Wednesday

I am trying to clean out and pack up all the 'baby' stuff that we aren't using. This was sitting out and she climbed right in it!
She loves her Tupperware drawer. She can empty it in seconds too!
Throwing all that Tupperware can be exhausting.
She was telling me she was ready for a snack this afternoon. I am trying to teach her to sign when she is hungry...I guess this works too.

Since I haven't really posted much lately, I figured I would try to catch up some.

Cora is 14 months old already (didn't we just have her birthday party??). She is finally walking a lot...still has the occasional Uh-Oh, but trucking right along. She is talking all the time, just not really saying much. Loves to say Uh-oh, mostly for dropping things on purpose though. She is still saying Mama and Dada. She usually points to our family picture and says 'Dada'. She has said bye and yea some. She is eating out of a bowl or off of a plate really well. Usually dumps it if I walk away, but that is to be expected. She has settled down some on shaking her head 'no', but I may have just gotten used to it.

Cora is strict on her routines. Bath by 7:30, book and then bed by 8:00pm. She has been going to sleep great and other than a little coughing she has been sleeping great through the night.

Speaking of coughing, she has had the cough for about a week now, so I figured I better get it checked out. We went to see the Dr today and all is good. Her chest is clear and her ears are clear. We just have to ride it out. He gave a few suggestions to help, so we will see. She weighed in at 24 pounds 3 ounces. She has finally leveled off some! She gained only about 9 ounces in 2 months. I think her height is spiking again, but we'll see for sure at the end of the month.

The two teeth on the top that have been 'almost there' for about a month now, still have not cut through! Yet, they are still so close. However, one of her bottom teeth snuck up on me and cut through! I just happened to see it this evening and had no idea. I don't know if I will ever get on track with this whole teething thing! She is a trooper though...really not to much fussing. I blamed all the chewing on her top teeth. I am seeing braces in her future though. Her bottom two teeth are crooked already and the top two teeth have a big gap between them. This new one is out of line with the other two, so who knows how it is going to look. Cha Ching!

Ok, well that is all I can think of right now...I am tired and trying to listen to the future VP give her speech.

Hope everyone has a wonderful rest of the week!

Lake Texana Part II

Cora playing with Daddy.
Daddy making Mommy nervous...
Mike recruiting help to cook breakfast since Dennis failed to get out of bed.
This is how the kids kept their cool in the heat...redneck slip n slide. I am really surprised no adults were in it before the end of the weekend, but everyone resisted the temptation.

Lake Texana

We went camping at Lake Texana over the holiday weekend with a big group of friends. It was fun, but very hot! Cora did wonderful.
She was climbing in and out of these chairs. She' such a big girl.
Miss Julie always tries to hold Cora, but she won't let her. She stole her for a very brief moment. Someday, Julie...someday.
Daddy insisted on buying a bike and carrier for Cora. She wasn't real sure about it, but went with it. They said she did great on the trip around the campground.

She was ready with her water.
Ok, Daddy lost his shoe...not a good sign. Julie helped him out though.
The DeBorde's brought along their newest member, Zsa Zsa. Cora went nuts over her.

Playing inside with Mommy and Nana...aka cooling off from the heat.

Cora is fascinated with buttons now. She pushes them on everything.
Uh - Oh. She is beginning to climb!!!
Playing peek-a-boo with Nana.
Cora had a blast with Nana and I think Nana had a blast with Cora. Nana was spoiled, she didn't have to share Cora with any other family until Sunday when Grandpa got to come.

Baby Tiger

I took Friday off to get ready to go to the lake for the weekend. Well I found out the Downtown Aquarium was going to have a baby leopard visiting for the weekend. So I figured that would be something neat for Cora to see. And I haven't taken Cora up there in over a year, so I figured she could use the visit. She wouldn't let anyone hold her, but she had fun. She enjoyed all the stuffed animals Alex kept giving her...she was trying to be a animal hog, but couldn't quite hold them all at once. Luckily for me, only one came home with us!

