Happy Father's Day 2008

Here are Daddy and Daughter pictures for Dennis's first Father's Day. She might turn into a Daddy's girl someday...

Ellington Field

She's still a cutie even when she doesn't feel very well. This was taken when she had her fever.

She had been cooped up in the house for two days, so I decided to take her out to the Ellington Field event that Dennis and the guys were cooking. We weren't going to stay long - just enough for her to get out of the house. She had a blast...
Robert already becoming a bad influence...She only was given a couple of licks of the push pop.
Eating a fruit bar...she only got a couple of licks on this one too.

It was so hot it was melting too fast and about to make a big mess!
Daddy and Cora.

Oops!

I am trying to upload pics and keep getting error messages. Sorry, will try again later.

Updates - her birthday party was great! She was wonderful and in a good mood. We had a good crowd and only a few small rain showers here and there. (Didn't keep the kids out of the moonwalk any!) And she didn't devour her cake - only took little pinches at it...and even shared with kids standing around her!

She cut her top right front tooth last night. She was not happy about it this morning either. Then I add insult to injury and take her for her 12 month check up today. Dr said she is doing great and she was very talkative to him...until he tried to look in her ears. He commented on more than one occasion at how strong she is...
weight - 23 lbs 12.5 oz (85% as always)
height - 30 in (90% spiked...must of had a growth spurt...explains why she is towering over the tables!)
head - 18.1 in (95% as always)
She got three shots and a finger prick. Nurse commented on more than one occasion at how strong she is...hmm...those boys better watch out! Finger prick came back that she is anemic and needs to be put on vitamin drops with iron. Guess she isn't eating enough red meat...oops.
She did ok with the shots the worst part was getting a band aid on her finger...she hates stickers right now. She doesn't grasp why she can't drop it. It is almost as funny as sticking tape to a cat's foot. I know, we are cruel...but she is learning new things! :-)
I have a ton of pictures to post, so check back later! Sorry!

This Week

Another busy week for us. We had a great weekend...I worked on planning stuff for her bday party that is sneaking up on me! And Daddy spent quality time with Cora. We took her to the doctor on Saturday morning for a cough that wasn't going away and they actually found out that she had the beginning stages of an ear infection. Shocked me. The oncall dr put her on antibiotics and was shocked that she had only been on it once before. I have a very conservative doctor, but that is good sometimes. They weighed her and she was 22 lbs and 15 oz. I thought she was thinning out some...I guess she is just maintaining right now.
She is still eating great - obviously by her weight. She is just about 100% table food. I have a few jars of stage 3 baby food that we are using up and she loves fruit so we have a lot of the fruit to finish off too. We decided to stop the morning nursing on Tuesday. She was confused and fussed the first couple of days...seemed like she was trying to tell us we were forgetting something. But she hasn't cried when I drop her off at school. So there is something to this! I am going to keep the afternoon bottle/nursing for a few more weeks, then that will be next to go. I thought I would be done nursing at a year, but looks like it may go past it by a few weeks.

Saturday she was attempting standing with no support and did great. I gave her lots of praise so she kept doing it. I tried to get her to practice walking on Monday and she threw her first documented temper tantrum. It was entertaining (for me), but took awhile to recover from it. I had hoped she would be walking by her birthday, but doesn't look like that will happen. She refuses to even try to walk with me. I'll have to get the school to work with her on that I guess.

Here she is eating some pizza and peas for lunch. She hasn't turned away anything I have ever offered her.
Here's a shot of a very attractive bruise she came home with one day last week. Pretty, huh. Can you say toddler?
CHERRIES! I gave her some cherries on a whim and she loved them. She was scarfing them up.
Double Fisting. I had left her water cup on her tray at dinner and she kept switching back and forth between water and milk. She was gulping them both down, so I let her do it.

Now milk...
Raspberries! Just like the cherries - she was inhaling them. Cora loves her fruit!
I got a call from the school today that she had a fever of 101.1! So, I had to go pick her up. And I can't take her back tomorrow, so luckily it is falling on Nana's day off and she is going to come save the day. The school said she still was in a good mood, but I think she was putting up a front for the public. She melted when we got home and crashed. She has been asleep for about 2 1/2 hours and not sure when she is going to wake up. She feels bad, so I am going to let her keep on sleeping. I am in no hurry and she can sleep in tomorrow. Her fever was down to 99.2 when I put her down, so hopefully she'll be better when she wakes up.

Hope everyone has a great weekend. Looks like we are going to be taking it easy with the exception of a quick trip to Ellington Field for a benefit cook Dennis is helping with.

11 Months Old

Holy Cow! I don't know where the time has gone....but she is already 11 months old. I was looking at some old pictures the other day and got sad...my baby toes are getting too big! No, I am not wanting another one...I want to go back in time with this one. :-( She's getting so big and is so smart. I love to see her mind at work. She is talking a little more and saying different sounds all the time. She is pulling up on everything and getting a little more stable.

Her eyes are still very blue and her hair color changes daily. Over the weekend it looked gorgeous in the sunlight - you could see the blonde coming through the red. It reminded me of Laura's hair color, just darker. But back in the fluorescent lighting it looks brownish.

I weighed her on our scale this evening and she is a little over 21 pounds. She is leveling off since she started crawling and now that she is getting on whole milk from breast milk.

