Horsey Rides

Horsey rides are a nightly after dinner favorite at our house. Usually it's Cora riding on Kevin's back, but we've discovered Violet's loudest giggles have come when she rides around the family room on Cora's back.

Sisters

We tried doing some photos of the girls yesterday in their matching church dresses. Hit and miss!

Teeth

You can see Violet's top two teeth popping through! One is well established, the other just has a little corner exposed. Hopefully this makes her feel a little better and wake up a little less often at night.

Bowling

We popped out of the house Saturday morning while a real estate agent took some people through to let Cora have her first bowling experience. It was free bowling with a food donation, so a pretty good deal for us, as the cans of tomato soup have multiplied beyond consumption in our food storage.
It was nice that the bowling alley could put bumpers up automatically just for Cora's turn. Cora liked it, I think... but she got tired of it around frame 7 or so. She was much more interested in the arcade games we played while we were waiting for the computer glitches to be fixed, and the plastic bracelets she bought with the tickets from our games. Oh well, maybe next year?

Alter Ego

Kevin was reading "Where the Wild Things Are" tonight to Cora when (according to him) unprompted she said "mommy!"... he said "where?"... she said "right there!" and pointed to this lovely wild thing..
Granted, I did get upset with her when she unscrewed my lip glosses, squirted lotion on the bathroom rug, and drew on her face with lipliner this afternoon during our second home teacher visit in the 3.5 years we've lived here, now that she has mastered pulling the childlock on the bathroom cabinet just right to unlock all the gooey goodies...

At least I think these home teachers are going to come back regularly! I guess we'll have to be better at enticing Cora to stay in the room with us, and fix that childlock.

Pumpkin Bars

Another great fall favorite....

Mix:
4 eggs
1 cup oil
2 cups sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups pumpkin

Add:
1 tsp salt
1 tsp soda
2 tsp cinnamon
2 1/4 cup flour

Bake in a jelly roll pan (for flatter bars) or a 9x13 pan (for more cake-like size bars) at 350 degrees for 25-40 minutes (depending on pan used).

Frosting:
3 oz cream cheese (room temperature)
1 cube butter (room temperature)
2 cups powdered sugar

My mom has made these for as long as I can remember, and they are delicious!

Pumpkin Pie Squares

This is a fun twist on traditional pumpkin recipes...

Filling:
1 15 oz can pumpkin
1 12 oz can evaporated milk
2 eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp cloves

Crust:
1 cup flour
1/2 cup oats
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened

Topping:
1/2 c chopped pecans
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 tbsp butter

Opt: Whipped cream, ice cream

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 13x9 in glass baking dish
2. Crust: Combine ingredients, press into pan, bake 15 minutes or until partially set.
3. Filling: Combine ingredients, pour over crust and bake 30 minutes.
4. Topping: Combine ingredients. Remove pan from oven and sprinkle topping evenly over filling. Bake 15-20 minutes, until filling is set.
5. Cool completely before cutting into squares. Serve with whipped cream or icecream if desired.

Cora's Nursery

Cora has five dollies that she loves to take care of. Today we pulled out the baby blankets I played with when I was little (made by my grandmother and great grandmother) and Cora was delighted to have blankies for her dolls that are just the right size. We made a little makeshift bed out of the tupperware container (Cora is getting a real cradle for Christmas!) and the dolls all took a nap together in Cora's room. The swing was a great find from a second-hand store, that's been a lot of fun too.

Checking on the sleeping baby...

Pround mama...
Nursing the baby (she even covered the baby up with the blanket when she saw I was taking a picture!)
Burping the baby...


One other funny thing... Cora asks about Kevin thoughout the day, usually asks where he is. When I tell her he's at work, she ALWAYS responds 'on the bus'? We've told her Kevin takes the bus to work, but now I think she must think he rides the bus all day long! We need to take a field trip to Kevin's work so she knows he's not a bus driver.

Going to the Dentist

Cora had her first trip to the dentist today. She was so excited to go-- we've been reading "Elmo Goes to the Dentist" for several months now. But, when we got there, she got pretty nervous and I was wondering if my co-pay was a waste of money. Luckily the dental assistants talked her into sitting in the chair and opening her mouth to brush and count her teeth. It didn't hurt that they gave her a bag full of 'presents' too! That was the real turning point. Cora didn't let go of that bag all the rest of the day. No cavities, and hopefully a good prep for the next dental visit.

News

Well, it's a week full of new news for our family.

~Keyton and Liz are moving to England in the Spring! They will be there for 3 years, it's a job transfer with the federal government. We are so excited to save our pennies and visit them once or twice.

~Kissie and Pata are moving to Salt Lake! My dad took a job with the LDS Church that will start in December. They are here in Salt Lake this week looking for a condo/apartment downtown, (they'll be keeping their house in Boise). We are so excited to have them closeby.

~We put our house up for sale... we were going to wait and see how the commute was and wait until Kevin's work location actually changed in the Spring, but there are so many houses on the market now for great prices in the area we are looking, that we thought we should at least give it a try. It's pretty sad, and I have very mixed feelings. I'm just trying not to think about it too much since who knows when it will sell??? But if you know someone who wants to buy a nice rambler with a finished basement 30 minutes west of Salt Lake in a nice quiet community, let me know!

Happy Halloween!

We had a fun Halloween day with cousins coming over for crafts, going trick-or-treating, and Kurt and Jen coming over for dinner. Cora loved going door to door, and it was fun to see all our neighbors out and about. Cora also loved eating lots of candy Friday night... she was so wound up from candy and guests that she was running and running and finally crashed in bed. She also got a kick out of opening the door and giving out candy.... she only got spooked by scary costumes a couple of times!

Here's our little caterpillar....

and our big giraffe....