House Pics

Master bath

KitchenGreat Room
We are sooooo excited!

Weekend Report

What a fun weekend! Friday Jen, Mom, and I (and the little girls too of course) hit two fairs-- O Sweet Sadie craft fair and another fair that had lots of jewelry, crafty stuff, and kiddie products. It was a lot of fun to look around and hang out together. I'm still looking forward to returning to the craft fair next weekend though-- I might have a few more purchases to make! I love seeing the creative things people come up with. Friday night we did a family movie night and let Cora stay up to watch High School Musical III with us. It was a hoot to watch her watch the movie... and dance along to it too. We'll have to find some more movies to share with her.

Saturday we watched Mom finish the Salt Lake Marathon. It's my favorite marathon to watch-- I love hanging out at the Gateway and watching the runners finish! She did a great job, and Cora loved shouting "Go Kissie Go!". We also had a yummy lunch and stopped by our new house so everyone could take a look.Sunday Cora wasn't feeling well, so Kevin and I traded off church and I rode up to my cousin Ryan's farewell talk with Timmerie's family. It was great to see my grandparents, hang out with family, eat yummy food, and visit with Timmerie and Doug on the way there and back. Ryan will leave on his mission to Independence Missouri, Spanish speaking, on May 6th!

The Cutest Little Dogwalker

Cora LOVES her little doggie 'cousins' Oreo and Butterscotch. On Saturday, she was thrilled to be able to play with them and hold the leash while we waited to see Kissie come by on the marathon route. The balloons, hair flowers, and sunglasses make quite the picture, don't you think?

Our Busy Week

Well, it's been a doozy! Monday was a second showing of our house, a super offer to buy, signing the papers to accept the offer, and scouting out new houses and real estate agents for a new house for us. We then drove to Herriman three days in a row to look at houses. Last night we placed an offer on a spec home, and today we learned our offer was accepted. This morning our buyers had our home inspected, and all went well. It's moving very fast, and we'll be out of our house on May 14th. And hopefully into our new house by the 18th.... because we leave on our couldn't-pass-up-cheap-airline-tickets-a-month-ago trip to Ireland on May 24th!

This is a picture of a model home that is the same plan as the home we are buying... more pictures to come later.

Pay It Forward--the sendoff

Here are the goods from the "Pay It Forward" blog tag I wrote about a while ago--ribbon headbands. They will be delivered shortly, ladies!

Easter Weekend

Saturday afternoon we dyed eyes... Cora loved coloring them with the crayon first and seeing the colors appear.
This is the closest we got to a decent Easter dress shot. Cora wasn't grumpy, she has just liked experimenting with blowing out her cheeks like this a lot lately!
Our Easter bunny came after church and naps... it's nice to take advantage of this while the girls are a little clueless still!

Later on Sunday we went over to Timmerie's and had a delicious meal and an pretty loaded Easter egg hunt. Thanks Timmerie! Cora had an especially great time playing with cousins, looking for eggs, playing with Brinley's toys, snatching candy off the centerpieces, and playing at the park.
Violet even found a few eggs too!

Birthday Party!

Cora went to her first birthday party on Friday-- cousin Addy turned 3! Cora was so excited... she carried the invitation around for the three days before the party and talked all about going. She was a little shy, but had a great time coloring, eating a teddy bear tea party lunch, dancing, and playing games.

Chicks and Trips

Monday was our first official new play group day. A few of us met together and took a tour of Welfare Square. It was so neat-- I've never been, and I really enjoyed seeing the cannery, bishop's storehouse, employment center, and so much more. It really is amazing how organized and prepared the church is for those in need and for emergencies. The moms loved it, and the kids loved seeing where they make cheese, bread, fill the milk jugs, make jam, and the samples at the end of the tour. This month is a trial run for this playgroup... we have some fun things planned. If you live in the area and would like to join us, send me an email!
Monday afternoon I got a heads up from my friend Amber's blog about baby animals at our local ranch store. Cora has been talking about wanting to see baby animals forever, so we had to go. The baby ducks were all gone, but we saw three kinds of chicks and some bunnies too. I had to sneak a picture... I know we looked so out of place there gawking with people all around us who actually intended to buy and raise these chicks! Oh well. I should have taken a video, Violet even liked looking at the chicks scramble around too, she just laughed and laughed at them.
Today we headed to Ogden so Jen could check out Cora's teeth. Jen needed another child to complete her requirements, and happily, Cora did a great job! Cora looked a little bit nervous some of the time, but she let Jen count and brush her teeth, and apply a flouride treatment too. I was surprised! Much more successful than our last dentist appointment. Of course, the last dentist didn't give her a cute cuddly duck, cool pink gloves, a pink timer, strawberry toothpaste, fish toothbrush, and talk about puppies during the visit! Cora didn't let her goody bag out of sight all day, took the pink gloves into a couple of stores after the appointment, and even fell asleep in the car clutching them. Pretty cute. She also got busy cleaning her dolly's teeth as soon as we got home!

