Wordless Wednesday

A Surprise From Mema and P-pa

Seems like we always meander down to Mema and P-pa's during Spring Break.  Last year, Cora crawled for the first time right in Mema's kitchen.  This year, we did not meet any major developmental milestones, but we sure had fun!

Mema and P-pa had a special surprise for John and I - a new camera!  P-pa dabbles in photography, and he helped me pick out a nice camera in order that I can take better pictures for my blog.  (But, I think he had an ulterior motive. . . I think he just wants more, more, more pictures of little missy!!)  So, here are the first pictures with my new dslr camera.

Two of my favorite subjects!

I like this picture even though little missy is a little blurry.

On the go!

More to come!

The Post Where The Mom Breathes a Sigh of Relief. . .Sort Of

You may remember this post from some months ago.  I was a little worried about little missy's mothering skills.  But, I am happy to report that she has bonded with her new baby.  Recently, Mema came was her for a visit, and she brought Cora a new baby doll blanket.  Cora is very fond of this new blanket and she loves to wrap up her baby and hug and coo over her.  Adorable!!  She also loves to feed her baby 'duce' (juice).
So, she will lovingly put baby on the coffee table  

and offer her the sippy of juice. (She may or may not take a pretend sip for herself before offering it to baby!)

The mommy was so excited to see this improvement in her nurturing.  At least she was excited until the mini-mommy repeatedly picked up and slammed down the poor dolly to get her positioned just right.  sigh.  Baby steps, I suppose.

At least we are no longer throwing the baby out of the stroller!

More Fun at the Park

The weather has been just beautiful here this week.  So, of course, Cora and I were just itching to get out in the fresh air.  We took a little walk over to our favorite neighborhood park to play.   My little monkey had such a blast!

You notice these are all action shots - as usual.  I asked Yia Yia when kids begin to sit still and pose for photos.  She told me that it was about 6 months ago! Hah!  

I love this shot.  Something about the sunbeams shining down on little missy makes me really happy.  I hope y'all are having sunbeams shining down where you are, too!

March Resolution Update

As I mentioned in this post, John and I vowed recently vowed to "get in shape, by golly!"  John found this fab website called SparkPeople. If you are unfamiliar with it, this site is basically like Weight Watchers online except. . .wait for it. . .wait for it. . . it's FREE!!  (Disclaimer:  This is not a paid endorsement, but I would gladly take it under advisement should anyone at SparkPeople decide that they should like to advertise in this very small and narrow market.  Clearly, this blog is an advertiser's dream!)  John and I are both experiencing immediate success.  Although, I have come to accept that there are some hard lessons to be learned:

1. Men can eat a lot more than women and still lose weight. (Especially men who are almost a foot taller than you!) The lower end of John's caloric threshold is the maximum of mine.  Tonight after dinner when I had reached my threshold level, John started to inform me "I still need to eat about. . . "  His voice trailed off when he saw the look of death I was giving him.
2. Men get more credit for the same amount of exercise.  Sunday, we had to trade off walks because of our schedules and Cora's naptime.  So, John speedwalked down to the trail and back for a total of 2.6 miles in 39 minutes.  He got credit for 319 calories.  I walked and ran the same distance in the same amount of time and only got credit for 150.
3. Men can just eat more.  John's basal metabolic rate (the amount of calories he needs per day just to stay alive) is 2500.  My basal metabolic rate is 1645.  This means that when we have reached our goals and just want to maintain our weight, John can eat almost a THOUSAND more calories than me - without exercising!  'Sup with that??

So it should not surprise you that John has lost about 10 pounds, and I have lost about 4.  But, I still love it, despite the fact that the process is cosmically (or is that comically?!) unfair.  The easy thing about it is that since you are recording everything you eat, you subconsciously make more of an effort to eat better.  Still, it will not necessarily stop me from a splurge now and then.  Like when I had a 500 calorie muffin for breakfast and washed it down with 250 calories worth of Dr. Pepper.   I balanced my 750 calorie breakfast with a 42 calorie lunch.  (It was a giant bowl of lettuce and some tomatoes with balsamic vinaigrette. You can eat about a ton of lettuce for about 7 calories!)  I realize this is not the best approach to dieting, but that was the one day it was really off balance.  So, friend, you have endured all of that drivel so that you could get to the point of this post - Cora anecdotes!!

