously gave us the other trip (and watched the girls for us).

Here, we're about to have our breakfast at the Mon Ami Gabi restaurant at the Paris.

After breakfast on Saturday, we spent hours walking around exploring the Strip's casinos and shopping. The last time we went to Vegas was before we knew we were expecting baby Cora, so a lot had changed.

Here, we're in front of the New York New York casino (which wasn't noticeably different from last time, just a neat landmark).






The Bellagio is always a fabulous experience to take in. The atrium featured this small colored-light fountain, with beautiful flowers.



















The flowers also decorated these statues of Chinese children, in honor of the Chinese New Year.

This is the pond in front of the Bellagio, where beautiful fountains entertain the masses. Across the pond is the Paris, with the Eiffel Tower...















...we could see from our room, along with the fountain shows.

Stace and I turned the couch so we could take in the view with a glass of wine in the room.









We were really amazed to have such a great location and beautiful room, for free!

Also free were two tickets to Jubilee, the longest-running Vegas song-and-dance show playing at Bally's casino. Think huge feather headdresses and beautiful long-legged dancers... it was unlike anything we'd ever seen, but very entertaining and fun.






We are big, big gamblers. Here, Stace cashes out his biggest win - $5.42.

I think we might have played as much as $20 in the machines. (As annoyingly smoky as the casinos are, our eyes were bothering us when we spent too much time in there.)

We had breakfast again at Mon Ami Gabi on Sunday morning after we ha checked out.

I'm wearing a sweater we'd bought the previous day, and I also got some clothes at the Ann Taylor Loft outlet in Barstow on Friday night on our way in.

We continued the shopping trip Sunday afternoon at the Las Vegas outlets, where Stace and I got Skechers shoes and we spent some Christmas/birthday money at the Fossil outlet.

I bought a new dressy Fossil watch, and with a "buy one, get one half off" sale, Stace got the lovely brown watch you see here. It was originally $135, marked down to $40, so $20 after the discount. Score!

We had an outstanding time together, our first weekend away since our time at the Queen Mary over a year ago. Thanks, Mom and Dad!

Hiking and Dining

Cora had Monday off from school for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, so we three girls spent part of our morning on a hike/walk on the hill above our neighborhood.

Violet said this was her horsey tree.

It was a stunning January day, which seems to be typical for this particular holiday weekend in SoCal. I can remember many heat waves in mid-January. This time around, oddly enough, the 70-degree day came a week after record-setting cold.

 We had our snack on the limbs of this beautiful old oak tree. Cora was excited to lead the way on our hike, since she has been up here a few times before.

 Also this weekend, we replaced our dining set.

Our old set came from my dear grandmother, who passed away a couple of months after Stacey and I got married. We inherited her table and chairs and two love seats, which are still in our playroom.

In recent months, Stace has had to repair and strengthen all the chairs, so we've had a new set on our mind.

 I figured we'd start shopping at the furniture stores, when I saw an ad Sunday on Craig's List. We ended up purchasing this set from a nice local couple who said they bought it when they got married 47 years ago. You know what they say about paying for quality: you'd never know this solid wood set was that old.

We are absolutely tickled to have found it, and at a great deal too. The couple parted with it for less than what two of the chairs would have cost - even used chairs!

The table has two leaves, so it will extend to seat 12. Next time we host an event, we can leave the patio table outside.

We had been looking for a set with a bench, so Stace might make one in the future.

And I can see us reupholstering the chairs in the future, since black isn't one of our typical color choices. But, at least it's a color that hides dirt, right?

A special thanks to Genia and John for letting us borrow their SUV so we could pick it all up in one trip!

Night with Friends

Over the weekend, we gladly accepted a dinner invitation from Juliana and Daryl.

We had a very nice time catching up and enjoying Juliana's always-delicious cooking.

I'm not sure what Stace is doing here.

 While we finished dinner, the girls relaxed with some Disney entertainment...

 ...before it was time for Smores outside on the fire pit!













Cora was so tired. School really takes it out of her, and we probably should be getting her to bed by 7:30 instead of 8. I've never heard her ask to leave Maya's house, but she did on this occasion.

But when we went inside to get ready to leave, all four girls got a second wind. Poor Daryl!