Violet's First Birthday

Violet's birthday was on Tuesday. She is one year old! We had a small family party Tuesday night with homemade 'egg mcmuffins' -- a big hit with both girls!-- and a brownie cake for dessert. Violet's face lit up when she saw the balloons, she had a ball tearing the paper off her presents-- whenever Cora would let her, she screeched the loudest after the present was opened but still in plastic wrap and not accessible, loved the hammer and ball toy, and didn't mind too much when Cora quickly commandeered the dollie (Cora had helped wrap the presents, so she had a heads up on what to make a sneaky grab for).







It was our turn to host family dinner this month today, so we had another celebration with Shad and Jen and Mom and Dad this afternoon. Violet got a cute outfit and a matching rocker, step stool, and coat hanger. Pretty cute! She took to the rocker right away.... it's a bit bigger than Cora's, but she could still get in it by herself!

Cora and Her Questions

Pretending to be asleep during our Conference Center tour... you can see her smile, she thought she was being so tricky.


Smelling the flowers on Temple Square...


Cora has become increasing inquisitive about all that goes on around her. It's fun to watch her memory expand, and she references stuff that happened even a month ago. Some of my favorite things she's been talking about:

~Cora is really interested in birthdays. We've had a lot of family birthdays recently, and she asks several times a day when her birthday is. She sings Happy Birthday to herself a few times a day too.

~Cora really wants to see some baby ducks and cows. We tell her they will be here in the spring, so she asks when spring is all the time now too. We've been looking for baby cows on our drives, but I think it might be a bit too early. We'll be visiting a farm in a few weeks, so hopefully we'll see some there!

~She had an extended conversation with June from the Little Einsteins about how there weren't any rainbows today and when there might be a rainbow. Cora desperately wants to see a rainbow, but she couldn't find the one in the sky I saw about a month ago, and we haven't seen any since. We did look at pictures of them so hopefully she can spot it next time we see one! And she was so excited to see a rainbow on the carpet the other day when the light went through the window just right.

~Cora is picking up on some social cues. When Kevin gets home from work, she has all the right questions ready for him... How was work today Daddy? How was the bus? What did you have for lunch? Are you tired? She goes through these questions several times with him to make sure she got them all. And she asks me several times a week how bookclub was and how I'm doing. Today was a tired day, and after dinner she asked me if I was feeling ok. It's pretty cute.

Stats

Violet's new stats:

Height: 30.25 inches -- 92 percentile
Weight: 20 pounds, 5 ounces -- 45 percentile

Her ears are all cleared up, molars are coming in, and she is doing really well all around.

Happy Birthday Violet!

She can walk, dance, wave, blow kisses, empty a drawer in seconds, give hugs and kisses, say bye-bye, give raspberries on her sister's tummy, giggle, attempt to climb anything and everything, eat oatmeal messily with a spoon, go up and down the stairs, pretend to talk on the phone, and clap.... She's our precious Violet Jacquelyn.

Egg Hunting Practice

Cora got to do an early Easter Egg hunt last week. Kissie and Pata provided the goods, and Cora provided much excitement. She loved finding the eggs Pata and Kevin hid, but loved even more finding the eggs when she hid them afterwards! Maybe it is more fun when you already know where the eggs are?? She was so excited, she just couldn't wait to let Kevin and I find them ourselves.
Violet thought the eggs were fun to play with and even enjoyed a mini-Snickers too.

Zoo Day

On the train-- Cora was so excited! We went on the carousel too, which kind of freaked Violet out, but Cora was in awe of all the dancing animals.
With the pelicans.
Cora thought it was so funny that this elephant sang songs. He also makes funny sounds too, which spooked her a bit at first.


With Kevin out of town for the weekend, we filled our days with the Children's Museum, the zoo, and hanging out with Kissie and Pata. We had fun, and the girls were all tired out so I had some relaxing evenings too. The girls had so much fun at the zoo, we'll have to go a few more times before our annual pass runs out.