Cora's first play

This past Thursday night Jonas took Finn and Cora to Cora's first play at the Children's Theater:  Corduroy.  Cora was SO excited to finally be included in the fun adventures her older siblings always get to go on.  The Children's Theater always has at least one play a year geared towards preschool ages, maybe preschool-1st grade or so, but so far I've never wanted to take Cora because she's...a lot.  :)  Last summer I took her to a movie and regretted it long before the 7th trip to the bathroom, haha.  So, anyway, JONAS got that fun job this time around, but it sounds like everything went great.

Here they are right before leaving.

 Corduroy was set in the Cargill stage at the theater, not their larger one we are normally in.  Cora wouldn't know the difference though.

  

 

Showing off her coloring to anyone who will look in her direction....

This child will never allow herself to be ignored.  :)

It sounds like the play was PERFECT for their ages (preschool and K), and both kids could not stop talking about it and laughing about their memories as they recounted them to me the next day.  

The funniest part of the night, for me, was when Jonas got home at 9:30 and carried up a sleeping Cora to her room (she had fallen asleep instantly on the way home, as it was well over 2 hours past her regular bedtime).  She woke up as I started putting her pajamas on, and she started doing that tired sobbing...you know the one, where the kid just wants you to stop whatever they are doing and let them go back to sleep?  Well, she was tired and out of it, but she was also really excited that she had been to the play, so she continued to weep while telling me "I had *sob* so much *sob* FUN!!"  It was pretty adorable.  Her brain and body were not working together.  :)

Jonas was the lucky parent who got to take the kids to this play because 1) I played the I'm-35-weeks-pregnant card, and 2) Layla had been begging me for months to have some "special alone time" with me before the baby came.  So sweet.  Making time to be along with each of the kids is frankly not something Jonas and I are great at...we're awesome at family time, but alone time with each kid ends up sounding like lots of work in the evenings, haha.  We'll get better, we'll get better!  So, Layla got over the sadness of not going to the play quite quickly because she got her long-asked-for alone time with me.  It was VERY simple, and very easy:  we ordered burgers for dinner, and then we watched a new Swan Princess movie together in the living room.  That was about it.  But she was completely happy with it from start to finish.  I was incredibly uncomfortable the entire movie, trying to find a position to sit in that allowed her to snuggle up to me while not making me super uncomfortable because of the position of the baby.  FAIL.  I just couldn't do it.  After the (thankfully short) movie ended we moved upstairs to my bed where I could lay on my left side and finally relax a little, and we talked a bit.  Everyone had a great night, in the end.  

Some old photos

I can't access J's photos from one of my computers, and I try to avoid using the other one, so often I forget for weeks at a time to check his phone for photos of the kids.  Here are some from the last month or so! :)

Several weeks ago some pull-ups were delivered in a larger Amazon box.  Cora and Finn made it their own and colored it forever, then played it in equally as long.  They shoved it over in the corner of the room and happily played in it for hours.  Does parenting get better than that??  Likely not.

When we last got our 14 inches of snow Jonas got a few fun shots outside:

No better time to learn to make bricks out of snow than after a 14 inch sticky snowfall!

That Sunday in church, during a children's time up front, Finn was doing an interpretive dance to the Lion Kind clip that was playing.  This child belongs in THEATRE big time. 

Just a regular winter night for me and the big kids:  reading our chapter book by the fire, with snacks.  I think this book was the BFG, which was a huge hit with the kids.  We just watched the movie this past Friday night as an end-of-book celebration.  :)  I think we might move on to Matilda next, as we can watch a movie at the end of that one too...

We got a little more snow last week, or the week before, so Jonas took the kids 2 blocks away to sled on the tiny hill on our parkway.  It's amazing to me how much fun it is to the kid to go here...haha.  Don't ruin a good thing, right?  If they are happy, go for it!

This is why you take your kids to a small hill.  So THEY can do all the work, and you can relax like the smart parent you are.  Also known as non-helicopter-parenting, haha.  :)

Snuggle fest

Just a regular, boring old Sunday afternoon with Papa at home.  Imagine LOTS of laughter to go with these photos.  :)

Trike-a-thon at Cora's preschool

Today Cora's preschool did a Trike-a-thon to raise money for St. Jude's Children's Hospital.  It was a pretty darn hilarious event. 

Guys, if there is ONE thing Cora has been training for all winter, unintentionally, it's this exact event:  riding a trike around in a circle over and over.  She's GOT this one DOWN. 

I didn't talk to her about it at all.  I didn't even prep her by telling her she should go around and around as many times as she could, etc.  Because:  3rd child.  Don't care.  Plus, I'm guessing preschool talked about it enough, right?  But ALL THE PARENTS come out to see these things and help out, so I kind of felt like Layla and Finn and I should go, mostly just for Cora's sake...so she wouldn't be the only kid there without a mess of people watching her.  She was super excited we were coming and staying, so I'm glad we made that choice.  I didn't volunteer to do anything, though.  I just sat my pregnant butt down on a chair and watched, and any photos I took were from that one angle....haha.  :)

Before heading in to ride:  they had a little pretend hospital set up in her room so Layla and Finn took turns being sick.

The class of 14 kids went in to ride in 2 groups of 7. 
Cora is clearly the smallest and youngest kid in her class.
This phases her NOT ONE BIT.

Cora was a maniac out there.
She was basically faster than all the other kids on a trike, including the oldest kids at 5.5 years old.

She went around a total of 74 times.

Lots of excited high-5's for the older siblings on the sidelines.

They could scooter, ride a trike, or run.
So if other kids were running, Cora might take a running turn too.  But not for long.  Clearly that was a waste of energy.
The trike was where it was at for her.

Then about half way through she figured this out.  One of the older boys had a spot for a passenger on the back of his trike.
Hello??  Why not??
So Cora hopped on and got many free laps from her friend Hawkins here.  

Hawkins got tired, but Cora's other friend Kamala took over.

I had Layla and Finn start cheering for Kamala, poor kid.  He was such a good sport and happy to take the little freeloader!  :) 

The kid who went around the most times was a 5.5-year-old who went around 110 times and didn't stop ever.

Cora went around 74 times in about half that time, and then took breaks, got rides from other kids, etc.  I mean, I know I'm sounding like a bragging parent here, but she seriously was SO FAST on the trike.  If she had kept up with it she would have smoked the rest of them...haha!  I'm sensing that commitment might need to be coupled with a lot of excitement in her future to produce perseverance.  ;) .