Little Updates - Ode' to the Buddy

After all the stuff with Dennis's foot, he wasn't able to do much with Cora. I was really getting tired and needed some help, so on Sunday, Jan 11th we told Cora it was time to go night-night. She walked right in her room...Daddy was able to follow and pick her up and put her in bed. He rubbed her back and she went to sleep. Monday and Tuesday were the same. After he put her to bed Tuesday night I asked him if he was giving her the buddy...nope. Ha! Three nights without it. So, Wednesday morning I grabbed the couple that were left her the bed and put them away. I had cut the end of them to slowly work her off of them, but she was only getting them in bed at home, so she really wasn't using them much anyway. We accidentally fell into it, but whatever works, right? Her hands are in her mouth more now, but that is because of the teething mostly. We have had a couple times that I wished we still had the buddy in use, but there is no going back now!

I have realized that my baby girl is not so much a baby girl anymore. I am having a very difficult time with it too. Last Friday she waved bye bye to me when I dropped her off at school. It took everything I had to not cry. She is growing up so fast and I can't get time to slow down! She is so smart too...like a little sponge. She is saying so many words. She knows so many things that I don't even realize. I have been working on her letters some during bath time and she is really catching on. She knows that Mommy starts with an 'm' and Daddy starts with a 'd'. She is also good with the 'n' (Nana), 'g' (Grandpa) and 'a' (apple). She almost has the 'c' and 'k' down too.

I work on counting in the car when we don't have a movie playing...and she says 'two', but doesn't count yet. Uncle Eric gave her some wooden puzzles the other day and she loves them and is really good and putting them together!

She is very adamant on keeping her routine...if you change it up it can throw her into turmoil quick! She is obsessed with socks...and they have to be white! She is not a morning person at all...and she gets that from her Daddy! I have to fight to get both of them up just about every morning. And poor Cora doesn't get to sleep in on Saturdays anymore since I started her in gymnastics at The Little Gym. We don't have to wake up quite as early, but I am still waking her up.

She has learned the word 'no' and uses it often! She just says it very matter of fact when she does use it. It is really cute and hasn't gotten too bad yet.

She is doing well at brushing her teeth...and she is up to 12 teeth that have broken through. She has two that broke through recently and are still pushing through so we are going through lots of Tylenol and Motrin.

Ready to Rodeo

Cora received a late Christmas present this week and we all love it! She is almost ready for the Rodeo! Don't you just love the purple pj's with the red boots & hat?

Dennis took her to show her in the mirror and she just grinned!

This and That Again

Cora wore a skirt to school and came home with her first (of many I am sure) skinned knee.

I thought this was funny...she grabbed a pillow out of the chair and laid down on the floor to watch tv.

Cora's first grilled cheese sandwich. She loved it and ate the entire sandwich!

Cora is getting really good at feeding herself with a spoon and fork. Lately though she has started to guide it in her mouth with her other hand. Notice, she is still using her left hand.

She is holding up one finger more now...

My little ham!

This is what happens when I don't pay attention to Cora when she is eating...That was fun to clean up!

Last Saturday was very busy for us and we didn't get much of a nap. We had gymnastics and a play date, so she also used a lot of energy. Daddy was planning on being home before she went to bed...well that didn't happen. She crashed right before he got home...oops.

You would think I would learn to not let her feed herself spaghetti o's...but I don't.

She's almost got her 'guns up'!

Justin Mintz's Birthday Party

On our way to Justin's 2nd birthday party.

All the kids on the hayride...
Daddy was asked to drive the tractor for the hayride...and of course Cora has to drive everything Daddy drives!

Justin on his own tractor...he wanted to drive too.

We are so in trouble!! She is becoming a monkey! She was climbing the ladder all by herself...very scary for Mommy.

Again, she loves slides...I see a swing set in her future...very soon future!

She was going down backwards too and loved it!
Cora and Justin playing. She had a blast in the playroom and I was actually able to visit with other friends! Cora mostly played with the play kitchen...I see one of those in her future too!

My Husband

The weekend after Christmas Dennis went hunting with both our Dads and my nephew. Saturday night he slipped off the tire of a front end loader (or one of those type machines) and hurt his foot. He couldn't walk on it that night or much on Sunday. He got some crutches and stayed off of it for the most part. Monday I tried to get him in to see a dr, but I was sick and just didn't have the energy to fight him. Luckily his boss nagged him enough, he made an appointment for Tuesday. He was able to put a little more weight on it each day, so neither one of us really thought it was broken. Well, we were way wrong! One of the bones on the top of his foot was a little broken. He called me when he was about to be put into a cast...he was crushed! The doctor told him to stay off of it and it should heal in 2-4 weeks. (Note, I said 'stay off of it'.)

Wednesday we went to Payless and bought him a Frankenstein shoe to cover his foot and the cast. He needed to cover his toes since he was going back to the deer lease and didn't want to get any ball cactus in his toes! And then he began to start walking on it. Ugh. After many evenings of me griping at him and telling him that he needed to stay off of it or it was going to take twice as long to heal...I gave up...for the most part. He was going to have to deal with the pain if it didn't heal right, so whatever.

Above is Dennis with his ugly big shoe covering it and his nice granny cane! He went back to the dr after two weeks and they took the cast off and the bone had not healed - DUH! He was lucky and they chose to put him in a walking boot. He is in that for 3 weeks at least. He goes back on Feb 3rd, so we'll see.

