Battle Wounds

Cora is crawling faster and faster every day! And she's starting to explore more, in addition to following me around the house. She loves sliding on her tummy on the tile too, and especially loves the coffee table-- which is bad because although it is pretty, it's a head bonk waiting to happen. She has some bruises on the crown of her head due to learning to balance and trying to pull up on things (she's not strong enough to make it up yet, she usually falls and bonks her head), and some roughed up knees too. She just keeps going though, and it doesn't seem to phase her much!

Cora's new-found "toy"

I think she likes the 'boing' sounds she can make with the doorstops! She seems pretty fascinated by them. Cora hasn't been nearly as interested in her baby toys since she started crawling and discovered all the other cool toys in the house-- like the phone charger cord, my make-up basket, and the garbage cans. I'm learning every day the ways our house is not baby-proofed yet!

Another way to play with the exersaucer....

Cora, Grandpa, and the Big Blue Ball

She gets around

Cora crawled for the first time yesterday! She must have wanted to impress her visiting grandparents-- she got those arms to move and got truckin'. She requires a lot of motivation for all that effort-- paper, a water bottle, a tower of blocks, but with the proper end goal, she'll show off her skills. Check it out in this video (the banging in the background is Kevin and Pata working on the basement). We better get that baby gate up! I don't think a pillow in front of the stairway is going to cut it anymore.



And, Cora also started making a new sound during Kissie and Pata's visit too! dadadadadadada. It's pretty cute. Now we have to get her working on mamamamama too!

Sweet Potato Make-up

Cora has been experimenting with blowing raspberries while I'm feeding her. She seems to think her raspberries are bigger, better, and much more fun if they are accompanied by green bean puree! Here she got an especially big blow into her sweet potatoes... that combined with a diaper blow-out got her an unusual mid-day bath, which she loves. Hopefully that won't encourage her messy behaviour!

Family Pictures

One highlight over the Christmas vacation was doing family pictures in Boise. It's so nice to have new ones with all the additions going on in the extended family!

Our little family.

Our big family!

Pata and Kissie. And they are coming to visit on Wednesday! We're so excited to see them, and shop, sew, work on the basement, eat, and play games together!

Won't you be mine?

Cora's stylin' in her V-day pj's from Queenie and Pata.

Cora checking out the teddy bear. She especially liked his ribbon bow around the neck, she spent quite a bit of time inspecting it.

Momma's sweetheart.
She's got skills! She's still figuring out how to use them though. Maybe she'll be crawling in the next few weeks. She can't seem to figure out how to get her hands to move, even if she does laugh at me while I try to crawl around by her and show her!

Also, we found out that Cora might be a UNLV fan! We took her to a BYU basketball game, and it was just too loud for her... she cried everytime BYU scored and the Marriot Center erupted in cheers! So Kevin and I took turns with her in the hall. It was a fun game though, but I think we'll wait 'til next season to try again and see if she's true blue or not.

New Discovery

Cora usually hangs out in our bathroom and plays with toys while I shower in the mornings. This morning, for the first time, she was by the vent when the heater turned on. She loved feeling the warm air on her hands and face!

Rolling

Well, the beginning of last week, Cora figured out rolling! She's rolled both front to back and back to front before, but not frequently. But last Monday she took off! Now she rolls to get across the room, rolls to reach toys, and rolls back and back just for the pure joy of rolling! Cora is also making progress on crawling attempts. She lifts her tummy off the ground, spends a lot of time on her hands and knees, and rocks back and forth. She wants to crawl, but just hasn't figured it out quite yet.

Cora expanded her toy collection quite a bit last Christmas. Her favorite toys now include Leapfrog letters that she passes from one hand to another, musical toys that she loves pushing buttons on, and the blocks from a sorting toy. She's also shown 'girly' preferences already-- she loves a doll my great-grandmother made for me, and a doll my dad brought back from Japan for me when I was little.

Cora has tried a whole variety of baby foods now: green beans, carrots, peas, peaches, pears, bananas, squash, and sweet potatoes. She doesn't seem to like green beans much, but other than that she's pretty happy to eat anything and is usually frustrated that I'm not getting the food to her fast enough!

I keep thinking her upper teeth are coming so soon--since she keep gnawing on whatever she can get in her mouth-- and usually that's her fingers she's chomping on! But it may be awhile yet, I can't feel any real swelling in her gums yet.

We haven't been doing much in the way of exciting activities, it's just been too cold! Maybe next week will warm up a bit so we can bundle up and go walking outside!

A couple of Boise Christmas pics

After true Christmas in Portland, we were in Boise for New Year's, and did Christmas again with my family.
Thanks to my mom, Jen, Liz, and I got to do girl-bonding over pedicures. Unfortunately, mom couldn't come... but it's a great tradition we'll have to repeat with everyone next time!
Our pretty toes!

Daddy's little girl

Bathtime

Cora loves her bathtime! She especially loves her turtles that her cousin Emeline got her for Christmas. Cora watches the turtles float around her, studies them really hard, and makes a grab for one when it comes close. Once she's got it in her tight grip, she tucks it under her belly so it can't possibly escape. It's pretty funny to watch!
A couple of times she's caught more than one turtle, and while it doesn't last long, she looks pretty amazed at her capabilities!

After she has sat up and played a bit in the bath, we lay her down to give her some splash time. She can sure make the water go high with her arm and leg splashes! After she splashes and gets washed up, it's out of the tub, which makes her so sad she often cries (she especially hates being lathered up with lotion!) until she's all dressed for the night.

6 month appointment

Cora had her well baby 6 month appointment this morning. We drove through the snow to get there--it's really coming down! Cora weighs 14 pounds 6 oz and is 26 inches long. She's pretty skinny compared to average I guess--she's in the 10th percentile, but the doctor said that's fine for now and we wouldn't have to do anything special about it unless she drops more. She's 50th percentile for height and head measurements. Everything else is looking good too!

Cora can sit without support pretty solidly now-- she usually only falls over if she gets too excited about something and looses her balance. She's trying so hard to crawl, and can almost tuck her knees up under her--but is just moving backwards so far. She doesn't do a lot of rolling over yet, her primary mode of transportation is still arching her back and scooting along on her feet and head!

6 month pictures

Here are some of our favorites from Cora's 6 month portraits!

Christmas in Oregon

We went to Oregon for Christmas to see Kevin's family. We had a lot of fun! Here are some pictures from Christmas morning. Cora loves paper! So Christmas morning was full of fun for her. Though I'm not sure I can approve of her preferred method for opening presents -- eating them!

Cora loves the sounds she can make with tissue paper! I think she would have been happy if all she got for Christmas was a few sheets of it! Here she is helping dad open his cool remote control helicopter.

Cora is constantly chomping on her fingers! We think her upper teeth must not be too far off!

Santa Baby

Fun with family

Grandma, Grandpa, and Cora

Grandma, Cousin Kylee, and Cora

Dashing through the Living Room

Grandma and Grandpa had a perfect size sleigh. Now all we need to do is tie a rope to the sleigh and to Pup and off she will go.

"I'm too old for this."

Our Little Diva!!!

Cora loved being tickled by the purple feather boa.

Peas Please!

Cora tried her veggie yesterday-- peas! While she made a couple of disgusted faces at first, she ended up really liking them and opened her mouth wide for each bite!