Facetime with Cora

Cora has been going through a very defiant phase. We have had frequent power struggles-- great and small-- with her. Some of her most favorite times in which to assert her stalwart resolve to not do what is asked come while getting her picture taken. Cora's stubbornness (and expressive nature) has resulted in very precious and unique visual memories.

In the past month alone we have:

Fun at the zoo.

Contemplating our nation's monuments.

Don't bother me.

Enjoying the temple flowers.

Fidgeting at a hockey game with a $4 orange soda stain
around her mouth. (Go Flyers!)

Eating a snack in an effort to avoid the pic.

Eating a fork in an effort to avoid the pic.

Sad bunny.

Tonight, after I pulled out her ponytails and unbraided her hair, Cora begged me to take her picture. She finally decided to look right at the camera, hold relatively normal poses, and smile.

No dancing around.
No weird hand gestures.
No overly-forced smile.
No pouty lips.
No whining or crying.
No crazy head tilts or spastic eyeballs.

Just natural, unedited beauty-- once you look past the eighties-esque wild-child hairdo.

Enjoy!

Time Marches On

I blogged about St Patrick's Day (which is more than I can say for last year's March) and did a mini-Easter post but neglected the rest of the month. Here are March 2013's missing pieces:

Ally worked on some tongue twisters while doing an art project at our kitchen table (lest you think she always wears a smock while at home). She got the hang of them quickly.

We celebrated the first day of spring with popsicles. March 20th proved to be a warm and sunny day, unlike the rest of the past 90 days. Hopefully spring will come and choose to stay really soon, because I'm tired of having the heater kick on. This is not the North Carolina weather I remember from years past.

Our dear friend Taunja visited, so we took to her to play at City Lake Park in Jamestown. We unknowingly arrived while they were having their annual egg hunt, so the big playground was overrun with children. We made our way to the smaller playground at the back and had it mostly to ourselves. Chris isn't in any of these pics, but he accompanied us on the adventure.

Ally and Cora pretended to go on a seafaring adventure and then ran a few races around and through the play structure. Ally also flipped up-side-down while Cora did what she does best-- eat snacks.

Before she left, Aunt T gave each of the girls a prize from her Primary bag. We can't wait for her to return again. I can always use an excuse to devour more bacon cheese fries from Ham's.


Chris and the girls dyed eggs. They used crayons and a glitter kit with marginal results.

The Easter Bunny came on Sunday morning and filled our baskets. The girls wore their fancy fuchsia dresses to church (more pics in a previous post). Then we drove out to Selma for Easter dinner with Chris' family at Aunt Sarah's house. Ally, Cora, and I moved into Grammy and Grampy's house for a few days to have some spring break fun while Chris returned home to work (more on those adventures in an upcoming post).

Grammy was kind enough to spoil her grand- daughters with more Easter goodies just before bed on that last night in March. Then we tucked them in. When they awoke,
it was April.