Here's his walking boot...and notice the big girl sitting in the chair...

Winterfest

Nana and Grandpa came up and went with Cora and I to the Pearland Winterfest. Dennis was cooking for the Pearland Police Officers Association fundraiser so we went to visit him and see what was out there. We tried a couple of the jumpy things and she wasn't going for it, but wanted to keep one of the balls out of one of them. I later traded it for some crackers. We also watched the reptile show and she wouldn't touch them, but she looked at them pretty close when they came by.

Stopping by to visit Daddy for a little bit.

We saw our friends Peyton and Jordan!

Walking with Nana...Nana kept her hat on for her, like it or not! Thanks Nana!

We went over to the petting zoo. Cora wouldn't touch any of the animals, but she watched them for awhile.
Then she decided she wanted them to come to her - she is patting her leg. (She does that when she wants Tucker to come to her...apparently I do that and she learned it from me.)

Up To Date - Finally!

Okay, now that I am up to date on posting all the pictures...here are some updates on what Cora is doing!
She moved up to her new class right before Christmas. She is doing well and so far no bites! She however has had quite a few boo-boo reports though. She has received a black eye (first week in the class) and another bruise on her forehead and she sat in an ant bed on the playground and got about a dozen bites on her hands and feet. What can I say...she is a Wolford! She's klutzy. She's getting better and I think we have had a few incident free days lately.
Cora is starting to talk up a storm! She is repeating a lot of what we say and usually will repeat a word if we ask her to. Main words she is using are more, cup, down, cracker, elmo, eyes, mama, dada, kitty, nose, cold, shoe, Nana (both for banana & Nana), Grandpa, Tucker and Katie. She started calling Daniel 'da' when he was here.
Cora knows the following body parts: nose, eye, ear, mouth, elbow, foot, knee, teeth, tongue and hand. She was on a kick for awhile and would point to my eye (poke me in the eye) and say 'eye' over and over again. It was lovely...and she would do it out of nowhere, so I had to be quick to close my eye!
Cora also knows what the following animals say: Cow, sheep, chicken, duck, kitty, rooster (says 'cock-a' instead of cock-a-doodle-doo, and puppy dog (does the panting instead of woof-woof).
Cora's teeth are starting to come in more too. She had her bottom two 12 month molars come through the week of Christmas - I think I went through an entire bottle of Tylenol that week! Saturday I discovered that she has two more teeth coming through on the bottom as well. We were up for awhile Saturday night, but we are getting through it...mostly with the help of Childrens Motrin!

Berries

Cora has always been a good eater of fresh fruit. (Dennis says its because of all the 'sweet' in it, but I try to explain that fruit is good sugar). On Friday I stopped by the store for a couple things and they had strawberries and blackberries on sale and they looked good so I grabbed some. Cora ate over half the container of strawberries and about half the container of blackberries that night. She kept asking for more!

Fattie Maddie

Maddie is our older and fatter cat...who really doesn't like Cora. She isn't very social to begin with and much less with a toddler. When I need Cora to move away from me I usually ask 'Where's Katie...or Tucker...or Maddie?' Well normally when I ask for Maddie (which is rare since she is always on my bed or in the bathroom) she runs before Cora even sees her. This time Maddie thought she was safe since Cora can't climb on our bed. Well I thought it would be funny to put Cora up there - she thought it was funny as you can see...and Maddie wasn't thrilled.
On a side note, Maddie has NEVER bit anyone, not even Dennis...Katie will bite anyone, including Cora!

Santa Clause

One more and I think I am done with all the Christmas posts! Whew...
We took Cora to see Santa...I knew she wouldn't like him, but I tried to get Dennis to be in the picture. It was working great until I went to fix her dress, then she wanted me. They had her laughing and everything. I obviously wasn't prepared to have my picture taken that day!
When I was posting the other Santa pictures, Cora got up in my lap and started pointing her finger and saying 'no, no, no'. I laughed so hard - it was really cute and she was dead serious.

Now she is looking at the picture and naming everyone, including Santa!

Pictures

I realized that in all my catching up, I never posted any of these. We had our family pictures taken in November for the Christmas card and I just competely forgot to post the rest of the pictures. Here you go...

New Years

We kept it low key for the new year. We visited the Palvas gang and Cora got to see fireworks. She did really well considering how loud it was! She watched all of them in my arms with her head on my shoulder. It was also all happening during her bedtime hour! Willie insisted on holding her...and she went to him and never cried...he pointed out that fact numerous times. We then headed over to visit the Knox gang and Cora got to hang out with Monique and all the kids. She didn't want to leave, but it was way past her bedtime!

Dennis went hunting again for the weekend, so Cora and I headed to Nana & Grandpa's house to get our black eyed peas and cabbage on New Years Day. She had fun playing with Grandpa.
We were hanging out at the house and she had both her dolls out and was carrying them around...I laughed because it was like she had twins.

Stockings w/ The Wolfords

Santa visited the Wolford's house for all of us, so we still had to open our stockings over there. It was a little calmer than when opening all the gifts, so Cora got to play a little bit. Of course she went right to the slide!

Peyton, Bella and Cora opening their stockings.

Bella and Cora (Peyton is missing because she didn't want to cooperate for a picture).