Cora Says the Funniest Things

Today I had to go back to the hospital where I worked, b/c I had still not finished all my exit interview paperwork. I haven't worked for a year, the last day was the day that Maddy was born...how convenient to work at the hospital where your kids were born at :) okay back to my story...so we had to drive over a bridge at one point, and Cora shouts "Look Mommy, there's water down there! We're crossing the moat, the magic moat. I get my wand!" That was just soooo cute! I had to laugh for a long time after that :) First Cora was obsessed with being a princess, then it was being a ballerina, now it's a fairy, hence the comment "I get my wand!"

I can now officially call Maddy a "Walker"!! She still crawls a lot, but she is now walking everywhere! Literally all around the house....she'll walk across the room, then do a 180 and turn around to walk the other way. I have to laugh at her when she walks in these funny zig zag lines, like she's just going where ever her legs are taking her LOL LOL!

Maddy's One Yr. Photo Shoot

I should have done this earlier, but I kept forgetting about it. Last Saturday (Aug 30th) was Maddy's actual birthday (we had her party a week early), so I scheduled for 1st yr pictures for that morning. This was the first time that we tried out Kiddie Kandid, in a Babies R Us store. The pictures turned out okay, but I wasn't impressed with the photographer...which has been our problem for the past couple of yrs. It seems like there are only these very young women with hardly any experience in taking pictures of little children (we've been to JC Penny's, Picture People, and now Kiddie Kandid) where it's agonizing to watch them try to get the kids to smile!! I was so frustrated with the photographer! I had to do all the work and was running around while sweat was literally dripping off my face (and I HATE to sweat LOL). Maddy didn't smile once the whole time and refused to stand up! Don't even get me started with Sam and Cora!!! That was horrible!! Sam kept crying b/c we would tell him to leave his pants alone, or to stop sucking on his lip, etc! and Cora kept doing these CRAZY poses with crazy facial expressions! I just never want to take professional photos again!! Maybe next time I'll check around for actual professional photographers (not one from a store). But anyways...here are the pictures from the shoot.













That evening Jeff and I took Sam and Cora to Medieval Times Theatre! We left Maddy with my aunt to babysit...isn't that terrible of us to just ditch Maddy on her birthday?? I didn't bring my camera, b/c I though that in a place with real horses that it wouldn't be allowed to take flash photography...but when we got there, there were TONS of ppl taking pictures during the show...so next time I'm defiately taking my camera! It was so much fun to see Sam and Cora's faces during the show :) We took them once before, I was pregnant with Maddy at the time and the kids were barely two yrs old then. Cora didn't appreciate it too much, but Sammy's eyes were GLUED to the horses the whole time, with his mouth hanging open! But Cora really enjoyed herself this time! She taked about the horses a lot, especially b/c now her "favorite" thing is her My Little Pony horse! It's so funny b/c Jeff had asked her once what kind of pony she was, and asked her if it was a Pinto...and ever since then Cora has been calling her pony Pinto!! It's too funny!!

Well, tomorrow is another Monday, and another week! Sam and Cora have been sick this weekend, so I'm crossing my fingers that they are well enough by Tuesday, so they can go to school!!! PLEEEEAAASE let them be well!! LOL

Flower Picking

The first thing Cora said this morning (well, I suppose it really was yesterday morning, since it is now 12:15am LOL), was "I pick flowers for you, Mommy. You are a princess for Halloween, so I pick flowers for you, Mommy." Now I have no idea where she came up with the idea that I am going to be a princess for Halloween! I was so touched, and told her "thank you for thinking about me!" and she had a huge grin on her face =) During breakfast, I called Jeff to tell him the news and he wanted to talk with her on the phone. He asked her if she wanted to wait till he got home, so they could both go out back and pick the flowers. She seemed very excited about that, and kept talking about it all day. When Jeff got home and took Cora out back, Sammy, Maddy and I opened the sliding door and took some pictures of them both picking flowers...wild flowers that are growing behind our property. These pictures were all taken up on the balcony area while Cora and Jeff were on the ground lvl...i just cropped and zoomed in.


















