"This is my sister Quinn. She can talk"

Quinny doesn't say much. She has the appropriate number of words, pulls surprise words out at random (she named her lovie "flower" this week) and has every-now-and-then phrases that shock us ("Smack that monkey out of that tree!"; "my turn").

We stopped by Dr Davis for an ear infection, and as he was writing the prescription I asked how many words we needed by 2 (20 with progress, by the way... We've got that, no problem). As he was answering Quinn got impatient and announced, "I want to go!".

 He gave me the "stop being crazy she's fine" look. 

But usually she let's C do the talking. Case in point. I had them in the back seat. Cora's turned her movie on (with her toe). Quinn started to whine.

Cora: mom she wants her movie.

Q: (escalating)

C: no, she wants my movie not hers

Q: escalating

C: she needs head phones

We totally have younger sibling syndrome. Cora does all the talking. 

A mom at church nursery told me that on her volunteer day C and Q were on a roll. They walked around to all the adults, doing this show:

C: hi. I'm Cora . This is my sister Quinn. She can TALK! You want to hear her? Watch this. Quinny, talk. Talk Quinny, show them!

(And Quinny would babble on demand)

The girls making pat-a-pizzas. When Q ran out of cheese, she took what Cora was putting on the pizzas.

Color confessions

Our sitter Lauren O. Informed us that Cora told her a very important secret.

"My favorite color is actually purple, but I always say my favorite color is Tennessee  because it makes my Daddy happy."

A sweet sleeping pic.

I need a minute

Last night I had an event and Landon had class so Lauren O'Grady babysat. Getting girls out of bath, Cora fell and bumped her head a little. Lauren said she wasn't hurt, but she was already tired so she had a little meltdown. 

Lauren and Quinn tried to console her; she was inconsolable. 

She walked in and crawled in her twin bed. When lauren tried to talk to her she sat up and said "I just need a minute".

Minutes later when Lauren started reading to Quinn, Cora came happily running to join. 

Sometimes mommy just needs a minute too.

Hidden treasures

I went on an overnight to Santee Cooper with students Friday, and Landon stayed home with the girls. 

On Saturday Cora and Landon were cleaning. In the yellow side table in the twin-bed room, Quinn had hoarded a bunch of pretend food items that go to the pretend kitchen downstairs.  Cora found them, Landon and Cora started pulling items out, one thing led to another and Landon made a bundle of food items in a blanket to carry downstairs (we think we'll need a TLC intervention with her someday). They were almost loaded and ready to go, but Landon decided to do one more check of the drawers to make sure they'd gotten it all. He pulled one of the drawers all the way out... When he spotted an unopened Pez dispenser with candy that Grandma M brought from St. Louis when Cora was a newborn. It had gotten stored in a drawer all this time.

It was a bad time for candy , so Landon tried to hold the drawer up above her head without The Watcher seeing the candy. Business as usual.

Cora : daddy. What was in there?

Cora: (happy caniption fit) Daddy. Um. Daddy. Ah. Um. A hhh. Daddy.

Landon (he could tell she couldn't come up with the name of a Pez dispenser; it's been a while since she had one): let's take this pretend food back downstairs 

Cora: no, but um daddy? Daddy? Ah daddy what was in that drawer?!?!!!!

Landon: I don't know . I think there were some flash cards.

Cora: no, daddy , there was CANDY in there!!!! Did you see it????

He pretended like he didn't notice, put drawer in, headed downstairs. 

While he was cleaning she went back upstairs (she goes up and down freely now). He had already taken out the Pez and hid it in our dresser, saving it for desperate bribery times. When I came home I found the yellow drawers pulled out, contents strewn all over the room, like a burglar had a specific Jewell in mind.

She never mentioned it. 

Bed buddies

Landon and I were both in this bed, too. It's time to start planning for a King bed.

For Aunt Feather

I just found Aunt Feather's vintage McDs perfectly set up for play in the living room.  Clearly Daddy has been playing with Cora (older sibling's toys are always the best... Even at 33).

Someone stopped by the house and I overheard Landon explaining that the toy is vintage; we didn't buy this for our kids to play with. It made me laugh. I'm sure this poor person doesn't know we practically wrote "we will hardly ever eat McDonalds" into our vows.

To further demonstrate that my kids haven't had much McDs, Cora just walked in and announced, "I need to finish setting up Old McDonalds. Where's my tractor?" (There's a little people tractor in my vintage farm at Mia and Papaws) (bad news Cora; it's hard to find anything at McDs that actually required a tractor. Hahaha!)

For the record, she's making these McDs little people super-polite. Please. Thank you. You spilt your drink? That's OK sweetie!

