15 Months Old

We went to the doctor this afternoon. It was not pretty...poor baby. She did really well, but Mommy almost lost it. This was the worst one yet. The look in her eyes while getting her shots was horrible!!! Luckily the doctor said after her 18 month check up she would be pretty much done with all the shots until she was 4. Great...that's when she can tell me she hates me after the shots. Yipee. They also did another finger prick and she doesn't have to take the iron supplement anymore, so I guess that was worth it...maybe.
Here's her stats:
25 pounds (75%)
31 inches (50-75%)
19 inches head (90-95%) big head = big brains
The teacher had her head in pony tails...I managed to keep them in until we got home to take a picture. She isn't feeling very well today on top of the shots, so this is the best I could get.
While I was feeding her dinner Tucker started going nuts and Katie starting hollering too. I looked out and this is what I saw.
This is what was at the top of the fence.
They lasted a good 15 or so minutes, then the squirrel went up a tree on the other side of the fence. The cat waited for a little while longer and wandered off. This cat has been hanging around for a few months, we call her Katie's cousin, since she/he looks like our Katie.

Just Some Pictures

Daddy was playing with Cora and her beach ball. Well Tucker got in the game too. Tucker managed to kill both beach balls. So Mommy has to find more beach balls...now that summer is over. Thanks a lot! Dennis ended up cutting down one of the bigger trees in the back yard. I told him to go set her on it, but she didn't want to let go of Daddy. I joked with him that she is upset he cut down her tree - now what is she supposed to climb? Ok, I definitely do not have a daredevil, so I am not too concerned.
Look what Daddy has done! She points and grunts at the tractor to ride it.

She even fell asleep on it one evening that Dennis took her out on it.
She likes to drive too.
Walking around outside.

When I picked up Cora on Friday she had her hair like this. The teacher said she was sitting in her lap and she let her do it. Yeah! I told her I would bring them a bunch of rubber bands so they could do it more often so she would get used to it. Her hair in her face is driving me crazy.
We went to a fish fry in Pearland that Dennis was cooking. I didn't think she would last long, but she went exploring and ended up dancing in the middle of the place. I was so proud of her!
Dancing with Avrey.
Still dancing. Oh, and she let me put a pony tail in her hair while she was brushing her teeth.

Spaghetti O's! Ok, I was desperate. I am sick of mac n cheese. Oh, and I figured out if I feed her the fancy 'steam fresh' peas she will eat them. So, now we are up to peas, carrots, cheese, mac n cheese and spaghetti o's. And of course she would only eat the spaghetti o's if I let her feed herself! I am not sure if it was worth the clean up.
We go for her 15 month checkup tomorrow. I am curious to see her stats. Her bottom left 'eye' tooth broke through. She has had a rough couple of nights sleeping and woke up with a really stuffy nose and felt kind of warm this morning. Darn tooth. This one has been much more tolerable than the three that came through at once.

Well I have been shopping craigslist for a playhouse for Cora to play in outside now that it is cooler and the mosquitoes have calmed down some. But Tommy and Jill gave us Avrey's old one. Saved me about $100 so I am not complaining. And Tommy delivered it this morning - guess they were ready for it to go! Dennis just got it all cleaned up and I'll probably have some pictures of her playing in it soon.

Oh, we had our first major accident with blood...a lot of blood. I was getting Cora ready to take a bath on Thursday and she slipped and hit her head. I thought she hit her forehead, but she either hit her mouth or she bit her lip in the process. All I know is she was screaming and blood was flowing. It was horrible. I didn't know if she bit her tongue, bit her lip or knocked a tooth out. She wouldn't let me look. I finally got the blood to stop some and she would only take a pacifier, but it hurt and scared her. Of course Dennis missed it all...which may have been a blessing for all of us. He would have passed out and I would have had to take care of him too. (He's going to just love that I posted that!) Cora survived and it was only a busted lip. I however had nightmares all night of Cora bleeding. Ugh...motherhood.

Yipee!!

It's true...it is really really true! We are back in the twenty first century!! We have power again...I have never been so happy to do laundry. And it is so quiet...no fans...no generator...no window unit ac...it is lovely.

Still No Power...

Well we are ending day 11...maybe 12 without power. I have lost count. When I got home this evening there were three utility trucks on the street. Dennis talked to them and they said we should have power by tomorrow. I am crossing my fingers. Cora has been going to the Kids R Kids in Sugar Land this week. She cried on Monday, but this morning went right to the teacher. She was the big girl on campus and was one of only a few 'walkers' in her class. Dennis was really impressed with the school and couldn't believe the difference since they were owned by the same people. They were very nice and took great care of my baby girl. We got a call tonight that our daycare would be open tomorrow. I called the SL KRK to thank them for taking Cora in and the director was so sweet and said they were enjoying Cora and hated to see her go. If it didn't take Dennis forever to get there, we would probably switch, but it just isn't feasible. I am considering looking for a new daycare...I had been thinking about it before the storm and seeing her adjust so well, I think it is time.
We are getting back into a groove even though we are still running on gas...I will be very happy to go back to my expensive electric bill after living on Gas for two weeks! Kilowatts are definitely cheaper than gallons of gas. Cora is back to her room and getting to bed easier. She is still giving me fits on eating - at this point we are only eating macaroni and cheese. Nice. She eats great at school, so hopefully she is getting the nutrients she needs. She went back on her grape kick this evening. Hey, it is better than nilla wafers.
I better get to bed...still having to leave her door open, so can't stay up much later than her these days.
Hopefully I will have power tomorrow!!!