Along with watching what we eat, we have been exercising most days of the week.  So, Cora (who has incidentally now mastered climbing into her stroller by herself) is in heaven.  The day of my muffin transgression I had decided that Cora and I would walk to the store instead of drive.  She gets so excited about going for walks that John and I have to be very careful not to say 'walk' within her earshot unless we are planning on going immediately.   Anywho, we trounced off to the store where I discovered all kinds of wonderful things that I should probably not eat.  And, where Cora found all kinds of wonderful things that she would like to play with - things including a shiny purple pinwheel which happened to be only $1!  Score!  Best dollar I've ever spent.  

She loved watching it blow in the wind so much so that her poor mother spent about 20 minutes trying to replicate the wind with her lung power after they were back home.  (Some free advice:  Make sure to stop blowing on the pinwheel when you feel your head getting fuzzy and your heartrate rapidly increase!)  So, every walk since, she has held her pinwheel proudly in the air 

(It's hard to get a great picture of a pinwheel in action, so I took the liberty of labeling it for you. ; )  And, because I am a sucker for her sweet little self, her is another jewel for you.

She loves her sunglasses!  (I think she kind of looks like a cute, girly Johnny 05.  Bragging rights to anyone who can identify that reference!) Well, I think that ends this excessively long and boring post.  Happy March Resolutions, y'all!

Wordless Wednesday

Small Town Disney World

(At least in the mind of a toddler!)

On Friday, Cora and I ventured out to a small town near us.  I was given a tip from a friend about this neat indoor playground, and we decided to scout it out.  For a $5 total cover charge, this is what we had at our disposal.

We enjoyed a fun two story playhouse, tons of inflatables, slides, swings, a ball pit, costumes, giant stuffed animals, and even a special infant area.  Not surprisingly, Cora enjoyed the stairs on the playhouse the most.  

(Please excuse the fuzzy photos!  Cora is more of an action model rather than a still model!)  She surprised me at how well she was able to climb up AND down the stairs.  Considering we live in a single story house, she immediately figured out how to use the side rails to help herself down.  (If I had known this was going to be the highlight of the entire playground, I would have just invited myself over to one of my friend's houses that is two stories!! Would have saved the cover charge!)  

After she grew tired of the stairs, she ventured over to the infant area where we discovered many of the toys we have at home.  Again, glad we paid the $5 cover charge! wink!

Overall, I give it two thumbs up.   I think next time we may go in the middle of the week when it will be a little less crowded.  Anyone up for a playdate?

Snow Day (For Real This Time)

What a crazy week this has been!  It's not that we didn't do anything.  It's more that I haven't had the time to organize my thoughts and pictures to write about it.

By far the most exciting thing that happened is the 'big' snow that came on Tuesday.  You have to understand that any snow that sticks is defined as 'big' snow in these here parts!  Y'all, it made me wish to be in Vancouver for the Olympics.  It was so pretty when the big fat flakes started floating from the sky.  It was at that time that I realize how woefully unprepared I was to let Cora play in the snow.  I know you will laugh at her mismatched and random snow outfit.  Truly, it was not a very good snow outfit, but it did allow a few minutes of play in the small white patches in our backyard.

Yes, that's right.  She is wearing blue jeans and regular shoes; a hoodie and a denim jacket; a scarf, hat and mittens.  Clearly, we do not experience snow that often!

And, with me being home with her, if it is too cold, we just stay in.  Next season, I do believe we will invest in a winter coat!

She had a lot of fun crunching it underfoot.

And, when she did a face plant and got all of her knit wear soaked, it was time to go in.  It snowed quite a bit - I realize that quite a bit is a relative term!  By the end of the afternoon, we had quite an accumulation on our patio.  