Ope, the mailman in the mail truck just came in telling a little boy to share his French fries. 

First nap in toddler bed

Quinn had her first nap in the toddler bed today. 

While I was rocking q to sleep, I thought I heard the summertime sound of the ice cream truck. I know we must be regulars because the truck gave us a free cotton candy Popsicle last week to try, and a free dreamcicle to "try" this week. "Try" is in quotations because that's always been one of my 3 favorite types of Popsicles. I'm so excited it's on the truck now! Q and I will have it after nap.

Earlier today coloring. Q does EVEryTHING Cora does :)

A horse and carriage ride

Our beloved Dr. Candy happens to date one of the best-known Charleston Carriage Drivers (there is a whole career around Charleston Tour Guiding - I'm adamant that when my kids are grown, if we still live in Charleston, I am going to take the tour guide test and do walking tours). He stopped by one morning to take the Seashells for a spin around campus. Cora was ecstatic!

That's Dr. Candy in the front. She's always smiling and is wonderful with the kids, so this picture is kind of funny. 

Eliza, Maive, & Luca. 

Mommy & Cora. October 2013.

Cora didn't like to get too close to the pony, but she and Sona stopped just before we went back in the gate to let me get this pic. Do you see Cora's cheek? This must have been the day after the dorn party. If I remember correctly somebody put a stamp on her face and it took a few days to get it off. She looks so rosy!

I'll get to go on the Seashell pony ride again next year with Quinn.

Halloweening it, college style

One of the dorms at the College hosts a trick-or-treat party for the kids of faculty and staff. Landon was in class; I loaded up the girls and went. We met some friends there, but it was so chaotic we could hardly see each other. Thank goodness one of the assistants from Cora's preschool was there, and quickly took-over Cora and escorted her around to see her friends' activity stations. There was so much fun to be had - I don't know if I could have kept both of them moving in the same direction.

It took Cora an entire dorm floor to figure out that if she said "Trick-or-Treat", she would get candy. Once she caught on, she was hooked!

We snapped this pic before we left - clearly they thought this party was fun!

Down on the Boone Hall Farm

I just did a glance through the October blog posts to see if I ever posted these pics. I didn't find these pics... but I found pics from June. Hopefully by the time the kids sit down to look through these blog albums, they'll have little babies of their own and understand my shortcomings. Ha!

We went to the Boone Hall Farm with some friends from Miss Aimee's in October. 

It was Quinny's first play-date. The big siblings were the tag-alongs. The date at Boone Hall was planned standing in Quinny's classroom with the moms of Quinny's friends. Some of Cora's friends tagged along, because they are older siblings of the kids in this room. 

Quinny's First Quinn-centric Playdate! October, 2013.

Here, with Lily Grace

I love Quinn's face here.


Addison, Tanner, Cora, Quinn. An attempt for a group picture. There were 4 other kids who did not make it in this pic.


With Olivia.


Pardon my full series of pics --- I was trying to get a pic of each of the kids sitting on a pumpkin.


It wasn't going so well.




Then Dave Elliott got Cora riled-up. I love the pics that resulted! This is my little buggy!

Quinn wasn't as entertained by Dave.


Tanner.


I was trying to get Cora's shoes off to go in the jump castle. Quinn ripped hers off, climbed right past us, and wiggled in before I could catch her. I had to crawl in after her when more big kids came in. She was perfectly happy sitting in the middle getting flung all over the place and cackling.


Waiting for our turn to ride the ponies. I didn't get a pic of us actually on the ponies... I had two toddlers to bounce back-and-forth between.
Addison, Jamison, & Cora.


This slide seemed HUGE. Cora ran straight for it, no hesitation, and down she went. I managed to keep her from going to the even higher slide (you can see that one up to the left).


Doesn't she look really high up.



Then, Quinn insisted on following. I didn't get a pic of her coming down - a friend caught her at the bottom and I sent her from the top. Quinn did NOT think this was too big for her. She would have done it again.


But we had animals to pet.


Quinn and her friend Zoey.



Cora, Lilly Grace, and Quinn.



Jamison & Olivia with Mommy Melissa


The Boone Hall hayride is really cool! It's a lot of farm with a tad bit scary.


Addison and Jamison and Lilly Grace.


Cora, Quinn, & Mommy. October 2013.


And, there were more animals to pet.


Quinn really liked the pigs.


Quinn & Lily Grace.


Quinn was finished with the goats.


Jamison. Such a sweet friend!


Cora did not want to hold this bunny, but was happy to pet it while Jamison held it.


My little Quinn could barely hold her eyes open by the time we left. She was asleep before we even got out of our parking spot.



"I'll take you for a ride on my big green tractor..."