Cora: Seven Months Old

Cora is seven months old today! She is getting really good at eating her solids - despite not having any teeth yet, so we keep her on the super soft/mushy solids. She eats just like a baby bird: not in quantity, but in frequently having her mouth wide open to receive the next bite. So far, we think her favorite foods are green beans, carrots, apples, and sweet potatoes. In fact, feeding her is the key to her heart as Grandpa Marty discovered after she was initially a bit shy with him. She’s getting really good at playing with her feet, sucking on her toes, and bouncing in her jumper. She still has some work ahead of her when it comes to sitting on her own and rolling from her back to her tummy, although she looks like she could do it soon since she arches her back greatly to see what’s behind her. We’re even seeing some hints of crawling to come: occasionally, when on her tummy, she’ll lift her bum and bend her knees up under her. She loves playing in her exersaucer, and splashing while in the bath. She loooooves, even depends on, her thumb as we discovered while camping in Moab because we had her thumbs all tucked away and she struggled to fall asleep. Ha! . . . And she still toots like a howitzer, and now the grunting to pass a BM is back with a vengeance! Ha ha! She’s 14 pounds, 13 ounces according to our backpacking scale. 

Wind & Friends in Moab

Mike and I took Cora camping and biking again, but this time to Moab. We thought waiting until March would mean better weather than our normal President's Day weekend timing. But . . . We didn't quite get it right so we had another windy adventure that I'll tell you about. :)

We drove down Thursday afternoon and found a BLM camping site that was really pretty sweet! We set up camp, made a fire, cooked our tin foil dinners, and tried to relax for the evening, but Cora was not relaxing at all! I don't know if it's because she didn't really get much of a nap on the drive down or what, but she cried and cried and struggled once we got into camp. Her sleep and feeding schedule was all messed up. But we did our best to deal with it. We eventually put her to bed around 7:30 but she struggled to fall asleep. It dawned on us that she was probably struggling because we had her hands all bundled up in her down bunting and so couldn't get to her thumbs to suck on them to put herself to sleep. She eventually fell asleep but woke at 9:00 pm so I fed her again and prayed she fall asleep in my arms since she finished feeding very grumpy. Amazingly! She did fall asleep in my arms! So I carefully put her in her pack-n-play (which fits in our monster tent along with us) and she slept through the night with only a minor peep at some point. Miracle!

Feeding Cora on the tailgate on the drive down to Moab

Cold diaper change in the tent

Hanging out by the fire.

That was a double miracle because let me tell you why: Mike and I froze our cans off that night! Well, maybe not really. But we struggled to stay warm in our 15-degree down sleeping bags and with a bunch of layers on. When I got up in the morning, our 5 gallons of water in the jug had some big chunks of ice in it that I had to break up! We think it got down to the mid-20s for the overnight low temperature. Holy moly! Apparently, we had Cora bundled up sufficiently for her to sleep through the night like that.

Our camp site

We brought along Cora's birdies to play with. It was pretty chilly that morning so we kept her in the bunting.

That morning we hung out in camp so Cora could get a decent morning nap. And while hanging out, we watched and heard the wind pick up. Ugh. Dang wind! Always messes with our camping trips! So we packed up camp and decided to get a hotel for that night. Again - camping was foiled by the wind.

Mike took me over to the Mag 7 trails and I did a solo mountain bike ride first. It was a blast! Just all downhill since Mike and Cora were going to pick me up at the bottom. Once I reached the bottom, it was time to head back to the top to meet up with Steve and Tess, some friends of ours that are living in their airstream trailer full-time and happened to be in Moab that weekend. Mike went for a ride with Steve and Tess and basically did the same ride that I did earlier. Cora and I met up with them down at the bottom of their ride. And then to my pleasant surprise, Steve offered to take our truck and Cora and let me ride with Mike and Tess down Great Escape to another meeting point. It was so fun to ride with Mike again! Then Cora, Tess, and I took Mike and Steve up the top of Great Escape for them to ride it again in a race against the setting sun. They made it, but just barely! After that Mike, Cora, and I checked into a hotel for a much warmer and pleasant night of sleep.

Riding TOGETHER on the Great Escape! 

The next day, Mike and I took turns riding some of the Navajo Rocks trails with Steve and Tess and sitting with Cora in the truck. The wind was terrible this day! It was so strong that it nearly blew me over while I was riding my bike. And that meant we couldn't really do anything with Cora outside that day either - so it was pretty boring to sit in the truck with her and a bit challenging.

