Haircut, Big Springs and sewing

Cora's hair has been getting longer and longer - when it's wet it reaches down in between her shoulder blades. Or, it did. After weeks of Ryan commenting "we should get her hair cut" I finally did, so that she could have it out of her eyes, but hopefully not have a "fresh cut" look on her birthday. I decided to take her somewhere to have it cut, and since I didn't want to pay too much I went to a hair school. We cut her bangs so they aren't constantly in her eyes, and also took a little from the back. I didn't want to lose her little curls but also didn't want her to look like she had a mullet. The student did great, she was friendly and pretty fast, and Cora was much better behaved for her than she was when my mom and I tried to trim her bangs this summer. I think the intimidation factor had something to do with that, which I was okay with. Definitely worth the $5. And Cora still has curly hair at the back.

Just before I went to get her hair cut I decided to try to take some before pictures. Cora was not very cooperative, but you can see the shaggy-ness.

Especially shaggy blowing in the wind.None of the after pictures turned out well - as in, they're so blurry/dark that you can't see her hair at all - so you'll just have to look at the pictures we took in the next few days to see her new haircut.

Our favorite place, the playground.

Cora can go up most of the ladders by herself now. Scares me a little but I did encourage her to learn to do it by herself - so I don't have to constantly get up and rescue her when she gets stuck.I don't think I've taken a bath picture of Cora since she was an infant in the baby bath. That's probably because until recently, she had never been a fan of baths, so we usually would just shower her to get if over with faster when she needed one. But recently she's discovered that bubble baths are fun and will go upstairs on her own, saying "basth! bubble" when you tell her it's bath time.

After far too long I've gotten back to my sewing machine and made a few things. Currently I'm working on a big project that is taking a lot of time. Here is a little skirt from an old t-shirt I made for the girl I babysit who just turned 2. She likes skirts that twirl.

And I made this dress for Cora from two other old t-shirts in my DI pile. I think it's the best I've ever done at sewing a neckline, (not that you can tell from the picture) but I can't decide if it looks more like a fun comfy play dress or a nightgown.

On Saturday we decided to drive up to Big Springs, on the other side of Pebble Creek Ski Resort, to check out the autumn foliage. It was a fun drive and it's really beautiful up there. Cora slept while we drove there and when we got her out of the car we discovered that her pockets were full of rocks from the playground earlier - probably wasn't too comfortable to sit on. She probably had about 20 rocks - distributed in her little front and back pockets. Pockets are her new favorite thing - she's always got her hands stuffed in them. We went on a short nature walk with Cora and she had a ton of fun. She loves to "wok" and if we ever try to pick her up she'll squirm and cry and say "up! up! wok" meaning she wants us to put her down. (We're working on that one.)

Look at that face - she loves her daddy!

Kimchee squat!On another note, we are super excited for uncle Johnny, who just got a mission call to Dallas Texas, Spanish speaking! We used Skype for the first time to watch him open it, which was pretty special. Since then we've used it to talk to my family too. Don't know why we're so behind the times and just now trying it - it's so easy and really fun for Cora. She doesn't really get the whole talking on the phone thing yet (unless it's a toy phone, then she'll babble on), but with the web cam she understands who she's talking to and gets excited.

(Sorry for the novel. I know I always have long posts.)

chalk drawings

It's been a while again since we've updated the blog. I had one of the most painful weeks of my life in that time, culminating in a root canal last week. Thankfully, after a day to recover from the root canal, I've been pain-free ever since. Now I'm back to my regular self, enjoying playing with Cora while it's nice outside and it's still just the three of us. Ryan has been busy with school and we've just started talking about names for the baby, now that we know it's a boy.

Cora's been growing up so fast on us. She talks a lot now, although only to Ryan and I or other kids; she's still pretty shy among other adults. She has started resisting bedtime, which is new for her. She has called Ryan "Daddy" for a while now but just in the past couple of days started calling me "Mommy" instead of "Momma." She is quite the cookie monster and I know when it's dinner time because she starts asking for "cookie?" and pointing to the cupboards. Anytime she wants anything she grabs my finger and takes me when she wants to go. If I ignore that chances are she'll just drag her little chair over to the counter and try to get it herself. But she can also tell us what she wants a lot of the time now, which is so nice. She will say "note" which means milk, and sometimes also water, when she's thirsty, and "eat" when she wants to eat, and "shoes? side?" when she wants to go outside. She can open our front door by herself, as long as it's not deadbolted, and so we have to make sure that our gate is always closed with a caribeener so she doesn't escape.

Here's Cora a few days ago playing with chalk outside. I was trying to take pictures of her outside but she kept coming right up to the camera and making stinky faces.

