Trip to Utah and birthday!

Well Ryan is done with his affiliation and we are so happy to have him back! He got done on Friday the 11th and then we drove down to Utah that night to see Ryan's parents who had just gotten in from Hawaii for the holidays. We spent a couple of nights in Salt Lake City, then a couple of days in Provo. We got to see a lot of family, from the Hollingshead side at one of Ryan's cousin's weddings, and Ryan's aunt in Sandy, and CW in Provo. We interrupted CW's studying a little, but it was fun, as always, to hang out with him. We also got to catch up with some old friends.

On Saturday night we went to Temple Square to look at the lights, and just happened to run into Josh Moser and his family. (an old mission companion and good friend) He has a little girl the same age as Cora, but she's not in the picture because she was asleep. It was so fun to see them and catch up, especially since it was unplanned.We also got to see Jana, my old roommate from BYU who we haven't seen since we left Utah, and her cute little boy Bentley who is the same age as Cora. We ate lunch together and then let the kids play on the playground. It felt just like old times, hanging out with JanJan again. The next day we met up with Paul for lunch and again, it felt like we had never left. I guess we haven't changed that much, except for one little addition. It was so great to meet up with all our old friends again and introduce Cora to them.I'm not sure which is funnier, Cora's face or mine. We started asking Cora "How strong is Cora?" and she'll make this face and make fists and get all tense, it's so funny.This is just Cora playing in the hotel.We got home on Tuesday and on Wednesday Ryan's parents came and spent the night with us. They took us out to eat for my birthday and we had some cake. They also gave me a breadmaker for my birthday, which is awesome. Nothing but homemade from now on! I am a very lucky girl, with my new sewing machine and breadmaker, and new pj pants and slipper socks from Ryan, who also spent many hours cleaning the house for me and taking care of Cora. Here's Cora making her stinky face for the camera.It's been a great 25 years so far and I'm looking forward to this next year with my sweethearts!

Thanksgiving!

Well we are a little late posting this - that's because Ryan and I were too lazy to take our own pics this Thanksgiving, so we left all the picture taking up to everyone else. So here are some of the pics from my dad's camera - I couldn't find any of my mom with Cora but everyone else sure wanted to pose with her!

Uncle Christopher

Great-Auntie Aline :)Great-uncle Manuel
Great-uncle MaxPapa

We went to Urbana, Illinois for Thanksgiving at my Grandma Wei's house. All of my uncles and aunts and their families came, and my brother CW and my parents. So it was a full house, but still we missed my sisters Nic and Kate and all the little boys. Cora was the only little person there and she sure got spoiled! We got there late Wednesday night after a full day of traveling. Cora was pretty good girl on the plane rides, she slept a bit, and she got pretty antsy, but it could've been a lot worse. Our Thanksgiving feast was wonderful, thanks to all the women - except me, I was like a little kid again and didn't hardly help with any cooking! :o I was planning on it but instead I was helping Grandma on the computer. After eating Dad and Max put on a slide show of some very old slides Grandpa had, from the 50s. That was pretty cool. We got to see Grandma and Grandpa looking all movie star-ish, and Dad as a very cute little baby, in some cute, but girly, outfits! Later that night CW, Ryan and I played Settlers online with Nic and Kate, which was pretty cool. Kate creamed us twice.

Thanksgiving shirt! Made from Cora's little handprint.

What Ryan and I did while others were cooking...The feastHaha CW's face is funny. You can see the Thankful tree my mom made on the table behind them - we wrote what we were thankful for on leaves and stuck them on the tree. Cool idea.

On Friday we finally decided to venture out into the crowds for a bit in the late morning. It was fun but exhausting. Most everyone went to a movie (2012) in the afternoon, but Cora, Mom, Grandma and I stayed home and napped. That night, we watched more slides and Grandma told us a little about her life. Then we played a bunch of games til very late.

A bunch of grandkidsThe whole gang.

Saturday we went to the cemetery to visit Grandpa's gravestone, and then we left. it was hard to say goodbye, especially to Grandma Wei. She is planning on moving out of her home and going to a retirement apartment/community close by. (That won't be happening for a couple of years, probably.) Grandma just loved Cora, she couldn't get enough of her. I wish we lived closer and could see her more.

We headed back to Indianapolis where we were flying out of in the morning, and we all stayed in a hotel that night. Nicole and Jarom and the boys drove up to join us, and we had a fun dinner and then played in the hotel pool. So we did get to see them a little this trip, which was so nice. All of her boys are so big now, I can't believe it.

Cora handled the plane trips back pretty well, sleeping most of the time. Then I managed to stay awake while I drove home from Boise later that night, which was good. We were sad to leave Ryan behind again but we are glad that his affiliation is almost over and he is coming back home next week. Yay! So for now we are just trying to get back into routine, babysitting, and getting ready for Christmas.

I apologize if anyone is completely bored by my play-by-play of our Thanksgiving - Sorry I don't usually get that in depth. This was just a special weekend for us and since part of my reason for blogging is to keep a semi-journal of our doings, I thought it would be nice to remember. I probably should be better about keeping a real journal though.

UpSideDown

This is one of Cora's latest tricks - she thinks it is just hilarious to look up-side-down.It also gives her pretty cool static-y hair.

And this is the look I got, after I didn't let her play with the camera. Little stinker.