FINALLY! She's Walking

Cora is finally walking! Yeah...and I love it. She still is pretty clingy with me, but for the most part I can set her down and she is good to go. She follows me around when I am busy in the house.


I thought it was cute when she sat down on this pillow...my little princess.

Cora is learning to use a fork and spoon. She hasn't gotten the hang on stabbing the food yet, but she gets it in her mouth really well.
She needed some quiet time the other morning, so I set her in her chair and started her movie. I was busy getting ready to leave and looked up and saw this. She made her own recliner out of it!

Bella

Oops...ok, we went and met Bella on Sunday. She slept the whole time we were there...which is great for her parents. She seemed so tiny since I am so used to Cora. She had just had her hospital pictures taken before we arrived, so she was still all dolled up for us.


Dennis and David with all their girls!
Ok, this is not such a great picture of me, but we laughed because Cora had her hand on her face like I did.
Cora wasn't impressed with Bella. She hasn't been real impressed with any baby that has been around her lately though.
We had a fairly quiet week. She did really well in the mornings with only one day of crying and it was just for a second. She was bite free until today. And she is walking a lot more now! Yeah. She was walking around the room when I picked her up this afternoon. So neat to see. Her two teeth still have not broken through...but they are so close! Thankfully she hasn't been too fussy about it....at least not that we have noticed. She is going to be so wonderfully these days. She has the occasional cry out in the middle of the night, but that's about it.
She is still being picky about her eating. She is an animal cracker addict! If they are sitting out, she wants them. She is done with green beans, but loves steamed squash and zucchini. She still eats some asparagus, but I think she thinks it is green beans by the looks of it, so she doesn't eat it like she used to. Loves peas and avocado too. She is slowing down on eating meat and loving pasta. She loves those carbs!
We don't have big plans this weekend...just another birthday party tomorrow.
Have a great weekend!

Friday

We made it bite free for two days! The school is making some obvious changes and I am happy to see it. They have added another teacher and she is very sweet. I have also learned that I can't keep Cora in a bubble at all times and she is going to get picked on and bitten at times. After speaking with friends and hearing their stories, Cora's little bites were nothing. So I am counting my blessings until the next fiasco happens in this toddler room!
We started working on using a spoon while eating. She is doing great at it. I have to put the food on the spoon but she is getting it to her mouth with very few misses, if any. She tries to pick up the food on her own, but hasn't gotten that down yet. We'll keep working on it.
I asked the teachers this afternoon to try to work with Cora and signing for 'eat'. She throws such a temper tantrum when she wants anything, there is no distinction. So I thought we would start working on signing again. Well they told me that she knows 'more'. I said I used to work with her on that, but she never would do it. I tried tonight and she did it! Yeah! I was excited...she just wanted more! It was neat to see that.


Well about three years ago I bought a pineapple and cut it up to eat. My Mom told me to plant the top of the pineapple and it would grown another one....well three years later I have a pineapple! She kept telling me to watch it to turn yellow and then I could eat it. (I am not a green thumb and usually just ignore my plants, so it is quite shocking that I succeeded with this little project.) Luckily she comes up enough to see progression and pesters me enough to actually pay a little bit of attention to it. Well this evening when Cora and I got home I took her outside to swing for a little bit before we ate dinner...and I noticed my little pineapple was bright yellow! Woohoo! Ok, it is little...it is a little bit smaller than a softball...really cute though.
Isn't it cute?
I cut it up and gave Cora a few pieces after dinner. She ate them, but just didn't truly appreciate what it was that she was eating. It was good...very sweet and not as acidic as the ones from the store. Very neat. I might try it again with my next pineapple I cut up...if Dennis doesn't kill it. I did save some of it for him to try when he gets home tomorrow.
We had a rough night after dinner, I think those two nasty teeth are bothering her. With all the biting going on I kind of forgot about them coming in. She was in pain tonight though. She kept her fingers in her mouth and just cried. I got a shot of tylenol in her and some teething tablets. Gave a very quick bath and got her calmed down. She wouldn't let me sit and rock her so I just swayed her while standing. It worked enough to calm her down and put her to bed...at 7:05!! Yikes. I thought about going to bed too...but thought I better get a couple things done. I am still going to bed soon...she'll be rising very early tomorrow!