Camping and climbing Scout Mountain

Last Friday night for Labor Day weekend we got together with a bunch of our friends and camped out at Scout Mountain. Although it's been getting cold here already, we had a really nice warm day and night for camping that day. We were able to borrow a tent from our Bishop and had a fun night talking, eating hot dogs and other campy food, and making s'mores at night around the fire. Of course, I forgot to take any pictures til after dark, but with the flash some of them turned out okay. This is us gathered around the fire. All of the families that came were other PT students - we've been so lucky to have a good group of classmates and friends in our ward that all live so close to us - like, next door and right across the parking lot/street!

Hiking along the Scout Mountain trail the next morning. Yep, there are three pregnant women in this picture. I think it's accurate to say that more than half of our little student ward Relief Society is pregnant.

Ryan and I only went on the hike for a short while, then Ryan and his good friend Hector (who camped out with us, with his family) went up to the summit on their mountain bikes. It was a long trip but Ryan was so happy to have gotten it in before winter comes and we move away from Pocatello. The views from up there were awesome.

Ultrasound today

We went to our ultrasound today and got a good look at the baby - everything looks great, I'm 19 weeks and 1 day, and the due date is January 31st. Also, we got a cool bracelet for Cora to play with! Check it out.

Pics from Dad's visit

Well I forgot that I had gotten a few pics from Dad when he visited, from his iPhone. Of course, he took them, so most of them were of Cora by herself. But here are a few of our visitors. Cora got sick while they were here so that wasn't as much fun as it could have been but she was feeling a lot better the next morning and they got to play with her a little at the playground, her favorite place.

My little kitchen helper and home again

Even before I found out I was having a girl (when I was expecting Cora, not this current pregnancy) I dreamed about having a little girl cook with me in the kitchen. I didn't really think Cora was big enough yet but she let me know that she thinks she is. She loves pushing our rice bucket up to the counter or sink where I'm working and getting her hands into whatever I'm doing.

This is Cora helping me "stir" the pink lemonade, aka splash her hands in it.Enjoying the fruits of her labors - this is her new favorite place to eat, standing on the bucket at the counter.She loves to help me "wash" (sounds more like "bosh") the dishes. Although, it's more like she plays with a spoon under the water while I wash the rest of the dishes, and she yells at me when I dare to use the water too, or turn it off when I'm done.This pic was taken just yesterday, when Cora helped me mix up some banana bread. I was pleasantly surprised that she let me help her stir, but when we were all done she threw a huge tantrum.These are just some pictures of Cora being silly.It's been so nice to be home after a wonderful, busy but long summer. School started a little too soon, of course, and we are pretty busy now, but we are still enjoying our nice little house on the hill, with a beautiful view of the mountains and the sunset every night. Here are some of the views from our back and our front porch.Cora has been happy to discover all of her toys and books again, and is especially cute playing with her babies. She shares her food and drink and even her blankie (sounds more like bootsie) with them and pats them on the back and puts them night-night. She has been talking more than ever and is making a real effort to get her pronunciation right and imitate what we say.

With school starting again I am babysitting again - just one girl this semester. Acacia is just two weeks older than Cora and it has been fun watching them play together. They are both so much more mature than they were last semester, and there are a lot of times that they play together so nicely. They (sometimes) like to share toys and look at books together. They love holding hands on the way to the playground, which is great, since Cora refuses to hold my hand when crossing the street, but she'll hold Acacia's and Acacia will hold mine. After they each go down the slide they like to give each other high fives.

Since we've been back we've also spent a long weekend in Boise visiting Elise and Eric's families, and we had a short visit from CW and Dad on the way out to Provo. Unfortunately we were bums and didn't take pictures during both of those visits. :( But we had a great time seeing everyone again and can't wait to seem them more later this fall.

Well that just about sums up what we've been up to lately. Now I've caught up from my laziness from the summer and I'm really going to try to keep up on the blogging again. Stay tuned next week for some sonogram pictures and maybe... if the baby cooperates... an announcement.

Mink Creek West Fork Hike 8/28

We went on another hike to the Mink Creek West Fork last Saturday. It was beautiful up there, with lots of pines and quakies around. We've also been walking around on the paths right around the hills by our house a lot since we've been home, especially on evenings when we feel like Cora needs to get tired out, and she always loves walking and running around on her own. But at the beginning of this hike she was being pretty silly and wouldn't walk or get in her backpack carrier, she just wanted me to hold her. Finally we convinced her to get in the backpack with a granola bar distraction. On the way back down, she fell asleep in the backpack. She woke up a little later when we were trying to make her more comfortable and insisted on walking the rest of the way - screaming and flailing if we tried to pick her up. The last mile or two of the hike (I'm not good at estimating distances) took the longest, with Cora meandering along, stopping every couple of feet to tell us about a rock in the path, a tree, the grass, or to smell her flower. It was pretty cute, even though we did try to hurry her along so we could get home.