This morning after breakfast, I had to use the bathroom, and when I came out, I noticed that I had forgotten to put the gate up on the stairs...and I groaned...I knew exactly where Maddy was. She LOVES to go up the stairs and into Cora's room and climb into Cora's bed! She has the BEST time there LOL...such simple things in life! So, when I climbed the stairs, sure enough, what did I see?...

















Another thing that I got a good laugh from today was Maddy trying to put her shoe on her foot! I FINALLY went out and bought her some shoes today! Poor Maddy has never really worn shoes before, I was just too lazy to get them. Sam and Cora had shoes soooo early and they were the cutest shoes that I've ever seen, I got from www.pedipeds.com (I just had to give them a plug LOL). But poor poor Maddy!! Anyways, back to my story...after I took her shoes off, she decided that she wanted to put them back on.



hmmmm, I seem to always have more picutures than I do of actual post!! I just can't decide which pictures to use, so I end up putting up a ton of them! Oh well LOL

Cora and Sam's 1st Day of Preschool

okay, first off, I just realized that if I maximize my blog page, it throws EVERYTHING off, like photos are all in strange places and the wording is all squished in some places, etc...does anyone else see it that way? What do some of you guys who blog do to not have this problem?

So today was the first day of preschool!!! Yesterday was orientation, so the kids played there while Jeff and I had a short orientation, for about 45 mins. Cora threw a fit yesterday when I tried to leave, she was on the ground kicking the teacher and screaming and crying that she didn't want me to leave...oh boy, it wasn't pretty, but I left and she stopped in about 5 mins. So, needless to say, I was a little worried about a repeat of yesterday's actions! But I was so happy when cora walked in with sam and they both stood in front of the guinea pig, Wilbur's cage to watch him for a bit. I gave them both a kiss and told them that I would pick them up in a couple of hours, and Jeff and I were OUTTA THERE! (Jeff took off of work yesterday and today just for orientation and 1st day of school). I kinda felt bad that I wasn't more "sad" to see my babies going to school for the fist time...actually I was GIDDY!! LOL...Jeff and I went out to eat breakfast at the Golden Corral, with Maddy of course! It was so nice to be able to go somewhere with just ONE baby! I've never experienced that before...it was so nice!

Here are some pictures of Sam and Cora right before we left this morning:













Sammy and Cora being such big kids and walking into the school and into their classroom:

















Everytime I would ask Sammy if he had a good time, he would get the hugest grin on his face and say "yeah!" It was too darn cute!


I also just wanted to share some pictures of Maddy feeding her baby! I just couldn't believe how she's learned to do this already! Everytime she finds the bottle on the floor, she has to look for "baby" and feed her.

A Sigh of Relief!

So, it's been 4 days since Maddy's 1st birthday party, and I'm still exhausted from it! =) I have barely cleaned up LOL...we still have streamers on our ceiling, but at least all the balloons are gone! I have quite a few pictures that I want to post, so you'll have the bare with me :)

The one thing that threw me off balance that day was the fact that I TOTALLY forgot what time I put on the invites that the party was going to start. I had been thinking for WEEKS that the party started at 5pm-7pm, and was reminding a couple of friends about the time. Well, she calls that day just to verify the time, b/c I told her 5pm but the card said 4pm! YIKES!!! How did I forget that? So, I lost an hour of precious time to cook, clean, and organize everything. Then when I had Jeff go pick up the cake, which was supposed to be ready by 2pm, they were running late, and didn't finish by 2:30, then the people at the balloon store lost the slip of when we were going to pick up the balloons. So they didn't start blowing them up until Jeff got to the store! Those just peeved me, since I really needed him to be home to help put the decorations up, etc. But everything got done, and I think everyone enjoyed the food and the cake was SOOOOO delicious! There wasn't a single person who didn't say the cake was extremely good!



I had them make the very top layer a jumbo cupcake, so I could take that piece off and give it to Maddy as her own personal cake! It worked out great! And Maddy seemed to LOVE it! She almost ate the whole thing.