(Yes, I know 'quite an accumulation' is subjective.)  Nevertheless, I enjoyed our little slice of winter!

Ketchup

Last weekend, Cora's Yia Yia and Dado stopped by for a little visit.  Cora turned on the charm for them.  She is a bit of a performer, and she has never lacked for an audience.  While they were here, Dado taught her a new word ('ready' for when we play catch), and Yia Yia taught her to recognize the letter 'a'.  Awesome!

On Sunday morning, they took care of Cora while John and I went to church.  They took her to breakfast at Jack in the Box and were amazed that she ate so much.  She had a waffle before she left, and then polished off a grilled cheese sandwich, orange juice, and some fries.  Her metabolism is every woman's dream!  So, Sunday night she got to have the rest of the fries with some ketchup.  She was pretty ambivalent about the ketchup at first.  She was much more interested in the fries.

When she did finally try the ketchup, it was priceless!  She puckered up like she had eaten a lemon, gave a full body shudder and giggled.  So funny!

Did I get a picture of the scene?  Of course not!  You'll just have to believe me when I say it was adorably hilarious.  We tried barbecue sauce the next day, and she was not at all interested in that either.  I'm thinking she's just going to be a plain jane kind of eater which suits me!  Less clean up!

Little Monkey

This afternoon Cora pushed her little monkey chair up against the couch.  Not unusual.  She used her monkey chair to climb up onto the seat of the couch.  Pretty normal for our house.  She then proceeded to wriggle up on top of the cushions. . . okay, mom's a little wary.

She then scrambled up on to the back of the couch. . . umm, yikes?!

Then, she got up on her tippy toes. . .mom's jumping up to her feet!! (But, she doesn't put down the camera!!)

She decides she wants to get up on the pass through.  Mom intervenes. . . finally!

She gets stuck behind the cushions.

No problem.  She just tosses (a la the Incredible Hulk) the giant couch cushion to the floor.

And what do we have behind cushion number two??!!

Paci! Score!!

Words, Words, Words

She's a sponge, I tell you!

It seems that Cora's vocabulary is really exploding. Admittedly, she's learned a lot of food words. Weird! ; )

On a whim, I decided to teach her to answer when someone asks her name. She had a little trouble with the r in Cora, so I taught her to say Coco. I'm not really sure why, but hearing her say 'Coco!' tickles me to no end! (I've called her Coco since she was a teeny babe.) She can also count to 2. Which coincidentally, is usually the amount of crackers I give her at a time. Hmm, odd!

Here are some more of her new expressions:

cookie

cake

faffle (waffle)

petz (pretzel)

moke (milk)

wawer (water)

block
book

sock

coat

diapey (diaper)

'side (outside)
down
out (for when we turn the light out at bedtime)

I know!/I know it! (methinks, I may say this phrase too much?!?)

Coos (Blue's Clues)

puppy (though her preference remains 'BIDEY!')

Maggie (our friends' dog)

Cujo (another of our friends' dog. . . notice a pattern?!)

Rocco (Roscoe Ram)

monkey

Whee!

fas (fast)

agie (again)

And, here she is showing off some of her new vocabulary.

We Are Those Parents

Y'all, I love tv!

Is there such a thing as genetic predisposition to tv? If so, I have it! I'm thinking Cora may have it, too. At least that's what I'm telling myself!

So, may I just say how much I love tv on demand. I stumbled upon preschool on demand sometime last year. (Contrary to its advertising, it is NOT 'like preschool on tv.' But, it is age appropriate and commercial free!) We tried several options, but the winner by far is Blue's Clues. And, I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that the main character is a cute, blue BIDEY! (For those of you who may be new to ye olde blog, 'bidey' is Cora's way of saying dog. Nope, not really sure why! We've just come to accept it!) So, bless her little heart, whether it is nature or nurture, she will walk up to our tv, tap it gently, and ask for 'Coos?' I wish to report that when I gently tell her no, she accepts such answer with grace and dignity. But, alas, such is not always (or maybe it is never) the case. Fortunately, until she learns to operate the remote control, I still have the upper hand, ha ha!