She is still very happy for the most part. She has her grumpy days, but I think it may be because of teething. I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Little Helper

Okay, with all the BPA stuff hitting the news I found out that some Babies R Us stores were taking back bottles that had BPA in them. So I pulled out the bin of bottles (I packed up most of them since we are down to just one a day now) and started assembling. Cora got right in the middle of all of it and had a blast. Also in the bin was her old pacifiers and she knew exactly what they were! It wasn't staying in her mouth very well so she ended up throwing it, but it was funny to watch her discover it. She was so excited and had a little grin knowing that she wasn't supposed to have it.

Here she is helping me by digging the pacifier back out of the bin!

Camping

Here are a few more pictures of her while we camped in Matagorda over the Memorial weekend.

Playing in the trailer with Tucker. Her toys were everywhere. It's bad enough at home, but in a tiny space it is even worse. Eating lunch with Nana.
Playing outside with Daddy.

Daddy sharing his bottle of water with Cora. She kept sticking her tongue in it.

I don't know if she actually drank more than she ended up wearing or not.
Oh, and this is one of Sydney's outfits recycled from Laura! (Sydney is Alexis's brother's eight year old daughter.)

Playing in the Pool

Dennis's Mom brought her baby pool that Peyton plays in and Cora wasn't thrilled at first, but warmed up to it once we gave her some cups to play with.
Ok, this is pretty cool...
I had brought a 'squirt pool' that you hook the hose up to and it squirts water out along the edges and a few spots in the middle. It was a lot colder, but she had fun in it.

Last Week

Having fun in the bathtub. She is about to outgrow her duck, but we'll use it as long as we can!
Her hair is getting a little longer so I was playing with it.
Swinging. She loves it and holds on tight.
She is sticking her tongue out a lot...and we are discovering it is really long!
Cora trying a biter biscuit. She wasn't real impressed and it ended up on the floor.

Whole Milk! We started introducing whole milk last week. She smacks her mouth after drinking it sometimes, but she likes it. We went down to one bottle at daycare this week and she gets whole milk in a sippy cup at her meals. So far so good.
She was just standing in the window and laughing so I grabbed the camera. This was a cute outfit on her too.

Wow! I am behind...

Here's links to the last few months of pictures on Shutterfly if you are interested. Some are pretty funny and to watch her grow is amazing!

February Pictures

March Pictures

April Pictures (Part I)

I hope everyone has a wonderful week!

She's All Over The Place!

She is pulling up on EVERYTHING! It is great! She was chasing after the cat that was in the recliner...the cat bailed before I grabbed the camera.

She was so hyper and having a blast. All of these pictures were taken in about 15 minutes, if that long.

She had a hard week at school this week. Her favorite teacher's last day was last Friday and she has had a hard time with her being gone. And Shelia worked in the old room and it still was hard on Cora. She keeps going to the door looking for her. They have been letting her go back to the old class in the afternoons. I joked that she is having transition problems 3 months late. I think she is getting better, but we all miss Shelia!

I don't think I posted it already, but her second bottom front tooth came in last week. I think it came through Thursday night - the night I had Bunko. Her teeth keep coming while I am away from her. And Daddy gets to deal with her fussing. Now her problem is she keeps biting herself. She isn't quite used to them yet and she sticks her fingers in her mouth and bites down, then screams. She has a few spots of broken skin too. So far so good I haven't been bitten yet. We are going to start introducing cow's milk soon...probably in the next week or two. I am so proud that I made it this long nursing! I did stock the freezer pretty well and that is why I have been able to make it so long without having to supplement with formula. So that means we are going to be giving up the bottle soon too. Yikes. I am going to try again on getting the pacifier to only bedtime, but it hard. She is very addicted!

Well she is crawling around my feet and just pulled the power on my laptop, so I guess I better get back to her. I think I am close to being caught up...

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend! Dennis and I are celebrating our 6th anniversary on Sunday. I can't believe it has been 6 years already...time flies doesn't it?

Mother's Day

My first Mother's Day was wonderful. It didn't start out the best since Cora had a really nasty poopy diaper that was coming out of every opening...and Dennis had conveniently already put his crisp white shirt on for Church. All I kept thinking was 'Happy Mother's Day to me'.

Well my day took a very nice turn and I got my gift from Cora and Daddy. They both did very well! I got my diamond earrings...that I have been telling Dennis I wanted since before Cora was even conceived I think.

We had lunch at our house with our parents, Dennis's brother and his family and my brother. It was very nice to have everyone over.

We were trying to take some pictures of us and I tried setting Cora in the grass...she hates it! We have tried a few times and she just cries and cries. If she could pick up both feet at the same time she would. When you get her close to the ground her feet and legs come up and she starts screaming. I hope she gets over that soon!

Okay, I have a lot more pictures of her to post...but I am tired and it is taking longer than normal to upload pics, so hopefully I get them added this weekend! Have a great weekend.

Baby Dedication

Our church does Baby Dedications twice a year and Mother's Day is one of the days. We invited the grandparents up to see Cora get dedicated. It is a mass dedication, so she had to share the limelight with all the other babies. She did really well and didn't need her pacifier at all. Pastor Tim even made a mention of her awesome hair color! I wasn't paying attention, but I am sure it looked even more striking under all those stage lights.


Here's a picture of her before we left and then a couple from church.

Daddy and Cora made the big screen!