Piggy Day!

It was Cora's first day sporting one big piggy in back, and Violet's first day with two piggies. Cora thought it was great to have one big piggy like mommy!
Cora insisted we put this super smiley pic on too!

Violet's Vocab and Update

Violet has added some more words to her vocabulary...

banana
up
down
help
cheese
teeth
out
shoes
oof oof oof --when she sees an animal, usually a dog
three (after we say one, two)
go (after we say ready, set)
love you

Violet will also touch her nose when asked. She always makes a beep beep noise when she does. She'll also clap when we sing "If you're happy and you know it" and roll her arms with "Wheels on the Bus" and "Do as I'm Doing". She'll answer questions with a 'uh-huh' or 'un-uh', and usually mean what she says.

Sometimes I swear she's talking in short sentences like "I want down!" "I want out!" "I need help!" "Shoes on!" "Shoes off!". You know, the really important things.

I thought Cora was interested in shoes, but Violet's interest could be classified as obsession. She wants them with her all the times, and want them on and off. Amazingly, we haven't lost a shoe for a while, because she likes to play with taking them off in stores and in the car. I would say Violet spends a good percentage of her waking moments talking and thinking about shoes! Bonus though, if she's upset about something else, I can mention shoes and it changes her focus.

Cora's room in our new house is quite large, so all the toys are in there. The girls love hanging out there and playing. They do a good job playing together. Violet's only beef is that she loves the bouncy horse so much and she can't get on it by herself. Hence the "I want up!" phrase I hear a lot!

Violet has been trying to jump the last few days. She doesn't get close to lifting her body off the ground, but she sure is trying! One of her favorite ways to occupy her time is to step on an off things, to try out different levels. Like steps, going from the sidewalk to the grass, and most of all off of our (very short) fireplace hearth. She doesn't get tired of it!

Wheeler Farm

We spent a lovely afternoon at Wheeler Farm a few weeks ago with our friends Kerri and Cole. The kids had a great time seeing all the animals. They are such good little friends and had a fun time running around and seeing the ducks too. Cole and Cora thought it was so fun to pick grass to feed the horses (well, Cora thought it was fun, but scary too). We also saw some of the animal babies. While we were watching the sheep mosey around, all of the sudden, they ALL took off running to the other side of the field. Turns out, they saw their feed truck going by, and that made them run faster than I've seen sheep run before! It was pretty funny to watch them eat. Some of the babies jumped right in the feed pen.
Violet had a pretty mellow afternoon hanging out in the stroller. She liked looking at the animals, but was pretty tired too.

Cora is going to miss Cole! I know she doesn't understand that we live too far for regular visits now, she's already talking about wanting to play with Cole. Last week we had dinner with Cole's family and at the end of the night, they gave hugs and she gave him a big kiss on the cheek too, which he promptly wiped off. It was pretty funny.

Goodbye, Old House

It was a little funny to leave our house... my visiting teachers came over and helped me do the last of the cleaning while Kevin went on with the movers to the new house. So, it was a rushed goodbye. I still stopped to take a couple of pictures. We lived here for almost 4 years and learned so much about being home owners with all kinds of do-it-ourselves projects. We made close friends with couples that turned into family friends as we all had babies about the same time, did playgroups, game nights, craft nights and more. Our family doubled in size while we lived in this house! When we moved in, I was working in the Governor's Office of Planning and Budget, and Kevin was working for a consulting company.... and has had 3 jobs since then. We loved living near cousins. We endured 2 ward splits and 1 stake split and learned a lot about serving in the church with a variety of callings.
We added this patio, with help from Uncle Bob, put in a sprinkler system and yard, learned how to build a fence, planted lots of trees and bushes that lasted, and lots that has to be replaced, and never quite got to making our garden.
We tiled our floors, with help from Uncle Jeff. We finished our basement with lots of help from dads. I'll miss our terrific storage room, our finished basement, the view from the kitchen window, and our table and my elliptical we sold to the new owners. But I won't miss people in the hallway being able to see our clear shower door in our master bedroom!
July 2005
May 2009

It was a great house. We expected to stay there much longer than we did, but it was perfect for us while we had it!

(Our new house is pretty much all unpacked, just not clean... so pictures of it to come soon!)

Tonight's Prayer, by Cora

"Thankyou for cousins. Thankyou for trampolines. And playhouses. Thankyou for Kissie and Grandma."

That pretty much sums up our Mother's Day! Kissie was sick and opted out of dinner at our house so as to not get us sick during our big moving week. So we crashed my cousins' Mother's Day celebration, and Cora and Violet had a super time at Shayne and Denise's house with lots of cousins. Violet squealed to be on the trampoline as much as possible, Cora and the kiddos alternated jumping and playing in the playhouse, and we all enjoyed the beautiful weather and delicious food (except Cora, who was too busy to eat!). We talked to Kissie and Grandma before church (our last Sunday in this ward, what an odd feeling), and had a great Mother's Day all around.

Wish us luck that all goes as planned this week! In the last few days the lawnmower has broken and a valve went out on our sprinklers, but if that's the extent of the bad things, we'll be happy with that. Luckily, we have so many kind friends, neighbors and family who have generously helped us out, and it's made all the difference. THANKYOU!

Aquariuam

Playgroup was at the aquarium last week! I love being able to take the girls to places I've been meaning to take them for the last year, especially going with friends! The girls had a great time. Only especially nice thing about the aquarium is that they have a bunch of benches/stands in front of the displays so even the little kids can see in well. The girls were fascinated... as you can tell, I couldn't get hardly any pictures of them both looking at me, there was too much else to look at!
Cora loves steering wheels. She begs to go to Home Depot all the time, I think because they have those humongous hard to steer carts with two steering wheels for two kids.
With the manta rays.
A bunch of our playgroup friends.
More about what's up now...

Violet's new words: down, cheese, shoes

She LOVES shoes and anytime the laundry door is open and nothing else is going on, she moseys on in and creates a shoe explosion.

The girls are enjoying being outside in the nice weather! They stand by the door and squawk/ask to go out. With our fence, I feel fine about them being out by themselves if I am near a window... it's great! I'll sure miss our fence in our new house.

Sweet Stuff

This morning I was getting ready, and watching Cora and Violet play in the mirror. They were having fun racing cars on the bathtub. Then I watch Cora lean down, give Violet a big hug, and say "You're my best friend, Violet". So sweet. I can't think of many things better than knowing my kids love each other!

Still Here

We're still in our house, just busy being busy with packing, picking carpet and blinds, figuring out our new mortgage stuff, dejunking, deciding whether to move ourselves or get movers, home inspections, home appraisals, figuring out landscaping, etc etc. Normal busy moving stuff! Plus pinning down our Ireland trip... we ae pretty excited about that too!

We stopped by our new house today... the carpet is in! And the house looks fantastic. Things are coming right along. We also attended sacrament meeting in our new ward, and it looks great. I'm pretty excited about it. We sat next to a really nice family who will live down the street from us who has a little girl Cora's age, who told us a little about the neighborhood and the ward. The ward is large, but the bishop came to introduce himself-- always a good sign, when we moved into our last ward it was so large hardly no one noticed we were there.

I did take a couple of days out this week to attend Women's Conference with my mom. We had a great time at the classes, hanging out, the fun concert, and just being on campus. It my first time at Women's Conference, and it was nice to take a break and refocus on what's most important for a while. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera, so I have no pictures. I hope to post pictures soon.