Cora and Olivia

Last month, on January 22nd, I decided it was time to give Cora & Olivia their first "official" haircuts. You might remember from a previous blog that Cora had already given Olivia and herself haircuts, but they were certainly unauthorized. Cora's hair got a trim across the back, as did Olivia's. This helps, I hope, to even up the areas that Cora cut, making the unauthorized cuts a little less obvious. You can see from the before pictures that their hair was getting a good amount of length, at least part of it. Olivia's hair seems to have grown faster than Cora's did at the same age, and Cora's hair always looks shorter when it is dry due to her curls. Olivia still has some areas that are shorter than they should be, but hopefully her hair will grow out quickly and I can trim her hair again. I think their haircuts turned out nicely.



Quotes
Late January Cora was trying to tell me about a DVD she was watching (Nova's Origins) with Daddy. "It's about the Earth's life. What the ingredients of, about it. A student is trying to find the ingredients of Earth's life."

Feb 5 Cora said to me as she was going to bed, "I love you as much as Daddy, but I love Olivia more. She's my sister AND my best friend!"

Feb 6 Cora was singing to Olivia, "You're the best friend that I ever had, you're the best friend that I ever had,..." (on and on repeating). Then, "I love you with all my heart. Are you glad?"

Some time ago, Olivia learned to say to Cora, "you bother me," when she was doing something Olivia didn't like. At some point, Olivia decided that she didn't want me around her and said, "Mommy, you bother me!" (I wasn't doing anything to her, really!) And then one time out the blue, I think we were driving in the car, Olivia told me, "Daddy not bother me anymore!" So now Olivia will occasionally state either that one of us bothers her, or that, "You not bother me anymore!"

Feb 6 Another saying that Olivia has taken to is, "Oh bother! Me outta here!"

Last week Cora decided that it was funny to say "Oh pickles!" So she then tried to get Olivia to say it also. Except that Olivia kept wanting to say, "Oh bother! Pickles!" This all transpired during a car ride, I think to Cora's preschool. It ended up that Olivia started putting her own little exclamations together, mostly something like this, "Oh bother! Pickles! Me outta here!"


















Olivia seems to have a very strong attachment to using "me" to refer to herself and never "I." The strange part is that she will take phrases and songs and change the words from I to me. For example, "Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how me wonder what you are." And although we've never said it this way, she says "Ready or not, here me come!" when playing hide and go seek. It will be interesting to see how and when she grows out of this habit.

Cora took these pictures of Uncle Lance and Aunt Crisitina when they came to visit us last month. I think it very fortunate that Cora & Olivia are so blessed that they have a crazy aunt & uncle from both sides of the family! I believe all families should have at least one, you know that aunt or uncle who you always liked going to visit so much because they did really fun stuff with you. For me it was Uncle Marvin, my dad's little brother. Marvin was something like 16 years younger than my dad and about the same age as some of my cousins from that side of the family. I just remember that he didn't seem much like an uncle was supposed to be and he did lots of fun things. Of course Uncle Lance and Aunt CC aren't always so weird looking, here are some other pictures, also taken by Cora.















We had some very nice visits from family in January. Uncle Lance & Aunt Barbara came up to visit, as did Aunt CC and Uncle Jeremy. It seems to me that Lance & Barbara's visit was a pretty cold and maybe even somewhat wet day, but Cristina & Jeremy's visit was sunny and a bit warmer than usual.





























Uncle Jeremy and Uncle Jay gave Cora & Olivia a lot of different colors of playdough for a present. While we grownups sat chatting at the dinner table, the girls started playing with the playdough, coming in to ask Andrew to open containers for them. At one point Cora was bothered because Olivia kept mixing the colors, but I told her not to worry about it, after all you can make some pretty colors when you mix them. I didn't realize that they had all the colors out, and you can see the big ball of playdough they made by mixing ALL of the colors together! They have continued to play with it even though it is all one color now, a sort of brownish grayish color.

Grandma Sandy & Grandpa Tim also came up for a visit on another beautiful winter day. We all played outside, Grandpa got quite a workout pulling the girls around the yard in the garden cart. Grandpa put together the new doll stroller and swing that they gave the girls for Christmas, they are just like the real thing, only smaller.

Cora & Olivia really love having all their family members over to visit, especially when they get to run around and play outside. They like so much to play outside and to show others the things they like to do in the yard; like making everyone try to squeeze into the playhouse or getting pushed on the swings.

These are some of the last pictures I took in 2005. Andrew celebrated his 40th birthday (Cora & I made the cake - she picked the colors) with lots of candles. On a very cold, wet day the girls went outside to play then got warm inside the bike trailer in the garage. Andrew put a little ceramic heater in the back, they had a snack of warm toast, with the cover closed to keep in the heat (I opened it up to take their picture).






We had a very nice, quiet, cozy Christmas. The girls had fun opening and playing with presents and we all enjoyed sitting by the fire and staying home. On one of the first days of the new year, I took this picture. I had gone shopping somewhere and this is the sight I returned to; I drove up and there they were in the garage with the door open, all riding their exercise bikes! Andrew had set their bikes up on wood so that they wouldn't go anywhere and they were all pedaling furiously!



I don't know where the time goes, here it is February already. The holidays came and went much too quickly, of course I never got my Christmas cards in the mail, and I have lots to catch up on. I have a nice bunch of pictures and things to write about from January. I've been consumed lately with renewing my teaching credential, applying to grad school, and observing and deciding on kindergarten programs for Cora. In fact just today I registered Cora for kindergarten! Yikes! What a process - it took about an hour! We still don't know where she will end up for kindergarten, I registered her at the neighborhood school because that's the procedure, but we're also applying for some alternative programs within the public school district. There are some great charter schools and programs here in Chico (all part of our public schools) and it's really hard to decide. I've been checking out 3 particular schools to try to get a feel for what they are like, all 3 happen to be K-8 so I want to get the whole picture, not just kindergarten. They choose students by lottery after siblings are accepted, so we won't have to go through this all over again with Olivia. But we have to wait and see if Cora gets in, and since parents often enter more than one lottery, we might not know for a while, even though the lotteries are held this month. I want to have a clear sense of what our first choice is before we have to decide. So if anyone has any advice for me, feel free to let me know. One thing I'm pretty sure of, Cora will probably love school.