6 months old

Sweet Cora is 6 months old today. We go to the doctor Friday for her check up, so I'll post her stats and comparison with Sarah at 6 months. I am loving life with my 2 girls! (and of course my 1 man!!)

She had her 1st baby food (Gerber oatmeal) on Sunday. I'm impressed with how well she did. I'm trying to get my days organized enough to get in a consistent feeding routine for her with solids. I'll probably add in bananas soon and go from there. I need to get motivated to make and freeze a bunch of baby food.

She is crawling more and more, and can sit up if she wants to - but usually she just wants to get on her belly so she can move.

overnight cross-country trip

We had our 1st overnight xc trip of the season on Friday/Saturday. Since I can't leave Cora overnight yet, Jon and the girls came along. It was great having them, and the girls were excellent travellers.

We put headphones on Sarah for the 1st time and it was a hit. Soon after I took the 1st picture, she fell asleep to her Praise Baby music. She also wore headphones to watch her dvd so the rest of us didn't have to listen as well. We may have created a monster! :)

Cora did so well - hardley made a peep the whole trip!

Cecil, our driver, has a granddaughter Sarah's age and so he was thrilled to have our girls along. And Sarah loved him!! He let her "drive" the bus!

She was cracking people up on the way home while she played with my cell phone - 1st saying she was texting, and then she pretend to call Grandma and Grandpa, held the phone to her ear for a minute, and then shut it saying "Hmm, they didn't answer."

more dancing

We had a fun treat Friday morning - Tilly came to play for a few hours! Sarah is REALLY into our Call Me Al Dance parties and wanted Tilly to join in ... sadly Tilly was a bit overwhelmed by it. I SO wish I had kept the camera recording Sarah because she was busting out hilarious new dance moves!!! I am going to do my best to capture more of it next time :)
(sorry to not provide any more humor at my own expense - I am staying out of the camera and not singing!)

smiles and on the move

I finally got some pictures of Cora's smile. She is such a smiley baby :) And just notice the picture of her on her hands and knees! She's not crawling but definitely scoots and inches her way along with intention - getting where she wants to get. I'm baffled!!

singing to Cora

I only managed to catch the tale end of this precious moment on camera and you'll hear Sarah's response when I asked her to start over. Cora had woken up so Sarah went in to see her - and sang to her! So sweet! :)

family walk

We went to early church this morning, which means we're home by 10:30am. Sarah has in her mind that we eat lunch the moment we get home from church. Not only is 10:30am way to early for lunch, but Sarah had found a plate of doughnuts at church and I'm honestly not to sure how many she had shoved in her mouth before we caught on! :) So we decided to walk the property after church today, to distract Sarah from the desire to eat lunch. It's a very short walk but is beautiful with the lake and the bluff. Sarah had taken off the shoes she wore to church and wanted to wear her boots on the walk (she looked too cute in my unbiased opinion!!!)

I just love the father-daughter bond and love watching these 2 together. I so look forward to watching Cora and Jon bond as well

Sarah specifically asked to walk "to the big rock to see the valley"
these 2 pictures are self portraits and her expression in both absolutely cracks me up!!!

Sarah walked almost the entire way, but at the end asked to ride in the stroller

I love the baby stage where they can sit up but still are not mobile. It's appearing that Cora may skip that stage. How is that possible??!! It's hard to tell in this picture because her outfit is too big, but she gets up on her hands and knees and does the pre-crawl rock back and forth. When she sees something she wants, she can wiggle and scoot herself to get it. It's crazy! We've moved from a playmat to a bigger blanket to 2 huge beach towels. The 2nd picture is the story of every day - a million times a day I am moving her back onto the towels :)

This was a beautiful moment. I was attempting to fold laundry that had been sitting in the laundry basket for 2+ days and was so wrinkled that I was tempted to rewash it when Sarah decided to climb up on the bed to be nearer to Cora and join the action. Sarah preceded to read to Cora, and Cora was absolutely mesmerized by her sister ... and I was able to actually fold the laundry AND be spending time with both my girls! WOW! What a moment! :)

Cross-country is in full swing and our lives are C-R-A-Z-Y. I am really trying to protect MWF mornings to simply be with the girls. Yet with a job that follows me home and seems constant, it is HARD. Tuesdays and Thursdays, Sarah goes to MDO and she is absolutely loving it! Cora comes with me to the office during that time. For practice, every afternoon is different - Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday I have 3 different Covenant girls who do their practical service for me baby sit the girls at the house. Wednesday and Friday, they go to Moms. We are in the 2nd week of this and I feel like I am beginning to come up for air as we adjust to this routine. I am more forgetful than ever (yesterday as I pulled out of the driveway, I thought to myself, now where am I going? - oh yes - to PICK UP SARAH - oh yikes) as I seek to balance this all. And I will say, the fact that my family is not starving is a miracle in and of itself. I can't recall what we've eaten in the last month, but some how I've managed to keep our bellies full.

All that to say, my posts may be sporadic and who knows if they will be even remotely coherent over these next 2 months - but I'll try!!! :)

Discovery Museum

We met Katie and Tilly at the Discovery Museum today for a morning of fun (and of course, a yummy lunch at Lupis!)

I love this picture because it captures her side-mouth talking!
Cora snoozing away! the upstairs exhibit is Curious George right now, which Sarah LOVES
(she has a George stuffed animal that was Jon's when he was little!) - notice in the picture she is holding George's hand :) Thanks Katie and Tilly for a fun morning!!

I have to admit - I love Paul Simon's song You can Call Me Al. And for some reason, I woke up thinking about it yesterday morning so decided to buy it on iTunes. Sarah and I had a dance party yesterday afternoon - and she now is constantly asking for me to turn on "Call me Al" so we can dance! :)

(sorry you have to endure a bit of my dancing - I tried to stay out of the video! - and you can even hear me sing a bit at the end which is even more embarrassing!!!)

To my credit, I'm attempting to dance with a "boot" on my foot because I sprained my ankle running on Sunday. But that doesn't change the fact that poor Sarah will have NO rhythm with Jon and I as her parents!!! :)