Once we finished those rides we were pretty beat, so we parted ways with Steve and Tess and headed home.

Mike's turn to hangout with Cora while I rode. Feeding her in the bed of the truck - out of the wind. 

Riding Navajo Rocks with Steve and Tess

Cool little drop!

Jessika's turn to hangout with Cora in the cab of the truck

Mike riding the Navajo Rocks area with Steve and Tess

Mike and his mad skills

Our friends, Steve and Tess

Cora: Six Months Old

Six months today since this little sweetie made us a family. I’m really beginning to wonder if Cora is going to be a leftie because she has now started slapping her left hand on stuff like our arms as we change her diaper and her safari beats toy. She’s smacking and licking her lips, grunting, growling, and making all sorts of noises. Cora is displaying her new trick in the picture: grabbing her feet! She’s back to rolling over from her tummy to her back unassisted. We’ve also had Cora try out the exersaucer but she seems to be taking to it slowly. I love that she now grabs my chin, lips, and nose while she’s nursing. The biggest milestones she’s made this month are sleeping through the night (11 pm to 7:30 am) and eating her first solids! I’ve always guessed that she loves food and now it is even more evident in how quickly she has learned to eat and enjoy her rice cereal and sweet potatoes. Our last weigh-in on our backpacking scale showed she weighs 14 pounds even, but we’ll see what the official weigh-in is when we go to her six-month doctor appointment next week. 

Cora: 5 Months Old

Five months today! Cora’s talking has really ramped up, and so has her volume - especially in quiet places such as the Young Single Adult Ward’s Relief Society meeting. I warn everyone that sits near us of her pterodactyl squeals. Her grabbing has really improved: she can grab at all the toys hanging from her activity mat, bring toys to her mouth, and pass them from one hand to the other. I almost can’t remember what it was like when she couldn’t grab stuff. She rolled over for the first time this month! From her tummy to her back. She did it alone five separate times on the day she did it, but since then she’s needed a little help each time. She’s getting closer to rolling from her back to her tummy thanks to the back-arching technique that she’s mastered. She is already an international traveler as she went to Mexico with us and Mike’s family this month! She did a little better on the plane than we expected. And she did okay in Mexico - there were just so many exciting things to see and hear, that by the end of the day she was way overstimulated and overtired and cried all through our fancy dinners at the resort. We just discovered that she will laugh without restraint when we bounce her in the jumper (the kind that attaches to the door frame) and chant “bouncy, bouncy, bouncy” to her. Stats: 24 inches long. 13 pounds, 4 ounces (according to our backpacking scale). *About her outfit: I’m not in the habit of dressing her in short-sleeves in the winter. She had a blowout at church and it got on her long-sleeve undershirt. All I had to replace it was a short-sleeve onesie.

Hiking and The Roof

For a week or two in January, I was big on hiking with Cora so I did two hikes on the Whiting trail near our home with her. And then Mike and I hiked the Y with Cora too.

And then we celebrated my birthday by going to dinner at The Roof in Salt Lake City! We had a gift card there that my coworkers at BYU gave us when we got married. 

(This post was backdated to January 20, 2017, but it was written on March 22, 2017.)

Mexico for New Years!

First of all, you must know that we did a short little hike in 20-degree temps here at home on New Year's Eve so we could really appreciate the warmth of Mexico the next day! Ha ha!

Well, we were crazy and we flew to Mexico with a 4-month-old baby (Cora) to meet up with Mike's family for a very nice and warm vacation at an all-inclusive resort near Playa del Carmen. Overall the trip was a mixed bag for us: fun and relaxing but stressful at the same time since we had Cora with us.

The plane ride . . . well, it went a little better than expected but still about how we expected: Cora was not inclined to fall asleep in our arms but she eventually did while laying across my lap (as you can see in the picture below).

Grand Palladium White Sands Resort was a great place! Even despite the mishaps with rooms: Marty and Drew got a room with only one bed, and Christine and Jeremy's room had some plumbing issues. We lucked out and didn't have much trouble with our room so it was really nice.

Caught in a major downpour on our way to mini golf.

First time playing in the pool.

We enjoyed the food quite a bit and in this order: the a la carte restaurants were the best, the buffet was good, the free room service was fine. We went to the Brazilian, Thai, steakhouse, and Mexican a la carte restaurants. The steakhouse and the Mexican restaurants were our favorites food-wise. Dinners at the a la carte restaurants were hard with Cora because she was just so tired by the end of the day and just kind of cried the whole time while the wait-staff took their time serving us dinner. So . . . after the first two nights of trying to do dinner as a whole group, we decided it was probably best to split up and take shifts going to dinner and caring for Cora.