Still No Power

This is Cora telling me she is hungry...

This was one night when she actually was liking what I was serving...spaghetti.
This robe has been hanging in the bathroom since she was born. It is way too small for her, but she wanted it on anyway. It was only bad if you were standing behind her when she dropped something! It was really funny though.

Update:
We could be worse off, but we still don't have power. Centerpoint's website said that we might have it by Thursday. Wow - I didn't ever think we would be without power for this long! We are surviving - luckily I told Dennis to go ahead and buy the more expensive window unit AC. Otherwise I would probably be living in a hotel or at my Mom's by this point. Cora has been pretty good, all things considered. We have had some rough spots, but we have gotten through them. We went to Nana's to do some laundry since the generator probably couldn't handle the dryer. We went to visit my friend Kara and her girls yesterday. That was a huge help for both Cora and I - Thanks Kara!!

Our struggle now is that Cora is being a very picky eater. It changes from meal to meal. I feel like I am wasting so much food! Today for lunch she at cheese, a hand full of noodles, two bites of a sandwich, a couple bites of a plum and an entire jar of carrots! She'll be orange in no time. This morning after eating a banana and pancakes she insisted on having one of my spicy crackers (saltines w/garlic & crushed red pepper). I don't know why - but she wasn't stopping until she got it. I dusted off as much of the red pepper as I could, and she ate the whole thing. Strange child.

She also is wanting to go outside all the time, but the mosquitoes are so bad we can't. She is covered in bites she looks horrible. She also has some bite marks from Katie (the cat). She has been tormenting Katie and pulling her tail that we have decided to just let Katie bite her. Cora laughs. When Katie hits her it is even funnier. Not sure how to solve that problem at this point. When we get on to Cora she laughs at us too. Not cool.

Well the daycare still doesn't have power, so Cora is going to go to the Sugar Land location tomorrow (if Pearland doesn't miraculously get power today). I have to go to work, so this is the only option at this point. She'll be fine and needs to be around other children again. Plus it will help get her back on schedule. Oh, she slept the entire night in her bed last night! Yeah. She slept until 9 this morning, but that is fine too. We have to get her to bed early tonight since we will be going to work tomorrow. Back to early days!

Sunday Update

Okay, we survived yesterday...barely. Mom, Cora and I had a really rough day. We were all tired and very cranky. We got up this morning to major generator problems, that Dennis finally got worked out. We also had no phone all day, hence no new postings. Not much has really changed. We still have no power. The generator is working better, so we have had ac from the window unit we bought before the storm. Cora was a lot better today...so was Mommy and Nana. Dennis started working on cutting some of the trees, mainly the one hanging on the power line. He and I picked up a lot of the smaller limbs in the back yard too. It's going to be a long road, but we are so very fortunate...especially seeing everything that has happened to Galveston.
That's all for now, I just got Cora to bed and I need to get some rest.
Take care and hopefully will be back to normal posting soon! Love to all.

Updates

Just a quick update. Both parents' houses were spared. Just some limbs down. I walked down our street and power lines are down. There is one house with two trees on it, but they don't appear to have hurt house. Lots of trees are uprooted.
Lots of news about galveston damage and telling people to stay where they are - don't come home. Looks like Houston got more damage than they expected. Some downtown buildings were pretty damaged. I haven't seen anything on the Downtown Aquarium yet. Kemah is in pretty bad shape, mainly water everywhere.
Staulman Park in Surfside was a total loss. Kitty's Purple Cow was heavily damaged. The gate building when you enter surfside beach is gone.
Galveston is covered with building parts on the beaches and on the causeway. It is crazy to see.
On another note, my sweet little girl is being HORRIBLE! She has never acted like this in her life. I am at the end of my rope...but we are surviving! We don't know if she is like this because she knows something is wrong or if it is because she is teething, gassy, etc. Either way, it is not fun right now.
I better get back to her, before she starts fussing again. Take care!

More Damage Pics

Our evacuee. I peeked out the door early this morning and saw him. He stayed around for quite a few hours. We have had people coming to the front door, so I think he finally left. It has stopped raining here (it's around 12:30 as I post this.) We are without power and probably will be for awhile. We bought a large window unit AC and that is our saving grace right now. The living room is keeping very cool and we have a packnplay set up for Cora to sleep in. She has been very fussy all morning. She finally took a good nap and is eating some lunch while I finish up this post. Dennis is on his way to LJ/Brazoria to check out our parents' homes.

