Coming next April...

For those who might not have seen word on the Book of Faces...

Super excited, super nauseous, super tired.

Science Sunday with Daddy

Jason making french press coffee this morning with Cora "helping":

J: Hot, hot, very hot. Don't touch or it will burn you and give owies. Hot!

C: Hot.

J: Very hot. Don't touch! Do you see the steam coming off the coffee? That's water molecules transitioning from a liquid to a gas state. Very hot. Hot! Hot!

C: Hot. Hot. No touch, Dada.

That's right, folks, just another day in the Clark household...

1-2-3 Imagine! Sesame Street Live

Ages since the blog has been posted to, but today we took Cora to Sesame Street Live and there was a request for photographic evidence.

Our seats were only a couple rows away from the stage. It was a very active show, with characters coming off the stages, little cannons shooting out confetti and streamers, and colored lights everywhere.

Coraline was mesmerized. Don't think I've ever seen her so attentive for 45 minutes at a stretch before.

We'd wondered a bit whether she would be scared or excited, and after the first few minutes she definitely got into it. The only exception was a grouch-like character (but not Oscar) who freaked Cora out every time it came over to our edge of the stage.

The enemy

Luckily we showed Cora how to say "Stop" as you can hear at the start of this video, along with the emphatic hand gesture to accompany it.

All in all it was a great time. Apart from the freaky grouch and Amber feeling rather sick that morning, I'd say it went off flawlessly.

New Pictures and Video!

We downloaded the camera and the results are in (drumroll, please):

Did you know that Coraline is part mountain goat? I was doing dishes while Jason was sweeping (hence the chair on the table) and turned around to this delightful tableau...

Cora has a couple of chairs and a table that were given to her by Nana and Grandad. She likes to push the chairs around to comvenient places. Here, she has pushed the chair over in front of the open door so that she can look out the screen door. Guess we have another people-watcher in the family...

Warning!!! Non-parents may not want to see the next image!!!! For that matter, parents may not want to see this either, since they see to much of it already in their own homes...

This is a moment from the day that I call Poopapalooza 2009 wherein I had to collect 4 bottles of stool sample from one of Cora's diapers. Later, I was out saying goodbye to a visiting friend trusting that Cora was hanging out inside the door like she usually does (see above pic). Imagine my surprise (dismay, laughter) when I opened the door to this and no child. Hmm, poopy diaper and no kid. Not good. Then, while I was running a bath for her, she pooped again all over the floor in her bedroom. Sure am glad we have hard surfaces in our house...

This is a sample of Cora's handiwork with TP -- too bad she couldn't have applied some of this talent during Poopapalooza 2009.....

Um, do you think I should tell her that she might be a little big for this stroller? Oh well, see picture number one...

One of Cora's new favorite activities (besides walking) is to climb up onto a stool at the end of the counter (mainly she spends the time wingeing for food) to see what's going on in the kitchen. Here we get to hear what she thinks about that...

Montana Fun

Here are some pictures and video of our time so far here in Thompson Falls Montana.  Cora and I are visiting my family (parents, grandma, sister, brother-in-law, and nephew John) while Jason toils away back in Portland.  We miss him, but this type of arrangement works well in that I can take nice leisurely visits with my family while not eating up his vacation days.

So far Cora has spent lots of good time with Grammy and Grampy.  They have been busy doing some big gardening/yardwork chores, so Cora has had plenty of fun playing in the dirt and trying to pull up flowers.  So far all the flowers (and the cats) have survived her attentions.  Cousin John spent the day with us today since his parents were busy.  Cora likes John and he is a super sweet kid but she doesn't quite know what to do with all his attention so she spent a good portion of the day crying.  Eh well.  When he was distracted, she would creep over close to him, hold out her hand, and say ticka-ticka-ticka at him.  She was also bummed when he took a nap and she was by herself.  She pushed his door open a couple of times to make sure he was there, then when we closed the door better, she sat right outside it eating her goldfish for quite some time.

After nap, she was in a better mood and both kids went for tractor and wagon rides with Grampy.  Uncle Jason came over for dinner , then after he took cousin John home, Cora went for a dip in the pool...this time with no crying, but plenty of pool water drinking -- in fact, I had to stop her for fear that I would have a sick kid on my hands later and she kept burping so loud that Grammy could hear her from clear over on the porch.  Good times!  Guess we'll have to see what tomorrow has for us in the way of adventure...

Pool and Jammie Time

I am up in Montana visiting family who have a computer in the main space of the house so I can watch Cora and still futz on the pooter.  So....I thought that I would take the time to update my blog a bit.  Tomorrow I will try to get some pics together from our trip to Wenatchee, WA.  Our friend Krista Herling took some amazing photos of our family (at least I really, really like them...).

First off is a cute picture of Cora eating apples before bed at our house, followed by a video of her first experience in our "family pool".  Hope you all enjoy!

The parts of this video that I like best are when Cora looks straight at me with that "how could you?"  look, and then just at the end when I suggest that Jason get in with her.  He got cut off so you don't hear him saying "heck no, it's cold in there"...I mean what kind of parents are we?! Whatever -- she survived, but she still doesn't like cool pool water....  It wasn't that the water was so cold (just not warm), but it was late in the day so it was cool and breezy outside and she was probably a bit on the tired side.  But dang it, that pool had been sitting out there all day warming up and crying out for appreciation... I just couldn't let it go to waste!

This one goes out to Grandad!

Hope you get feeling better soon!  

We love you lots and lots!!!!!

XOXOXO