And this was Maddy right before we gave her the cake...she was patiently waiting ;)







"I WANT CAKE!!! I WANT CAKE!!!"









All in all, I think it went well...but it's so hard to tell when YOU are the one throwing the party, instead of enjoying yourself at someone else's party! I had a HUGE sigh of relief when all was said and done that evening! All the kids went to bed with no complaints, which shocked me to no end, since they had so much cake and ice cream right before bedtime. But I guess all the excitement from the day just wore them out. Sam and Cora were loving the fact that they had their cousins over so they got to play all evening. Okay, here are the rest of the pictures from that day that I wanted to share with you all...





This is just the view of the kitchen and some of the balloons that were up.

I got a shot of my sister's beautiful girls on the left sitting with Sammy and Cora on the stairs.















Here are some pictures of Maddy in her Korean Hambok. If you read my previous post, you would have seen Maddy in a different dress. I actually was borrowing the other dress from my sister, and was going to get Maddy her own dress at a later date...but my mother had made the comment that that was the whole purpose of the dress, to wear it on their first birthday. And I totally get that! So, my mother went out and bought Maddy her own dress, and I really appreciated it, since it was more expensive then I would have liked to have paid for! So that is why her dress looks different. Another Korean tradition that is done at the 1st birthday is what one of Jeff's friend's son so lovingly calls "the picking thing" LOL (you know who you are!). There are four things placed on a white table: some yarn/string, books, money, and some pencils. The yarn represents long life, the books represent being a scholar, the money (big shocker) represents fortune/prosperity, and the pencils represent a writer/creativity. These things are placed in front of the baby to see which one they touch or pick up first. Maddy immediately went for the pencils!! *clap, clap* I remember Cora went for the money, and Sammy went for the pencils too.





Maddy did such a great job blowing out her candle, of course, it didn't hurt that her big brother, sister, and 2 cousins were right there next to her blowing LOL!










Okay the last 2 pictures I wanted to share were of one of her presents. It was a stuffed bear from Build-a-bear, and she loved it :)





"NO DON'T TOUCH IT!! IT'S MINE!
















Big Hugs!











Another present that Maddy (and hey, let's face it, Cora and Sammy) LOVE to play with, is a big doll house that my sister and her family got for Maddy. Sammy will play with "the boy" which is really the Dad, and Cora will play with "the girl" which is the Mommy, and Maddy chews on the baby. It's quite adorable!



Oh, a funny, yet not so funny story that happened around 2am this morning. I had just got done waking Sammy up for his 2am pee-pee time (I do this b/c he doesn't always make it till morning, and I hate cleaning up pee sheets) and I had gotten into bed, when I heard Cora start screaming and screaming. She will do this 2 or 3 nights out of the week, so I wasn't surprised. But when I got into her room she was on one side of her bed, and her babydoll was on the other side. when I walked in she immediately said "Baby's.... EEEEYYYYESSSS (eyes)!!!" "They are closed! I'm scared! Take it out, take it out! You sleep with her, mommy". I was giggling so hard on the inside, but I didn't want her to think I thought it was funny, so I held it in. I think the shadows in the room made it look like her doll's eyes were closed. And this is a doll which she's had since before she was 1, and she's absolutely LOVED this doll to death and would never go to bed without her. I'm a little sad that she's so scared of it now, that she won't sleep with her, I'm hoping after some time, she'll be okay with the doll. She must have been really scared, b/c the first thing she talked about when she woke up this morning was how scared she was about Baby's eyes! hehhehe!

Maddy in Her Birthday Korean Dress

Okay, so I promised some friends that I would post some pictures of Maddy in her Korean dress...I'm a few days late on posting (LOL sorry). These pictures were taken a few days ago, when I realized that I hadn't put the dress on her yet to see how it fit! So I finally got that done, and decided to take some pictures of my cutie pie! She wasn't too happy with me after awhile...I just couldn't get her to stand still or even sit still for that matter, grrrr! PLEASE pay no attention to the very messy house, or Maddy's hair! hahahha.



