Fourth of July

We had a great Fourth of July with lots of family in town for Violet's baby blessing. Brad and Dawn came on Thursday and my parents and Shad and Jen (and puppies!) came on Friday afternoon. Brad, Dawn, and Kevin golfed in the morning, Cora swam in the backyard in the afternoon, and we all had some nice relaxing time to hang out together. My aunt and uncle, and my cousin Katrina's family came over for hamburgers and fireworks, so it was a really fun time! We also did Cora's birthday cake after hamburgers, and she opened a few presents.
Violet dressed up for the holiday too!
My first attempt at making an icecream cake! It was too windy to keep the candles lit, oh well, maybe next year.
Cora liked the fireworks for the most part, except the loud whistling petes! She was pretty apprehensive about the sparklers, but loved the pop-its. When she sees the pictures of fireworks now, she says pop-pop! We still have a few pop-its left I'm saving for sometime this week when she needs a fun activity.

Happy Birthday Dear Cora!

We left on our trip to Southern Utah on Cora's birthday, so we had a morning celebration. When Cora woke up we took her downstairs to see her presents. I think she didn't get all the way what was going on, but had fun!

I have to admit, I was a little disappointed that she went for the princess wrapping paper package before my carefully planned Curious George and bouncy horse presents! She has been starting to be interested in princesses the last week or two. But since then, she's warmed up to the George pillow I made and the stuffed animal too. It's pretty cute to see her watch George or read books about Curious George with her new accessories!

Cora had so much fun on the bouncy horse in Portland, we decided to get her one of her own, since there's plenty of room in the basement now! She could get on and off by herself with the other model, this one is a bit higher. She's pretty close to getting the hang of it though!

Cora will also have some birthday celebrating this weekend with her grandparents-- both sets! We'll have some cake and candle pics later.

Service

We got a flier in the mail a few weeks ago about a youth group wanting to do service for people in our neighborhood. I kind of forgot about it, but my friend mentioned that the group was coming to her house on Monday, so I called to see if they had any more openings. Luckily they did! About 20 high schoolers came for a hour Tuesday afternoon and cleared our all the weeds in our 'garden', stained our flower growboxes, and washed our windows. It was like a whirlwind! They seemed like nice kids, and were from a national religious conference taking place in Salt Lake that week. They did a great job, and were just interested in serving, no strings attached. We sure appreciated the help--they accomplished in one hour what would have taken us MUCH longer by ourselves, and we had wanted to get those things done before our guests came this weekend. It was so helpful, and a great reminder of what service truly is.

Weekend Out

We had a great time in Southern Utah last weekend! A friend invited our family and a few other families in the neighborhood for a weekend at her dad's cabin. We had so much fun! Cora loved playing with the other kids, we got to do a few kid-friendly hikes, saw beautiful scenery, played games, ate good food, and laughed and laughed as we got to hang out and know each other even better. Thanks so much!

These pics are really in any order, and there's a bunch of them-- I just couldn't narrow it down. So it's a little long and random :). Bryce Canyon. We were staying in a little town called Alton, inbetween Bryce and Zions. It was at a higher altitude, so it wasn't too hot at all. Bryce was a little warmer, but still pretty comfortable, even with a 3 month old strapped to my front! Kevin hadn't seen Bryce before, so it was especially fun. We left our house Thursday afternoon and spent the better part of Friday at Bryce eating lunch, checking out the stuffed animals in the museum (Cora was so excited to see the jackrabbit and cougar!), seeing the views, and doing some walks.
Cora was a little cross on this walk and refused to sit in the backpack. Luckily she liked it better the next day!

Cora and Cole, one of her favorite friends. Cole and his mom rode down to the cabin with us, and it made the drive go by much faster for both kids. They were giggling in the back seat throwing goldfish at each other (messy, but at least it occupied some time!), sharing books, and looking at the cows and horses out the window. We stopped at a rest stop so I could feed Violet and Cora and Cole had fun looking at all the big trucks and playing with the beach ball. Friday night, Kevin asked Cora if she wanted a bath and Cole decided he wanted to get in too! These two have so much fun together! Cora has been asking about playing with Cole every day since.
Splash!