Oh, Cora has a new cousin (Uncle David and Aunt Jennifer had their baby today.) Isabella Faith Wolford was born this afternoon. Not positive of the exact stats, but about 7lbs 11 oz and 20 1/2 inches long. Pretty close to Cora's size. Not sure when we are going to get up there to see her, hopefully on Sunday before they get checked out. Hopefully I'll get some pictures to post.

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Bitten Again...Twice!!

Yes, she was bitten again...

This new class is ROUGH! Yesterday they called me to tell me that Cora had fallen while playing outside on the playground and hit her head...but she's ok. They have got to learn to start their conversations with 'Cora is ok', then tell me what happened.

Then they called me this afternoon to tell me that Cora had been bitten! I think my exact response was "AGAIN?" She apparently had her hand on a toy that another child wanted. Nice. Okay, again I am a pretty patient person these days. I head out as normal to pick her up. Dennis offered to pick her up and I declined his offer. Well it was very smart of me! When I walked into the daycare the assistant director asked if she could speak with me for a minute. I felt like I was being called into the principal's office. They proceeded to inform me that while she was on the phone with me about the bite, Cora was being bitten again. I got the formal speech of we are addressing the problem, yada yada yada. Then was told that Cora is holding her own and a tough little girl. (Yes, they are really going to love it when she starts fighting back.) They were very nice about it and answered my questions. I don't want to know who the biter is, but they were very good about not offering it up either...not even slipping on the gender. I was impressed. I just nicely explained that my main concerns are her safety/health and I don't want her to learn to bite and me be on the other side next month. Either way, I'll keep you posted. This room is still being very difficult on her...but she is going to make it through. I just don't know if I am going to make it through. When I left, I told them no incidents tomorrow! Hopefully we will have a good day, since we are 0 for 2 this week so far.

I took these this morning before her bad day...I put her hair in a pony tail and it looked cute.

Ok, so we get up pretty early in the morning in the Wolford house!
These were taken tonight - she obviously was fine.
My cookie monster - she loves animal crackers!

Pool Time With Daddy

Daddy is still working on his water baby. Sunday evening he got her in the baby pool. The water was a little cold, but she got in it. She had more fun than it looks like she did in these pictures.

Sunday

We went to John Allan's birthday party on Saturday afternoon. It was a swim party, but she isn't much of a water baby, so I didn't bother bringing a swimsuit for her. Cora was being really clingy to me, so I asked Daddy to take her outside for a little while. He had her out there for awhile and I visited inside with the other parents. After about thirty minutes or so, I figured I better check on him...this is what I saw!

He put her in the pool with her dress on! She did have fun though. Thankfully I had another outfit for her!
Today was a rough day for Cora. She has two teeth trying to break through and she is having a hard time with it. She will be fine one minute and the next will be throwing a complete fit. She will fuss to get down, then fuss to be picked up. It is horrible. If I kept her distracted enough she was ok, but it was like as soon as she would think about it, she would have a meltdown. One of the distractions was turning on her movie. I got her to sit in her chair and watch it for a little while. It was really cute. Notice the left leg hiked up again. She did that in the swing this afternoon too.

This is right after a fit...hence the buddy in her mouth.
Since we put the child locks on the big tupperware cabinet, I decided to make her a tupperware drawer. I cleaned out some of the tupperware and put the odds and ends in the bottom drawer for her to play with. She can drag them all over the floor and I don't have to worry about cleaning them when she is done. She loved it.
This was another successful distraction. However, she had all 50+ pieces all over the kitchen in about two minutes. I quickly threw them all back in the drawer so she could pull them all out again. I need to work on picking up all the toys next I guess.

We hope everyone has a great week. Be thinking of Cora...and pray these two little booger teeth break through soon!

Oh yeah and she still won't walk...I thought she would be all over the place this weekend...I think she only took about 5 steps total! She can do it, she is choosing not to! I just don't know where she got her stubbornness! Ha Ha... It isn't ALL from me...