If you end up clicking the images, you'll get a HUGE view, i'm just too tired to even try to resize them :) Maddy has been walking a lot in the past couple of days. The most steps she's taken so far is 14 steps!!! YAY Maddy ;) It's kinda funny b/c Cora learned how to walk so much differently than Maddy. Cora first learned how to balance herself from the floor to getting up onto her feet without holding onto anything, but maddy hasn't even attempted to do that. She just crawls to a surface where she can pull herself up and then walks from that standing position.

After I took Maddy's pictures, I thought it would be fun to see if Sam and Cora still fit their one yr birthday outfits (they were very BIG when they were 12 months, so the sleeves and the skirt/pants were hemmed). Sammy fit his perfectly, while Cora's sleeves were way too short and and skirt was above the ground.


Maddy and Cora's dresses are two very different styles of Korean Hamboks...another difference is that Cora's dress is more of a "winter" outfit with thicker, heavier material, and Maddy's dress is a "summer" outfit made of very light/see through material. Okay, it's time for me to head to bed, and start my last full day of getting everything ready for Maddy's party! I've bought most of the decorations and gift bags...tomorrow will be the rest of the decorations and gorcery shopping for all the food to feed about 35 ppl, then Saturday is cleaning, cooking, getting the cake and balloons!! Whew! Nite!

Amazing photography blogsite

I just wanted to post real quick (since I KNOW I'll forget if I don't do it now) this amazing blog site that I just found a few minutes ago, for photoshop/photoshop elements actions. These are actions that Anita writes and gives out for free and she has tons of tutorials too.

http://coffeeteaphotography.blogspot.com/2008/08/coffeeshop-vignette-free-action.html

I also made a link to the site on my side bar, if anyone wants to check it out.

Late Night

Okay, so it's 1:35am right now. The only reason I'm still up is (other than I just finished watching the evening coverage of the Olympics) that I totally forgot that I had a load of cloth diapers in the washing maching from earlier today, and I couldn't let it sit overnight. So now I had to do another wash cycle and rinse, then put them in the dryer. I can't STAND when I do that! All I want to do is go to bed!! GRRRR!!

It's been such a long time since I posted! Recently, it's due to me watching too much Olympics on tv! I stay up well after midnight everynight watching it, so I don't get much time to do anything else. I can't wait for it to be over, so I can get back to my normal life LOL LOL! Another reason I haven't really posted was b/c I've been stressing out over planning Maddy's b-day party. I just don't want to think about all the stuff I haven't done yet!

Update on Maddy and walking...she is no where near full out walking yet! The most she's done is 3 steps before she dive bombs to the floor! LOL it's hillarious how she'll take a step with both arms up over her head...while laughing, takes a step then immediately dives for the floor! COOCOO! But that my crazy Maddy-bear. Last night, while Jeff and I were watching the platform diving on tv, Cora became so entralled with it! She kept climbing onto her rocking chair (of all things LOL) and would jump off of it, over and over and over again, like she was diving into water. It was very cute! until she got Sammy into doing it, then it just got crazy with them both jumping everywhere. Cora has been really into watching "nastics" too...that's how she pronounces gymnastics. she'll sit and watch it without talking :)

I just got all the paperwork and forms for sam/cora's preschool that I need to fill out. I'm SO excited about it! The one thing that I'm kinda bummed out about, is that I totally didn't realize that this preschool is only 3 hrs a day (when most of the places I've seen are 4 hrs a day)! LOL isn't that horrible of me to be upset that my kids won't be out of the house longer hahahhaa!! oh well :)

I know I'm jumping around a lot on subjects, partly b/c I'm not thinking straight, and partly b/c HEY that's me LOL...but I wanted to post a few of my latest digital scrapbook pages that I've thrown together in between spending the day with the kids and watching the Olympics at night!

credits:
-Ever Mine Page Kit by Tina chambers
-Ever Thine Page Kit by Tina Chambers
-"Love": Victorian Trading Card (Brush Set) by Amanda Sok


journaling reads:
Cora and Maddy look up to their big cousins,
Susan and Catherine, so much! It’s so adorable
how Cora follows them around, wanting to do
whatever they do.