At the museum at Bryce Canyon National Park.
Another great thing about vacationing with friends is that there is always someone around to take your picture! I think we got more family pictures taken on this trip than the last 6 months.
On Saturday we went to Cedar Mountain. Here are a few of us inside Mammoth Cave (courtesy of the camera flash). Cora was a brave spelunker and went in even when we got to a part that was completely dark. We only had one dim flashlight for all of us, so Kirsten and I took the girls back and the boys came out the other end of the cave.
Our whole group at the cabin--12 adults, 11 kids (9 of which were 3 and under). It is a beautiful cabin, we were so lucky to stay there.
The group at Bryce.
On our little hike on Cedar Mountain, you can see Kevin and I in the background.
After exploring Cedar Mountain, we found a great park at Brianhead to play at and eat lunch. Here's Kevin and I and the girls, with Samantha and baby Ella in the middle.

Cora and her friend Alyssa... they must have found something interesting to look at! They are only 6 weeks apart in age, and had a lot of fun playing together too.
The kitchen area.

All the little kiddos. We had about 15 pictures of this scene, and I don't think there is one with ALL of them looking!
Violet fell asleep, and stayed asleep, almost everytime she was in the front pack. It was great! She got some good quality naps in that way, and it was nice not to have to deal with a stroller.
Cora and Kevin. Cora didn't seem to care for the views, I think her highlight of the day was watching the huge crows scavenge for food at the lunch spot. She and Cole followed the birds around for quite a while!
Kevin showing Cora how to work the toy at the park.
Cora kept saying 'my turn, my turn' so she got to try it out on her own.

What a fun trip and a lot of great memories. We feel lucky to have made some great friends in our neighborhood!

Cora's New Bed

Cora is pretty excited about her new bed! We got it set up, and then realized it'll probably be best to wait until after our two trips and weekend with lots of houseguests to start the new routine. My cousin Shayne got us a great deal on the bed--THANKYOU!

Also, Cora used "I" for the first time today that I have picked up on. We were by a little bench and she said "I sit!" when she sat down, and then patted next to her and said "Momma sit!". It's fun to hear her say more and more and pick up on grammar.

We found out Violet is still sensitive to milk. Kevin and I went to the temple while our kind neighbor watched Cora and Violet, and we left some formula for Violet. I thought it would be fine, because it was formula for sensitive babies, but it was still milk-based. Poor Violet had a very hard afternoon and evening today with an upset stomach, lots of spitting up, and lots of crying. I guess we'll keep trying every few weeks to see if she grows out of it! I've steered completely clear of milk and yogurt... cheese once a day or so doesn't seem to bother her, and luckily, chocolate seems to be safe too!

Yard work, House work

We are trying to get our house and yard projects all finished before we have guests next week! We have been working hard on organizing the basement-- office, guest room, storage room, man room, getting Cora's room upstairs set up (unfortunately, there's not time until later in the summer to paint and cutesie it up), and finish some miscellaneous yard projects.

Friday and Saturday I shoveled a ton of bark, taking it from our driveway to our backyard. And that's literal! It was 1.19 tons of bark, or 5 cubic yards. HOT! But it looks so nice back there now.... we just need to get our growboxes and garden area done.
Sunday I started putting stuff in Cora's new room. I pulled out a bookcase for her and decided she was old enough to have the non-board books out... before they've been in a closet so I could keep an eye out while she read them, hoping she wouldn't be into page tearing. She was so excited to see all these new books, she had to pull them all off the bookcase! Oh well. At least she loves to read!Kevin got lots of work done this weekend too, of course! He did some wiring in the basement and helped with all the organizing. He also weeded and started clearing out our last section of messy parkstrip that we've ignored the last three years. Since we don't have a truck anymore, we weren't quite sure what to do with all that dirt that was coming out. He started putting it in our garbage can, but since it had grass in the bottom, it was top-heavy, and fell down and pinned him to the sidewalk! I was in town running errands, and no one was out of the street to help him... it was too heavy for him to push off himself. Luckily, a neighbor came by fairly soon after and rescued him. It's funny now, but I think it must have been very uncomfortable. We'll have to figure out another way to get rid of that dirt.