Little friends

Lately my days have been filled with - babies and more babies! It's great to have a job I can do in my pajamas, at home with Cora, and she just loves her little friends. The stairs is the cool place to hang out, as you can see.

Late afternoon after naps today I had three very hyper girls on my hands. Enter: Baby Einstein. Apparently Cora was too hypnotized to even notice the camera. I try not to use TV too much during the day, but a lot of times it's the only way I get things done when I need a few minutes of a non-squirming Cora - like for changing her diapers, clipping nails, and taking her temperature.

ponytail

Today for the first time I put Cora's hair in a ponytail, Pebbles style. She looked pretty darn cute. We've had a pretty mellow week, just missing Daddy and having fun babysitting a lot! She's been my good buddy, keeping me company at night. She's learned to point out my nose and eyes and she loves sitting in my lap to read books - as long as I turn the pages quickly - or she will do it for me. Poor Ryan has been sick over in Boise so we've been praying for him to get better soon. I had a lot of sewing and other craft projects planned to keep me busy at nights, but I've been so tired after I put Cora down that I haven't done much but watch a little TV and then fall asleep - what a lazy bum I am. Last night I finally got busy and did a little sewing. Anyway, here's a few pics of Cora playing with her ponytail in.

halloween

We went to Boise this past weekend and spent Halloween with Elise and Eric and all of Cora's cousins. She went trick-or-treating and got a nice stash of candy for her mom and dad. She was the cutest little sushi roll I've ever seen. (Although she looked kind of like a karate kid from the front - especially since the "seaweed" kept bunching up.) Hopefully she's not embarrassed years from now because we made her dress like sushi - I saw the idea in a magazine and thought it was pretty cute. I figure we'll have plenty of years of princess and ballerina costumes once Cora starts having her own opinions.

Ready to go, with a stolen bag from her cousin!

View of the salmon on Cora's back- if you click to enlarge you can see the fish pattern I drew.

Wondering where her stash went - Mom and Dad already squirreled it away.Baby Noelani is so little and cute! I can't believe Cora was ever so small. She wore the little pumpkin costume Cora had last year. We had a pretty fun weekend- Elise was nice enough to babysit for us while we went to the temple Saturday morning, and then we took 1 year and family portraits at Penny's, thanks to Grandma Madelyn for Cora's birthday. The only sad part was on Sunday, when we had to leave Ryan behind and head home by ourselves. :( We miss you Daddy!

getting civilized and sassy

Cora has gotten to be quite the sassy girl. Just look at this look she's giving me here. Although, how can you not have sass, when you have such an awesome hairstyle after your bath.On the other hand, she's also getting to be very civilized! We got another package in the mail today, this one from Auntie Aline. It had a bunch of fun things, including two very cute books, a fun wall decoration from Japan, and a Hello Kitty dining set. Thank you Auntie! We love it. (Really Cora does like it - don't believe this face here.)

So after opening the gifts, it was Cora's dinner time. I decided to see what she would do with the dishes, since we haven't really ventured there yet - she still drinks from a sippy cup and eats off the tray.
She loved drinking from the glass - she even started drinking one handed!

Just checking if there's anything left. Got confident enough to wave it around a bit.But wasn't so pleased when she got splashed with water.She also had a lot of fun eating out of a bowl with a spoon.Well, kind of.

In all, it wasn't nearly as big of a mess as I thought it would be. She didn't dump food or get it all over herself at all. Such a big girl.

Reading

Cora got a couple of cute books in the mail today from our old friends Brandon and Tonya! She really likes them. Thanks guys - so sweet. We miss the days when we lived right next to you - automatically spending every weekend night together and staying up til 4 am playing Risk (boys against girls, of course) while JT slept in our spare room. Hopefully we'll someday live closer together - and introduce our little girls who've never met!

Here's Cora enjoying one of the new books.

I'm so excited, Cora's actually starting to enjoy looking at books and being read to, instead of just always trying to eat them. (At least until she starts teething again.)

my first quilt!

We have been pretty busy around here. Ryan has been finishing up a ton of projects for school this week as well as studying for finals next week. He's been working hard and I'm so proud of him. I can't believe how fast this semester has gone. We are going to spend next weekend in Boise and then I am going to come home alone and leave him there for 6 weeks for a clinical affiliation. Cora and I will miss him so much! We will see him at Thanksgiving and probably at least one other weekend, but it takes too much gas for him to come home every weekend. At least he gets to stay with his sweet sister, and have fun with all his nephews and nieces. Still, I can't wait for December, when he's done.

Well I finally made a quilt! At least I'm calling it a quilt - there was no piecing involved but I basted it, machine quilted it, and even made my own binding! It's brown on one side and light purple on the other. The quilting is done in random diagonal lines in yellow, pink and blue thread. It was so easy with my new machine that has all kinds of quilting accessories! I'm pretty proud. I wanted to have it done for Cora's birthday, but she doesn't seem to mind that it was late. The first thing she did was spit up on it. After it went through the wash, (for the second time since finishing it last night,) she had fun playing peek-a-boo with it and dancing on it.

Living life on the edge - Cora thinks she's a big girl now that she can climb on the couch. It keeps us on our toes. (Speaking of toes, aren't Cora's little pink toes cute?)

Cora squeezed herself in between Ryan's legs then complained about being stuck. Silly girl.