Two and a Half!

I can not believe Cora is already two and a half years old! Wowza, time has flown by. Whoever described parenthood by saying, "The days are long, but the years fly by" is completely accurate. 

Our silly, funny, smart and adventurous little girl is in love with swings lately, and can swing for hours at a time if we let her. She also is still obsessed with all the baby farm animals living around our village. 

We spent Mother's Day weekend up in the mountains in Grindelwald where we hiked, swung, ate nice food, swung some more, hiked some more, and of course, hung out with some baby animals.

Grindelwald was lovely!

Oh, she is really into dancing too. I think she was dancing here, why not?  

Exhausted after a morning of swimming in Bern.

Her SV ride awaits for July ....

Tea Parties, Mirror Rooms and Little Buddies

To help pass the time during Switzerland's dreary monsoon season, Cora spent a lot of time playing with her Scottish friends Meghan and Zoe and her American-Swiss friend Lilly, this week. We went to the National History Museum last Sunday and discovered how exciting and fun a hallway of mirrors can be, we colored and played tea parties at our house, went to play group on Wednesday morning and went to Zoe's second birthday party yesterday.                           

Cora has also been generally awesome and so much fun and she surprises me everyday with all the new things she can say and remember. She will remember things out of the blue that happened months ago, and it will take me about ten minutes sometimes to remember what in the world she is babbling about.

Another one of my favorite phases she is going through right now is every other day or so she becomes obsessed or fixated on a certain small toy which will come everywhere with us *in addition to her Kiki, of course. One day it will be her little green Baby Bear, a little wooden ice cream toy, a yellow balloon, a pink little cup,  and even a travel size baby powder bottle that she calls "Baby Baby Powder" of course. Many times she will even nap with these items and wake up with an imprint of them on her face. She cracks me up.

With Meghan in the mirror room.

The girls on a big bug.

This is just another shout out to Aunt Marisa because we love you.

BONES!

Playing on the train.

Pretty flowers to brighten up the dreariness. 

My favorite time of day- bedtime stories.

Just a pretty view from down the street.

Playing at our house. Toys were EVERYWHERE.

At least we got her to sit at the dinner table ... like usual, she did everything in her power not to eat.

I bought Cora a new tea set and it is quite the adorable hit! 

Your animals and I love you Cora!

April Videos

Here are a few fun videos from the last month!

Zoos, Bike Rides, and more Castles!

The last two weeks have been busy and oh so fun! With warm weather and sunshine finally here, we are all so happy to be outside. Last week we took a last minute trip to the Zurich Zoo with our friend Kristina to see all the baby animals (Cora got to see a baby camel, elephant, lion, and monkey!).  

This weekend we went on some fun bike rides through the fields around our town and on Sunday we hiked to the old Schwarzenburg Castle ruins to have a BBQ with our Swiss friends, the von Allmen's. It was lovely and so nice of them to invite us along! The castle is located down by the local river and was originally built in the 1200's to house travelers on their way to the Vatican. The history of this land always amazes me! The castle is now in ruins, however, much of the original stone from the castle was transported and used to build Schwarzenburg's new castle. 

Besides bike rides, castles and zoos, Cora has had a lot of fun playing with friends this week, taking walks with the family, playing at playgrounds and just being her silly self. She is talking a ton now, can answer most of my questions, and has a remarkable memory. Like all toddlers, she has lots of temper tantrums, but for the most part she is pretty darn good. As long as we make sure to do a LOT everyday with her and to focus her copious amounts of energy in positive ways, she is so fun. Just growing too fast!!

My Monkey at the Zoo.

Zurich Plaza

Incorrect way to ride the train.

Bike rides!

Old Schwarzenburg Gasburg Castle.

Castle BBQ.

Cora dresses herself now, can you tell?

Stop growing up!

Playing with her English buddies Meagan and Zoe.

Correct way to ride the train.

Baby Cow!!

Helping mom babysit Lilly.