It's Just About Time for Our March Resolutions

As a family, we don't really make New Year's resolutions.  My philosophy is if you have a goal why wait until an arbitrary date to start working on it.  So, I set goals throughout the year.  Supposedly, most people are successful at keeping up a New Year's resolution for about two and a half weeks.  That tradition we do actively participate in!  

Anyway, though we don't tend to specify goals at the start of the new year, we do tend to fall into a goal setting frenzy as March approaches.  Generally, it is the same goal every March:  

Get in shape, by golly!

(Excuse the obvious irony of us canceling our gym membership a couple of weeks ago!)  John and I have been very diligent about going for a walk as often as weather will permit.  Admittedly, John is much more diligent about it than me, but I have even surprised myself at my level of commitment.  Now that John has some fancy-dancy apps on his brand new phone (afforded in part by our canceled gym membership - tee hee!), we can track our caloric intake, mileage (including our estimated miles per hour), and calories burned.  How did we ever get along before?!

Cora and Penny are both loving our new commitment to the sidewalks of the neighborhood.  (This is especially good for our little birthday pup. . .gotta work off that cake somewhere!)  Cora loves when we get out the stroller.  She'll run up to it and say "up? up?" with her cute little hands up in the air.  When you get her strapped in, she looks up at you with the biggest grin.  As we walk around, Cora will chatter to us, to Penny, or to herself.  She comments on all the cats and kids and commotion she sees in the neighborhood.  Her favorite thing is when we break into a run.  She likes to giggle and says "WHEEEE!!"  When we stop, she pleads with us to "Go fas?!"  She's a good little personal trainer!  And, as long as the weather stays bright and sunny, you know we'll be wearing out the sidewalks.  It's hard to say no to that sweet little face!

It's Someone's Birthday!

Someone turned 28 today!

It's not me. . .

I'm only 25. . .

Don't I wish!

Okay, so 28 is a bit of an overstatement, but it is someone's birthday.

Happy Birthday, Penny-dog!

Four years ago, John and I were praying about getting a dog.  And, four years ago, you were born!  We think you may be the best and smartest dog ever. . .but, I'm not biased!

I hope you enjoyed your doggie cake!

It's Impossible to Hide M & M's From Yourself

I have a problem with our potty reward.  I told myself I had willpower, but it turns out that I lied.  I was pretty successful at hiding them from John, but it has recently occurred to me that you can't hide them from yourself!  I have been rewarding myself for my excellent bathrooming habits for a few days now. . . I think I need a  plan b.

On the flip side, I have a child who is very happy about sitting on the potty.  She will follow me into the bathroom and sit on her little throne fully clothed.  With her cute little voice, she looks up at me and says, "Please?" Apparently, she also inherited my sweet tooth!

So, we've been practicing our little potty routine at every bath time with only minimal levels of success.  (Success being defined as her tinkling next to the potty rather than running into the bedroom or closet.)  I know you are not as excited about this as I am.  Believe me, I never got excited about tinkle . . . especially not tinkle in my closet.  BUT, as of tonight, we have tinkle in the potty!  (Feel free to jump up and down, clap and cheer! You can believe that we made big, silly fools of ourselves dancing around.)  I don't think she caught on right away as to why we were suddenly so happy and being so, umm, liberal with the M & M's.  And, not once in my life did I picture myself clapping and singing "You tee-teed in the potty!!" while I showed my child a urine filled potty cup.  Ahh, good times!  We still have a few M & M's left, so hopefully, we can have a repeat performance tomorrow night. . .And, then, plan b. . .

Yay For Me!

Look what I got in the mail the other day!

Woo Hoo!  I won a contest held by J over at Smile, Laugh or Die.  J is a preschool teacher with tons of experience and a great sense of humor.  Check out her funny take on day to day life with a passel of 2 year olds!  Thanks, J! 

BONK!

This makes me smile!

She was practically guffawing, but as soon as I grabbed the camera, she mellowed out. Typical, right?

(Sorry about the quality! I took this video with one of our still cameras.)