Right outside our back door. We normally can't see the sky from this view...we can now!

Lots and lots of tree branches. This is the left side of the back yard.
This is the right side of our back yard. The bucket is Dennis's rain gauge - 8-9 inches overall.

Front yard of the neighbor. I was standing in front of our garage. Their cedar tree fell down.
Front of our house. Our hibiscus didn't fair very well. They might recover though.

Our front yard. The ditches are very full, but nowhere near close to our house.

Down the street towards 518. All the ditches are very full and lots of tree limbs and branches on the street.

This is to the left of our driveway (I am standing in the street).

Another angle of the front of our house from the street.

Down the street towards Gardenia.

Hurricane Ike Damage

This is the corner of Gardenia and Oday - right behind our house. It is just mainly leaves on the ground. This is the new cover the BBQ team put at a storage unit to keep it covered. The pit wasn't there, but Tommy's trailer is and our boat. Doesn't appear to be damaged.
This is on 518 right before you turn onto Thelma. Just lots of water and some billboard sign (the vinyl part) wrapped in the power lines. Dennis said we got about 8-9 inches of rain. The news said the max wind gusts at Hobby Airport (right by us) was 92 MPH. No wonder half my trees are broken. I keep getting errors trying to upload pictures. Will post as I can. We are most likely going to be without power for days, so just pray for everyone down in this area.

Hurricane Ike

It was a long night, but we are doing good. We have lots of tree limbs down that will keep Dennis very busy today. Our power went out around 2:45 this morning, which is amazing for our neighborhood. We are running on generator for now. We have a large tree limb on the power line, so I may have to report it...hopefully that will get it fixed sooner, but we'll see. I'll post pictures as the sun comes up.

Our First Casualty

Mom was outside and heard a snap...

Here's another branch that fell too. Another one fell on top of it right after I came inside to download the pictures.
Here's one of the trees blowing in the wind.

The wind isn't too bad yet, just gusting here and there. I think the news said the wind speed is around 30 mph right now. All the trees around us are very old, and the other half of the tree that fell broke off a few months ago. Dennis is happy, he wanted that tree gone anyway.

Happy Birthday Sydney!

Sydney's birthday was Monday. We met Eric and the girls and Nana and Grandpa at Saltgrass for lunch to celebrate. It was a great lunch. I planned on posting this on Monday, but with all the hurricane junk, it just didn't happen - sorry Syd!
Sunday afternoon we had this little guy in our garage. He couldn't quite figure out how to get out of the garage. Dennis finally found a feeder and we hung in the doorway of the garage and he got out.
Cora riding around with Daddy.
Cora walking around outside. This is huge for her - she hates grass and normally won't let us put her down outside. She was walking very carefully so she didn't fall on the concrete though.
No real news on the hurricane for us. The winds are starting to pick up a little bit outside, but we haven't had any rain yet. Galveston and Surfside are getting hammered though. We are still just watching the news and hanging out. Cora has a tummy ache and has been fussing. She fell asleep a little while ago so hopefully she'll wake up a little better.

Free as a Bird

Cora has about three teeth coming in a one time. They are the eye teeth and I have been told those are pretty bad when then come in and she has the two on top and one on bottom all come through within a day of each other. Because of all that she has had some lovely diapers which has caused an even lovelier diaper rash. To help, I let her 'air out' after her bath. She loved it. She sat down in her room and started reading her books. She was all over the place. She didn't pee anywhere, but I managed to get some panties on her and she did good in those too. And her rash cleared right up!
She is wanting to climb, but doesn't really try very hard. She just raises her leg until I pick her up and put her where she wants to be. This time it was in the rocking chair.

Here she is grabbing Katie. Don't feel bad for Katie - she flicks her tail in Cora's face all the time.

Shocking as it is, Katie still hasn't bit Cora. I keep telling her to so Cora will leave her alone, but she doesn't.
She is learning to carry things like a purse. This is a decorative pillow that hands on her changing table.
Digging for her lipstick in her learning purse.

Hurricane Ike

Cora is going green with her reusable shopping bags! She picked them up out of a chair and put them on her arms like this. It was really cute and she thought it was so funny.
Boarded up...
Playing with Daddy...

Just a quick update on the hurricane that is headed our way. We are riding it out at our home and Nana (Alexis's Mom) is with us. Pearland is not under a mandatory evacuation warning. We are boarded up, generator ready and stocked with food! Now we just wait...and wait...and watch the news. Ugh...the news is going to be the death of us. I am having flashbacks of Rita from three years ago...and just hoping we fair as well as we did with Rita.

I hope to get caught up on my posting...I have a lot of pictures to post...some pretty funny ones too.