We went to the buffet for breakfast everyday, and it was good! We had freshly-made, custom omelettes, various smoothies to enjoy, and myriad other breakfast goodies. And then later on we discovered the yummy mixed drinks they make at lunch time.

Grandpa Marty has some super powers to get Cora to fall asleep in his arms.

Mike, Cora, and I left the resort only one day to go snorkeling with everyone at Akumal, and we are so glad we did despite Cora shortening our stay there. Mike and I were able to snorkel together for an hour, and while we were out we saw a stingray and two turtles! It was amazing. Shortly, after we came in to the beach to Cora and Mike's family, Cora woke up and was inconsolable - we think she was too hot. So we left early to get her back to our air conditioned room at the resort and a good nap. Thankfully, Mike's family had already been out snorkeling before all that went down.

All the other days we filled our time with hanging out on the beach, snorkeling just off the beach, lounging by the pool, swimming in the pool, and playing mini golf, soccer, ping pong, and badminton. I totally stomped Mike at badminton! :) I also spent a fair amount of time sitting in our room reading while Cora napped - which was actually very relaxing for me.

Had to document our fun time playing badminton - and me stomping Mike at it.

See the sweat beading up on Cora's nose? Poor hot girl.

Hanging out in the tent at Akumal, shortly before the big break down.

One of the days, Marty, Christine, Jeremy and their kids all went to the Xplor park to do all their high-adventure activities. They said it was a lot of fun, but definitely was not baby-friendly.

Cora did pretty well overall. She got a bit of a heat rash for the first few days (I mean, it was 65 degrees warmer in Mexico than it was back home). She slept well in the pack-n-play in our hotel room with us, so long as we covered up the sides of it so she couldn't see us. In fact, one night she was so tired that she slept the whole night through! We took her into the pool for the first time on this trip. She squealed and arched her back pretty big when we first put her in the water, but then she took it a little better later on since we very slowly inched her into the water.

Last morning on the beach before flying home.

Getting home was the biggest adventure of all. First of all, our plane was delayed an hour due to some unclaimed baggage on the plane so they had to find it and take it off the plane. Cora was not as agreeable on this flight since it was later in the day and she was more tired than the other flight, so . . . basically I ended up being the human pacifier since she won't take a regular pacifier. While we were gone, we supposedly had two feet of snow dumped back home. So when we landed, Mike was wearing shorts, a t-shirt, and a fleece jacket to go get the car in . . . so we clothed him with my knee socks and some makeshift gloves so he could dig out the car and drive back to get Cora and me. Then we also noticed the low-tire-pressure dash light on and worried about that the whole drive home. Then when we finally did get home, we discovered a 3-foot berm of snow from the snowplows blocking our driveway. So we high-stepped it through the snow up to our house with Cora so I could put her to bed and help Mike dig out the berm. But . . . Cora had a massive blowout so she was screaming bloody murder while I changed her and then still screamed after when I put her to bed. I still helped with digging out the berm even though Cora was still screaming. Once done, I fed her and put her to bed and she fell asleep after that.

Home sweet home. 

(This post was backdated to January 8, 2017, but it was written on March 22, 2017.)

Very White Christmas in Boise!

This year, Mike, Cora, and I went to my mom's house in Boise for Christmas. The drive there was definitely not what we are used to since we had to stop twice on the way to feed Cora in the car in gas station parking lots. We were there December 22 through December 26. We even got a little treat while we were there: my mom babysat Cora while Mike and I went to a movie at a local movie theater! We saw the new Star Wars movie - Rogue One - or something like that. We enjoyed it thoroughly!

We certainly had a white Christmas - Boise got a ton of snow! More so than usual by far. Consequently, Mike got a couple good workouts shoveling the driveway and sidewalks. 

Christmas Eve was the traditional: dinner, white elephant gift exchange, games, and playing Jill and Mike's homemade chimes. And Christmas day was also the traditional: yummy day at Jill and Mike's house, but! In addition to that, we got the privilege of joining in for the double missionary skype call! Both Jen and Parker called in at the same time and were able to see and talk to each other as well as all of us. 

We love to tease mom about her quite-large table centerpieces. :) 

Chandler, Jill, Alec, Andrew, and Amy on Christmas Eve night

Mike and Mom with Cora and Copper, the dog

Skyping with Jen and Parker! That's me, Cora, and Chandler

(This post was backdated to December 27, 2016, but it was written on March 22, 2017.)