Credits:
-Breathe Page kit: solid green background by Keri Schueller
-Paper Template Faded Beauty by Syndee Nuckles
-Paper Template Fancy That by Syndee Nuckles
-paper Template Fanciful_Baroque by Amanda Sok
-Brush Set 4x6 Beyond Myself 3 by Melanie Johnson


credits:
-Basic Black Paper by Angie Briggs (recolored: dark purple background)
-Textured Cardstock_Purple by Amanda Sok (mat behind the photo)
-Circle Journaling Mat from the Gaia Page Kit by Ariadna Wiczling
-Vine Paper was a blend of 3 templates (recolored):
1) Photo Template_Paints by Valerie Randall
2) Paper Template Jen_edging by Valerie Randall
3) Paper Template Cheri5_Vines by Valerie Randall
-Paper tear Action by Melissa Renfro
-Beautiful Distress Brushset by Thao Cosgrove
-4x6 Brush set_Word Frames (LOVE) by Syndee Nuckles

journaling reads:
I just love it when I am able to catch a perfect, tender moment on film! I pray that you continue to love one another forever, as you do now. You may fight and argue, but a family based on love will never grow apart!

Well, I'm so hoping that I've killed enough time for the laundry to be done!...but at least that gave me an excuse to get my bloggin done :)

My Baby's Growing Up

Tonight Maddy actually took a step on her own! She did it several times, each time it was only one step. I'm so proud and excited! =) On one hand I'm excited about it, but then on the other hand it makes me sad a little bit. She literally has grown up without me realizing it! These past almost 11 months have flown by in the blink of an eye. I know a lot has to do with the fact that she's the "second" child (technically she's the 3rd child, but with twins the first time around, it seems more like she's the second child...crazy huh?) and I have more kids and other things to distract me from totally focusing on one child. I remember with Sam and Cora, their first year seemed to take an agonizingly long time! And I was counting the days down (especially the first 4 months!!). But with Maddy, I literally was like, "WHAT???...What happened?" Well, my little Maddy-bear is growing up, and I better start paying more attention b/c before I know it, all my little cuties will be fully grown and leaving the nest!!

Proud of Myself =)

I'm so proud of myself!!! I actually cooked dinner two nights in a row!! I can't believe it LOL. PLUS...today was a day that Maddy ate almost ALL table food. I must admit that I'm a little bit lazy, in the cooking arena...hmmm and cleaning arena...okay...and laundry too (but that's besides the point!), so me saying I cooked 2 nights in a row is a big feat! tonight I made Salisbury steak, mashed potatos, and steam baby carrots. Maddy seemed to really like it. I ended up NOT giving her the mashed potatos b/c I didn't think she would like it, since it wasn't a big hit with her the first time. So I left the small container on the table after dinner. We were all sitting in the living room and I was actually cross-stiching :) and it was a little bit too quiet!! I looked over to see what maddy was getting into and this is what I saw....

If you are reading this, you've just GOT to click on the first picture and see the FULL extent of the mess she got on herself (sarah, I admit, it was no where near the "cake" episode that your girls had hahahha praise God for that). She had grabbed the small container of mashed potato and smeared it all over herself, the floor, and I think she actually ate some too. I ran over to her and yelled to Jeff "come help me!" then of course I went and got my camera!! Needless to say, she had to go straight up for a bath after the photo shoot!

Oh, another exciting thing that happened tonight was that Maddy started standing on her own!! She was standing and holding a toy with one hand and the other hand was holding the Leap Frog Learning table, and she all of a sudden let go of the table so she could play with the toy with both hands!! It was a shock LOL since she hadn't really been trying to stand on her own before this. She's been cruising for almost 3 months now, since she was 8 months old, but she's never tried letting go and standing before. I was so excited!



I guess she'll be walking really soon! She'll be 11 months in 5 days, so, she seems to be on the same developmental timeline as cora, and sam for the most part (except sam didn't learn to sit up or crawl for a long time after cora).

Well, it's another Friday, and another weekend :) Hopefully it'll be a peaceful one!!