Cora's August Loves

~Watering the flowers. She gets her play cups out of the playhouse and fills them up and helps me water. She also loves spooning the dirt out of the growboxes onto the patio... so we're working on that one.

~Balloons. This week she was much more interested in trying to blow them up than actually playing with them. Amazingly, she didn't get frustrated when they all remained pretty flat. We took turns blowing them up, Cora said, "Cora blow", "Mamma blow" so I always knew when it was my turn! We've also been playing with sidewalk chalk and working on catching and throwing balls.

~Cora is full-out speaking now, talking in sentences and mimicking pretty much everything we say. She much better at communicating her needs and wants (more George, more George, please!). One of her favorites is "Come on Daddy" to get Kevin to follow her. Another is "Cora too" for anything she sees us doing that she wants to do as well. It's pretty cute to hear her try out all kinds of big words too. When we read the Book of Mormon at night (just 5 verses a night) we pause to let her repeat a few words each verse. It helps hold her attention just a little bit.

~Cora is really into praying right now. If Kevin or I says the prayer, afterwards, she says "Cora's turn" and says one of her own. Sometimes she prays multiple times for each meal! This is a nice change from her running around during our prayers.

~Princess movies. We watched my neighbor's three girls while they went to the temple, and I knew they liked princesses, so all of the kids watched Cinderella together. I didn't think Cora would like it that much because it's kind of long, and really only very princessy at the end. But she was asking for it the next day! "Come on momma, princess movie please!" I looked and realized that is the only princess movie we have. Hmm. Maybe we'll have to take a trip to the library and get some.

~Chocolate chips. I was talking on the phone and caught Cora in the pantry out of the corner of my eye. She was grabbing a handful of chocolate chips out of the big Costco-size bag! She looked delighted. I wonder if that had been going on for long??? The chocolate chips now have a new home on the shelves.

~Cora has been doing well at using the potty. She pees in the potty a couple of times a day. We'll do full-out potty training in a couple of weeks after our last trip, but it's nice she's having a positive experience now! Hopefully it will go quickly. I did buy some princess panties that should help the transition.