I Two

For Cora's Birthday blog, I feel as though it is necessary that I start with a dialogue between Cora and Lee from Christmas Eve rather than her birthday.

We're sitting at the dinner table eating baked salmon and green beans. Lee and I are done eating, but Cora is busy going to town on her third helping.

Lee: My goodness Cora. Are you our Omega-3 baby?

Cora: (stern look {see photo for example}) I two!!!!

Lee: (laughing very hard) Oh sorry. You are two, not Omega-3.

Up until that point, we didn't think Cora really understood that her birthday celebration was actually because she was a year older. Turns out we were very wrong. Every time we correct her now, she looks at us and says, "I two!". OK, guess she is old enough to do everything by herself. Turns out it was a good time to start potty training with her attitude, but that's another post.

Daycare started her birthday celebrations. Every two year old girl going to her own birthday party would need to have something special. This year, Cora got to use sponge rollers for the first time. She seemed to like them. I was surprised.

I thought it would be best to take her couch photos before heading to daycare. Cora was not impressed. I couldn't get her to crack a smile for anything.

Cora's milestones:

• She is currently cutting her two year molars. These are the worse. The always has 8 fingers shoved deep into her mouth. She's sleeping with Lee and I nearly every night because she wakes up crying from the pain. I hate teething. I hate seeing her in pain.
• She is talking like a champ (for a 2 year old). She is starting to use sentences on a very elementary level. She especially likes to use "I need ___" and "I want ___". 
• She is doing reasonably well with her manners. More often than not she says please.
• She can bounce around like a bunny rabbit (multiple hops in a row).
• Her coordination is really coming along. We play very basic hand clap games with her.
• She loves dancing and really loves mimicking my crazy moves.
• She tries to boss Reggie around constantly. "Reg, SIT!" "Reg, COME!" "Here Boy!" "Shhhh" "Stop barking!" You get the picture. Reggie, on the other hand, doesn't pay her a lick of attention. Well, unless she is using a cookie as bribery.
• She absolutely loves Beauty and the Beast. She could watch the movie and read the books we have over and over and over and never get tired of them. 

Cora's birthday ended up being a great day for all three of us. We took her to an 11:30am showing of Yogi Bear in 3-D. We had taken her to Rapunzel a few weeks before for my birthday, so she knew the ropes of a movie theater. She had not been to movie in 3-D though. Lee and I weren't sure if it was going to be overwhelming for her, but she did great. The movie was a bit dry, but the experience was a lot of fun. She wore her 3-D glasses for the previews and promptly took them off for the movie and refused to put them back on. Of course, she wanted to wear them home in the car seat.

We got Cora home just in time for a nap. While she was napping, Lee was busy setting up her new play tent. He bought this for her over a month ago and has been dying to give it to her. Somehow, I got him to wait until her birthday. Her eyes about bugged out of her head when she saw the tent. Lee had bought Mya and Max the same tent when we went to Arizona. She loved playing in it there. I can't hardly imagine what was going through her head when she saw that she was now the proud owner of the same tent. She immediately jumped inside and started rolling the tent all around the room. Imagine a gerbil inside and exercise ball.

We had chicken piccatta and roasted red peppers for dinner. More importantly for a birthday, we had Toffee Blondies with candles for desert. It was quite cute seeing her try to blow out candles. Dinner and dessert was followed by more presents. She got all kinds of fun girly things from a horse coat to a new dolly to a purse and much more. What a lucky little two year old. I am sure she went to bed that night thinking about how much fun she was going to have playing with all her new toys. Little did she know Santa was going to be stopping by the next night. ;)

How about I open all of my presents inside my tent? NO? OK, I guess I'll come out.

I will not put this purse down.

Oh my goodness. I didn't think this day could get any better and then I open a new baby. Wow.

She's hungry.

And tired. I am just going to love her and hug her and feed her and...

The only way this day could be better is if I could fall asleep in my new tent wearing my new Beauty and the Beast pj's. YES!

Out of Space??

It turns out I have used up my 1GB of space allotted for pictures and videos on Blogger. But, not to worry! I am going to purchase more space as it's quite cheap.

