Breaking spaghetti

UI'm making spaghetti. Cora wanted to help. I gave her task of sitting on floor breaking spaghetti into smaller pieces before boiling it. She's all chatter chatter.

A spaghetti piece flung across room; Pearl "saved" me from having to pick it up.

Cora: pearl, no!

Me: she's ok

Cora: why's she eating it?

Me: cause she is.

Cora: why's it on the floor?

Me: because it is.

Cora: why is she a dog?

Tickle toes

Quinn's feet are really ticklish. Super ticklish. Friday she was super tired and (in unquinnlike behavior) melting down by bath time. She was also super grimy so a bath was a must. When I went to undress her she was bawling. When I took off her shoes she started to giggle. When I got to her socks she was straight cackling; the kind of laugh that is tough to distinguish from a cry.

Quinn brings so much joy to our lives. 

These pics are from the picnic at Cora's new school. Quinn jumped right into play, and many of the younger siblings of Cora's classmates will be in Quinn's class. Quinn loved the playhouse. 

Eliza is hugging Quinn. She also goes to our church. Eliza is in Cora's class, but is the youngest in her family and has a late birthday... Which actually makes her closer to Quinn in age and development. These hugs were really sweet. She clearly recognized Q from the nursery at church and was happy to see her. 

Quinn accepted the hugs but clearly didn't know what else to do. It reminded me of Cora at this same age, when she refused to touch baby Quinn.

Wagon wheel

This morning Wagon Wheel was playing. Darius Rucker lives some place between us and Sullivan's, so it feels like they're playing Darius every 4th song. 

Quinn must have recognized it. The song ended and Quinn continued to break it down in her car seat. I turned down the radio chatter and starting belting it out for her.

Me: Rock me mama like a wagon wheel.. Cora (screaming over me): stop it. The song ended. It isn't your turn anymore, mommy, stop singing!

Me: rock me mama like the wind and the rain...

Cora: (matter-of-fact announcement) Mommy. Mommy. We don't rock our babies in the rain!

.

Boys have... Um...

 Cora likes to make matter-of-fact announcements about the world. I think it's partially to see if I'll confirm her observations, but mostly because she assumes she's announcing something I didn't notice.

Last night we were getting the girls ready for bed.

"Mommy. Girls have bodies. Boys have... Um... Boys have... Pull outs!"

A morning talk

This morning, Cora and I drove Landon to work so that Aunt Feather could keep his car.
The headphones weren't working for the DVD player, which meant Cora chatted through the whole trip.

Cora: Cora, Daddy, Mommy, and Quinny are funny.
Me: Cora, that's right. What else are we as a family?
Cora: We eat dinner together.
Me: Good! We eat dinner together. What else are we as a family.
Cora: We play.
Me: (thinking, Man, we're doing something right). And we tell the truth to each other, right.
Cora: Yes. And we tell Presley the truth, too.
Me: That's right, we tell other people the truth!
Cora: Like when she isn't sharing, I ALWAYS tell her.

So... Cora only thinks that the "truth" happens when she tattles and I ask if she is telling the truth. I guess we're going to need to work on that family value.

Speaking of family values, we NEVER eat fast food. Seriously. Never ever. LIke sometimes Subway, but Cora has only had McDonald's on road trips, and that's our least likely stop. We tried a few times, thinking that we'd let the kids play in the play area, but it's always disgusting so we never actually let them. When we do get fast food while traveling, it's almost always Chik-fil-et, because Chik-fil-et play areas are always spic-n-span, and they always have a changing station in the potty. Which, thank goodness, we're close to not needing anymore. Anyways...

We dropped off Daddy. We were running late this morning, but I packed Cora her usual dry cereal for the car. However, when we got in the car, I handed her the dry cereal and it went everywhere. Like a cereal explosion in the back seat (if you know Landon and his car obsession, you'll know this made him crazy). So, I promised to get Cora a "treat" on our way to school. Since Cora eats hardly anything that she doesn't recognize, I figured I might as well grab McD's, since her uneaten food would be cheap rather than expensive.

Before you hear this story, you should know that we are talking a lot about "old versus new". It's been a big year. We hear a lot of "In my OLD car I didn't wear headphones" and "We're going to my NEW school today, not my OLD school" and "Yesterday at my OLD house Zoey lived down the street" because, frankly, there have been a lot of really cool changes in Cora and Quinn's world (Other than Zoey; Zoey NOT living down the street is NOT a cool change). But I digress.

Me: Cora, do you see the McDonald's?
Cora: Where? Over there?
Me: No, I don't think we see it yet.
Cora: Are we looking for the "Old McDonald" or the "New McDonald".

Jesus Christ

Aunt Feather is here from L.A. She was driving Cora in my car. Another car cut her off.

Feather: JESUS CHRIST!
Cora: What? Where? I want to see him!

Cloud makers

When I was Cora's age, I thought these towers made clouds. My cloud maker was between our house and the Huntington Mall.

We are driving Landon to work. 

Cora announced: Look! That tower is for Rapunzel!

Carrie: fun! Rapunzel must live up there!

Landon: Cora, that isn't Rapunzel's. it's a  sulphur plant. 

(I gave a dirty, "are you going to kill Santa?", look)

Landon: that one with smoke isn't Rapunzel's... The other one is!

Cora: yea! And her daddy lives next to her in that other one, right?

New traditions :)

Backseat driver

Aunt Feather is in Charleston.

She just picked Cora and I up from school. Driving up crazy Coming Street, Aunt Feather ran a red light.

Cora got so excited she couldn't find her words. She was fired up, and she sounded frustrated.

Cora: you went in the red! Aunt feather, it isn't green. It was red! You went in the red!

Future Drivers Ed instructor?

What?!?!?!

After church today.
Quinn napping upstairs.
I was making grocery list at computer in office (I do ALL of my shopping from Harris Teeter's Online Shopping now... if you were wondering... and I am happy to tell ANYONE who will listen how much I love it... anyways)...
Cora sitting next to me in the other desk chair.
Landon went down through the basement (our house is elevated over the garage, but because I am a mountain girl, this concept of calling the space below us that is unfinished and where EVERYTHING is stored anything but a garage will never stick... anyways...). He went down through the basement door, retrieved whatever he was retrieving from the car, and came up the front porch steps.
The front door was locked (of course). He knocked.

Me: Cora, you want to get that door for him?
Cora (nonchalant): Who is it, my brother?

Brother?!??!?!?!?!

I'll fix it for her

Cora and Quinn have a heavy Melissa and Doug shopping cart. Quinny is in the habit of shoving it to let it roll. We've been after her to quit.

She did it today; Landon scolded. She did it again (yes, we took it away after this). It slammed into the wall and broke an outlet cover. Landon sounded really annoyed when he told Quinn to stop doing that.

Cora, watching, came to Quinn's defense: "Daddy, I think I can just fix that thing."