Cute Cora

Cora is at a fun age right now, just crawling and exploring enough to make her happy but not usually enough to make me crazy! 

At Station Park.  We sat on the fake grass and had lunch, it was such a nice day and so nice to be outside in the sunshine.

Playing with Charlie

Spaghetti lover!  She was inhaling this, it was hilarious.  The video is so funny.

Trying to put my shoes one.  I love how they start to figure little things out like this just by observing.  Another cute video.  She was quite entertained trying to get this on.

Ever since Cora's been crawling Leila's been following her around, picking her up, holding her back, playing with her.  Sometimes this is nice but usually it comes with screams and cries from Cora.  Here she is forcing her to watch a show with her. :) Cora can be pretty tolerant of all the torture though.

Sweet sleeping baby.

Her favorite thing to do, eat!

Fire Station Field Trip

Leila's first trip to the Fire Station.  She loved it and hopefully learned a few things too.

Cutest fire fighters.  A little stop at Fiiz after, my first time.  Yummy cookies, I'm not a huge fan of the "dirty" drinks though. Soda is sweet enough as is.  I'll stick with a plain old Vanilla coke if I'm having one. :)

St. Patrick's Day

 St. Patricks Day is always looked forward to by my kids.  Yes, I think this holiday has gotten out of control but we do like to celebrate it.  We wear green, (Leila might be wearing the same outfit as last year, :)) I make a green breakfast (green smoothies, green muffins, and spinach eggs this year), and they put their shoes out and the leprechauns leave some treasures.   

The girls got some new paints.  Leila paints rainbows all day long.

 We just happened to have a green leotard for Leila to wear to dance. 

 First St. Patrick's Day, will not keep bows in her hair.

Lucky to have these littles in my life.

Soldier Hollow

I bought some discount passes to Soldier Hollow back in January with some friends thinking we would go when we were off track.  Well, our schedules never aligned and that never happened.  We tried a couple more times to plan something but came up short.  I finally decided I didn't want to waste the $40 that I spent so I made a reservation just for us.  It is spring time, we're not really in the snow mood anymore and Charlie was not very excited to go.  At all.  He was crying about it and throwing a really big fit.  He wanted to stay home with Mark and Cora.  I kind of made him go though.  He was pouting and crying and arguing with me the whole way there, (it's an hour away.)  He didn't want to get dressed, wouldn't get out of the car, the whole nine yards.  We were walking to the hill and he wouldn't come!  I couldn't resist taking a picture.  His fits can be a little unreal for a nine year old!  He finally started following us.  Once we got to the hill he grabbed his tube and did his own thing almost the whole time.  He was a little ahead of us on the rope pull and we never caught up to him and he never waited, just wanted to go solo because he thought he'd go faster.  The snow was slushy but after a few runs we had found a hill that would carry us down the whole way and it kept getting faster as the temps dropped.  We finally waited for Charlie and he did the last few runs with us.  He was all smiles by the end which I knew he would be.  He told me "He didn't know it would be a hill like that." I'm glad I "forced" him to come and so was he in the end.  

 Crying by the car.

Leila loved it, all smiles and giggles.  Kenya had a great time too.

We stopped for dinner and a quick run into gap outlet on our way home.  It was a fun afternoon/evening out with these three, and so easy without a baby. :)

Nap Time

 I love my baby, but nap time is sometimes the best part of the day for me, okay, most of the time. :) Having those couple hours to myself to do whatever I want or need is priceless!  Cora was watching Baby Einstein before her nap today, As I was walking down the stairs I had to laugh at just how tiny she looked staring up at that big TV in that tall room.

She eventually made it over to the stairs and climbed her way up.  I followed with a bottle, nap time!

I love that she'll still let me cradle her while she drinks her bottle.  I just wanted to capture it because I don't want to forget what it was like holding my baby and staring down into her eyes.  Mental pictures sometimes aren't enough although I do have mental pictures of doing this with all three of my other babies too.  I will miss these days.

She is a good snuggler too when she's tired. 

 I know my arms will ache one day when there is no baby to fill them but I am accepting it and ready for the next phase of life.  It still won't stop the ache from coming though. I guess that is what my grandchildren are for, right? :)