steps!

This video was taken a few days ago - she's better now. Just in time for her first birthday next week! She had her one year check up today - 18 lbs, 28 inches - still around the 25th percentile.

East Idaho State Fair!

We went to the fair last night, in Blackfoot. It was pretty fun. Apparently I am very allergic to farm animals, such as rabbits, goats, and horses. We went to a hypnotist show that was pretty crazy, don't know quite what to think of it still. It was entertaining at least. Here are some pictures.

Fried Snickers bar!

kissing, raspberries, and big butts

I babysit 3 kids, although their schedules vary, so I don't usually have 4 at once. Acacia is just a couple of weeks older than Cora and they are so cute playing together. They both know what "kiss" means - it means to lean towards another person with your mouth wide open and your tongue hanging out, right? Yesterday they decided to give each other kisses. I managed to catch one.

I"m hoping that having other kids around will teach Cora some social manners, but so far the sharing thing isn't really happening. She's gotten into a habit of not just taking toys away (see example below) but also yelling in the person's face who has the toys she wants. I know she's only 11 months old but does anyone have any suggestions of how to teach a baby better manners?
I recently got some new plastic pants for Cora, since her old ones all recently got big rips, which doesn't really work to hold in the cloth diaper wetness. They are really poufy and crinkly. I kind of like it.
Cora gets into everything - literally. She has decided that this little magazine holder on the side of our shelf is a cool place to be.
She is getting to be a very good climber and makeshift barriers to places we don't want her to go - such as out the front door when we're cooling off the place - doesn't work anymore. She climbs right over them.

This video from last night is a little dark - if you listen closely you can hear her raspberries - so funny.

labor day weekend - and some other things

We haven't been able to post in a while because our computer had no more memory to upload pictures - we finally got around to backing stuff up this weekend and freed up some room to upload our latest pictures. Yay!

This was a ridiculously messy night a couple of weeks ago. Looks like she got electrocuted.


For a while there Cora lost her rice cracker - where on earth did that thing go?



We had a really fun Labor Day weekend - probably too much fun, as we are now very behind on school and house work. We went to a rugby game to cheer on Ryan's old friend from Hawaii. Still don't know what the heck is going on in that crazy game - there are so many players on the field and several times men were lifted in the air in some kind of cheerleading-type move? After that we had a little BYU football party with some friends from the ward and from Ryan's class, which was awesome, both the good times with friends and of course, the amazing win by BYU! Go Cougars!

Cora even took a teeny little step at the party, not really walking, more of a stabilizing herself kind of move, but she's sure getting close! She stands up by herself all the time now, and claps, or raises her arms above her head when we ask "how big is Cora?" She dances every time she hears music, even if she is almost asleep. She blows raspberries all the time, and also learned how to click her tongue - which, by the way, is always out and on the side of her mouth - just like her grandma and daddy. She is getting good at putting herself to sleep when I put her in her crib, and she's slept through the night for months now, which is nice. Now we just have to start slowly pushing her schedule earlier - we've allowed her to be quite the night owl! She loves the other kids I babysit, even though sharing is still a skill that she has to learn. But she is just such a sweetie and Ryan and I are so blessed. Cora turned 11 months old on Sunday and we can't believe how much she's grown.

On Monday Christopher came up from Provo for a day trip. We had a lot of fun chatting, listening to music, eating sushi and pizza, and playing frisbee golf/hiking at a new (to us) and pretty challenging course. Here's Cora trying on CW's shirt:

At the disc golf course - Cora is asleep in the carrier.
We took her out after this and carried her so she didn't hurt her neck.

Posing with Benny the Bengal...

...who tried to eat Christopher!

After dinner we all walked up to the columns by our house for a look at the sunset.

We had a great weekend and hope to see CW again soon. We'll make sure to post more often and keep up on the backing-up of data. Coming up next: updates on my latest crafting projects.