To top it off, our camera broke. It might be done for good. We dug out our old one for the time being. We may just be in the market for a new camera at Christmas. I am thinking a Nikon D90 and following it up with some local photography classes... ;) Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

I also started my first quilt this last week. I only have one good rotary cutting accident thus far. I'd say the quilt is coming along well. It should be done in a few months. Hopefully.

Cheese!

It's that time of year again. We received Cora's school photo samples today. I must say. This girl is so cute. Remember, she puked right before these pictures were taken. I thought for sure she wasn't going to give us her best show, but I was wrong. Very wrong.

The pictures are in numerical order. The first is my favorite. Lee's favorite is number 3. The photographer's favorite was the 4th one.  I have no idea which one we are going to order because I think it may be hard to settle on just one.

If I remember how to make a poll, I'll post it in the right hand column of the blog.

Update: The poll was easy to create. I voted! You should too.

Camping in the South

After our camping trip in the north this summer, we packed our car and headed south to Crowsnest Pass for another camping extravaganza. We found a nice, tiny campground right on the Old Man River. It also happened to be a half way point to meet our favorite Montanians, Chris and Vicki.

Cora was quite excited when we started pulling the camping gear out.

Doing what she does best in the car...sleeping.

We had no cell phone service at this campground. Lee had to drive about an hour to get some service so he could let Chris and Vicki know where we were. Meanwhile, Cora and I pigged out on salsa and burritos.

Really, Mom? Another picture?

Is there anything better than burritos when camping? Yes. Leftover burrito makings for breakfast burritos in the morning. Scrumptious! 

Cora loved to drive the car. 

She also got her own chair for this trip.

Naptime in the hammock. Now that's what vacation is all about.

Lee catching a fish just below our campsite. It was less about 50 feet down the hill to the fishing hole.

Cora and I throwing rocks into Lee's fishing hole. Hey, we all need to have fun, right?

Chris and Vicki finally made it!

Lee and I really thought our curse of camping in the rain had been broken after our camping trip to Rock Lake. Turns out we were wrong. Very, very wrong.

The rain started. We decided to open a bottle of wine and wait it out.

Chris and Vicki thought that was a great idea.

But, it rained and rained and rained.

And, then, it rained some more. It didn't let up. In fact, it kept raining harder and harder. We finally decided to try and get a fire started for dinner. Surprisingly, Lee and Chris got one started. We had a delicious dinner of chili out of the dutch oven. The rain never stopped that night. But the next morning was beautiful.

In fact, it was absolutely gorgeous that day. Lee caught lots of fish.

So did Vicki. Chris, on the other hand, didn't have such luck. :(

I have no words for this hilarious photo.

Cora and Reggie talking to the squirrels.

It was so nice, we decided to take a dip in the river. The river was freezing! We didn't make it in very far.

Vicki, Chris, Cora, Lee, and Sascha. Chris and Vicki left on Sunday. Canada had a Monday holiday, so we were staying an extra day. While it was raining the night before, we decided to take off at the same time as Chris and Vicki. We had no desire to camp another night in the rain. The beautiful weather on Sunday quickly changed our minds.

Lee went down to fish a bit more in the river. Low and behold, he caught a fish that had Chris' fly in its mouth. Too funny! Afterward, we took a nap with Cora. We left the doors of the tent open so the breeze could blow through. It was great. About an hour or two into our nap, Lee shoots out of bed saying it was going to rain. We both looked out and there were giant storm clouds just coming over the mountain. Sure enough. There was another huge storm. We took down our tent and packed our car in about 12 minutes and headed down the road. 15 minutes later, the rain started and never stopped. Whew. Thank goodness Lee has a weird sixth sense for rain.

We kept seeing these signs and laughing all the time. Texas Gate or Cattle Guard. The little things that remind us we are in Canada. We were about an hour down the road and Lee was looking really tired. I, too, was exhausted. There was no way we were going to make it the 5 hours back to Edmonton. Hotel and Shower, Here we come!!

We had a great time swimming in the pool. We ate a good dinner. We took hot showers. And we slept in a comfy king size bed. I think Lee and I might need a king size. Nobody was fighting for space. Not even Reg.

Hotels are always great fun.

They are so much fun that little people never want to leave.