LEAVES AND ACORNS

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These babies sure have been spoiled by their grandmas this month!

WINDSOR RUINS

(An airplane flew over)

Windsor Ruins is the site of Windsor Plantation, the largest Antebellum home in Mississippi.

(She was looking for her belly button...)

GOBBLE GOBBLE

I finished Cora's turkey shirt just in time for the holiday, and I think it turned out cute!

(Of course, by the end of the night she was quite preoccupied with chewing on the ribbon "feathers"...)

THANKSGIVING "MUNCH"

Today was the first time that I prepared a good portion of the Thanksgiving meal by myself. Jay handled the turkey, and Jean made her authentic gravy and stuffing. My list consisted of the green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, corn, sweet potato dumplings (a new recipe this year, which I doubled, and which did not include flaming marshmallows...), and avocado deviled eggs (for something different - they were so good that Cora licked the mixing bowl clean)!

(Oh, and James calls lunch "munch", hence the title of this post.)

SNUGGLING OUR BABY DOLL

I was so jealous when Cora fell asleep in Jay's arms the other night (since she almost never does that anymore - instead, she tells us when she's ready for bed, then walks herself back to her crib and reaches up to be put in)...

...that I held her extra long tonight, and ended up falling asleep with my little snuggler. Jay told me today that when he went to take her out of my arms to put her in bed, I reached up and held her tight so that he couldn't move her without waking us both. Guess I didn't want my turn to end.

CLOSING DOWN THE PARK

Once again, we hit the park from after work until sunset. And this time Coltin joined the party, as well as Manu. James and Cora had so much fun playing with them, and rolling down the hill in the leaves, and stomping around on top of the new tree stump. Too bad the sun sets so early these days... I have a feeling these kids could have played for hours!

GOOD MORNING SUNSHINE

Cora is always so happy in the morning. And she always reaches for her paci and blanky before she'll let us scoop her out of her crib. Baby Doll is too precious...

I hope she'll always be a morning person (especially since her big bro is hit-or-miss in that regard).

LOOK WHO ROLLED OVER!

Chris is getting so big! By the time I meet him next month he'll be singing and dancing!! (That smile just made your night, didn't it? Sure brightened my day today!)

OCC, YEAR 3

It felt good to drop these off this morning!

SUNDAY FUNDAY

At the BIG park with Gramma...

Here she is thinking "I can do it MYSELF Mama!" They swung together like this for at least 20 minutes. And had to be convinced to get down and finally give someone else a turn. They are SO sweet... Here's that "rolling pin slide" I was telling you about:

And we found this crazy, serpenty (it had 3 parts) dragon across from the playground (though the kids were far more interested in tossing pebbles into a nearby water-filled pipe):

After a yummy lunch and major bookstore shopping spree, we dropped off the recycling, grabbed some free coffee (gotta love those coupons on Starbucks bags!), and headed to the grocery store to get our turkey day fixin's. And who did we happen to bump into on the way out? None other than the Sanchez-Munger crew. Cora SQUEALED with excitement when she saw Manu, and he kindly requested that she vacate the "taxi" so he could ride with James. Hilarious!

And after such an energy expending day, James obviously had to rehydrate at dinner. Chocolate milk and juice? Together? Gross buddy. Totally gross.

THE KIDDIE TABLE

We were all pleased as punch to have a dinner party tonight! I don't often blog our dinner get-togethers, because I tend to forget to take out the camera (I know, shocker, right?), but I couldn't resist snapping a few photos of James and Cora at their little kiddie table with their pal Azure:

James and Azure played so well together, for hours and hours (Amy and I were busy crafting, and somehow Jason, and then Jay, got recruited for felt-cutting duties), and we overheard the sweetest little conversations between them throughout the night. Cora continually cracked everyone up. We ate pizza (not homemade by me) and scrumptious apple pie (homemade from scratch, including the apples, by Amy). Thanks again for coming over to hang out guys, it was a great night and we hope to see y'all again soon!

(And I promise to finish those shirts this weekend and get photos up on the blog!)

(Oh, and I need to get video of Cora saying "Azure" - it's the cutest thing! She has learned lots of names in the past few days, and seems to be picking up about 2-3 new words every day. It's wild!)