Cora is growing up!

We have a ward playgroup that meets every week, alternating between parks, people's homes, or fun places out. Yesterday we met up with the group at the Gateway to play in the fountains! Cora had fun for a while, and then wasn't interested in getting wet anymore after she had her snack. Kevin met us down there for lunch, and it was a nice day. Needless to say, I had two very tired girls on the drive home.


I have been doing a 'block of the month' quilting group the last year. I finished up my next-to-last block today! It's been a fun, cheap way to practice my sewing and learn a little bit about quilting. Every month we do a different pattern in coordinating fabrics. It's almost time to put them together! I'm going to piece them together and put a back on it as a duvet cover instead of quilting it, for Cora's new big girl bed... that we'll be buying next week!

I read on my friend's blog that she taught her toddler colors with M&Ms. Cora can sing her ABC's and count to 20, but she sure hasn't been interested in learning her colors, so I thought I'd give it a try. Unfortunately, Cora was much too preoccupied with eating the M&Ms to learn her colors. I guess she really doesn't get candy very often, what a distraction! We'll try again tomorrow.
Cora has also been more and more distinct when talking. It's pretty cute to hear her say "I love you", even thought we still are prompting her to say it. Tonight I told her good-night and that I loved her. Then I said, "Say, I love you Momma", and she said "I love you Violet" several times just being goofy.

She also loves to fold Violet's arms for prayer, and has been staying kneeling for family prayer more regularly. Cora loves watering the flowers with me, and likes especially to fill her cups with the hose water while I'm watering, and then water the flowers herself. When we go on walks, Cora hops out of her stroller and says "My turn, my turn" and wants to push it. She also plays the 'my turn' card when she wants to watch her show on tv or wants a bite of something yummy Kevin or I are eating. She's getting so big!

Almost Finished!

I haven't posted for a while! We've been pretty busy here working on our basement. We have made so much progress in the last few weeks! Kevin did all the baseboards and casings, then we were lucky to have Brad come down to help for a few days. Brad and Kevin did all the caulking, puttying, and paint prep, and put two coats of primer on.
Then we were lucky again to have my dad come for a few days and he and Kevin put two coats of paint on, and wired all the outlets and lights. We had a couple of pricey trips to Home Depot and Lowes to get all those switches and fixtures! They also got the whole basement cleaned up and took a full load of boxes and scraps to the dump with dad's truck. The basement is now swept and cleaned up.... ready to be carpeted tomorrow!

We also used the truck to take an early morning trip to the nursery. Now we have trees and shrubs along our back fence, and we are much closer to having a finished backyard.

Cora loved playing in this box that the vanity top came in.


What's left to do? Wiring low voltage stuff like cable, internet, and phone; hooking up the toilet and vanity, tiling the bathroom, ordering a mirror for the bathroom, putting up the doors, installing faceplates on the switches, getting blinds, moving stuff out of the storage room, installing doorstops, washing the windows, doing some small paint touch-ups, fixing one buggy outlet. A lot of little things. But still, we are getting so close! I'm excited that with the carpet we can start moving things downstairs and using the space. It will be great for Violet to have her own room!

Kissie and Pata recently got back from a three week trip to China. The girls got to wear their dresses from China to church today. Kevin also wore his dragon tie and 'Rolex'. It sounds like they had a fun trip! The guys were so beat at the end of the day from working on the basement when Dad came, we didn't get to see the pictures. Next time for sure! I think Mom said they have 1200 of them.... better get some popcorn!


Violet is growing and learning new things all the time! She loves to watch Cora run around, and seems to like Cora's almost constant kisses and hugs too. She's always loved her bouncer, and this week she really picked up on kicking her feet to the music to touch the hanging toys. She kicks more at some songs than with others, she must like them better!