Christmas morning was very fun! Olivia was up at a fairly usual time, Cora slept in after awakening twice during the night. Both of the girls were very excited, Cora more so, but Olivia really started getting into it as well. They opened their presents and played all morning. Cora was probably most excited about her new bike from Santa Claus, she was so surprised and jumped for joy. It's harder to say what Olivia liked most, but it seemed to be the Little People horse and stable set that she got from Grandma Sandy and Grandpa Tim a few days earlier. It was fun to see how delighted they were.
Cora tried out her bike only to discover that it seemed not to work very well, maybe a bit too big. Today Cora and I went in to Campus Bicycles to try out some bikes in hopes of finding something that worked better. She tried out some smaller bikes and was really able to get around well, she chose a pink one with a basket, bell, and streamers on the handles. It has training wheels of course, as did the one from Santa. She rode it all around the driveway when we got home, having just a little trouble with getting started sometimes and the gravel area in front of the new garage. She even rode around inside the garage, especially after it started raining. I video taped her speeding around and even managed to have the camera going when she had her first fall. She can't wait to go riding at Bidwell park with Daddy!
Unfortunately I am unable to remember all the many little observances that I made over the last month, thinking I should write them down, but not getting around to it. I'll have to try to remember some and blog more often, so I don't forget as much. Like Cora's African boy story from last week...
Cora told me she and Olivia were 2 little boys from Africa, and that they were pretending to be girls. Upon further questioning from me I discovered that they were pretending to be girls so that they could be my daughters, Cora & Olivia. Unfortunately, their house in Africa had fallen down and they had nowhere to live since both their parents had died. So they thought if they pretended to be Cora & Olivia they could live with us and have a new home. She talked about their pet giraffes and other animals back in Africa as well. Later when I was telling someone else about her story she continued talking about Africa and her old home there, it was very cute. Cora has a good imagination and seems to have a knack for storytelling. Her vocabulary can be surprising at times, last night she was creating an "avalanche" of books off her bed onto the floor. When Andrew asked her where she heard the word avalanche, she said she learned about it from "Buster." "Postcards from Buster" is a cartoon on PBS that she somtimes watches, it's a spinoff from "Arthur" by Marc Brown.
Olivia likes to give goodnight kisses to everyone except me. She puckers up real big and gives at least one kiss to everyone, sometimes more. But for some reason, she doesn't want to give me a goodnight kiss. She will give me kisses at other times, but not for goodnight. It must have something to do with being the one to put her to sleep. She is very sweet about kisses and hugs in general, she can be quite the little love bug. When she has done something to hurt Cora, she gives Cora a kiss as her way to say sorry.
I'll try to write more soon.