THANKSGIVING FEAST

There was a room FULL for our daycare's Thanksgiving Feast today. The Kindergarten and 1st-3rd graders dressed up as indians and sang songs before we all dug into the HUGE spread.

James and Manu didn't eat much. They were far too busy running around and playing together.

But Cora, of course, ate enough for all 3 of them.

TAKING THE TRAIN TO SCHOOL

This started back in the living room, after I put their shoes on, so I obviously had to grab the camera as we passed through the kitchen...

(She is SUCH a good sport... Train rides, playing doctor, trading toys, etc. She has more patience for her big bro than for anyone else. And we're pretty sure she thinks he's the coolest person on earth.)

HEART GARLAND

Last week, I turned this pile of felt hearts... ...into a garland! And delivered a little box of love to a friend who had just undergone an unpleasant surgery and needed a little pick-me-up. I had gotten the idea from Made by Rae, way back before I made that dinosaur train garland for James' 2nd birthday, and I'd been itching to make the heart garland for one of my pay-it-forward friends (a "game" to send handmade items on to new homes), so to Brandy it went!

CORA THE CHATTERBOX

Cora turned 17-months-old today, so I figured it was time for a word list update. I've been good about writing everything down over the past 2 months into a list on my phone, so this should be everything. She is in "parrot" mode already, and will repeat (or at least attempt to repeat) almost anything you say. Especially if after you say it once, you follow it up with a "Cora, can you say _____?" It's fun to compare her 17-month word list to the one James had at 17-months. And we thought HE was a talker! Anyway, here it is, with the words she uses commonly (without needing to hear us say them first) and correctly in bold.

Names/nicknames:

Mama, Daddy, Jay, Cora, James, PawPaw, Grambot, Baby, Jude, Mouton, Maxine, Luna, Stinkerpot

Body parts (all of which she correctly points out):

toes, nose, eyes, ears, mouth, nipple, belly button, knees, hair

Bathroom words:

bath, bathtub, poop, pee pee, diaper, potty, butt

Action/descriptive words/phrases/sentences:

hi, hello, bye-bye, uh-oh, whoa, wow, ooh, up, please, up please, outside, go, go outside, no, mine, no mine!, thank you, I got it, get it, boop!, ah man!, tada!, I tired, muah!, excuse you, what's that?, more, more please, bite, one more bite, hot, walk, boom, hooray!, yes, yes please!, boo, kick, down, get down, down please, sit, sit down, all done, wee!, yes ma'am, good job, love you, hi James, hush James, my paci!

Toys, animals, vehicles, and objects:

car, truck, cat, kitty, puppy, elephant, shoes, necklace, ball, book, gorilla, bear, light, giraffe, train, dress, game, tissue, washcloth, moon, keys, cow, pumpkin, bunny, owl, bow, choo choo, mess, flashlight, gate, fish, hat, bird, tractor, slide, bug, water, paci

Animal and vehicle sounds:

woof woof, meow, who who, quack quack, woo-woo, moo, wow-o-wow-o-wow-o

Colors, numbers, and shapes:

blue, red, yellow, purple, one, two

Food and drink:

popcorn, milk, juice, cup, spoon, banana, cheese, pizza, grapes, cookie, ice cream, apple, applesauce, cupcakes

Gestures:

nods her head for "yes" (and means it, though she also says yes pretty often, and means it), turns an upraised palm to indicate "I don't know"

So, as you can see, as much as I'd like to keep recording all her new words and phrases, I don't think I'm going to be able to keep up. Especially after the 18-month "explosion" that is just around the corner. As my mom said last week, she's almost "scary smart". The girl doesn't miss a thing. Not a single thing. She seems to understand EVERYTHING you say to her and ask her to do. She often complies without our assistance. She knows what she wants, and she isn't shy to ask for it (or demand it). It's been great though, this language blossoming that she's had over the past few months. As she's become easier and easier to communicate with, she's just become easier in general. She's SUCH a good little girl, and we're so proud of her. And we can only imagine what she'd be saying if she spent more time without that beloved paci of hers tucked into her lips...