16 months and on the move...

Hello everyone! Today I am officially 16 months old. Like I said in my last post I am a very busy girl so it has been a while since anyone has heard from me. At my 15 month appointment I weighed 24 lbs. 13 oz. (75 %) and my height was 33 1/2 inches (100%). I guess mostly I have just been really busy growing. I do have to say all of the nurses and Doctor Trexler always make a big deal about how good I am; I don't even cry when I get my booster shots (minus the MMR). Well, I will tell you I am about tired of the poking and prodding and I let everyone at the office know; amazingly they still say I am a really good patient. But now I push hands and fingers away and shake my head I will not just endure quietly anymore; I guess my mom knew that was coming eventually. From what I understand we don't have to go to the pediatrician so much anymore now that I am getting bigger!

Last time I posted I said I have 8 teeth and was working on 4 more. Still the case. I am working on all 4 molars. These teeth are giving me trouble off and on, but they are almost all the way through. I can't wait; and then I am sure I will be working on other teeth as well. Now that my hair is longer, mom doesn't do the sprout so much anymore. I get pigtails or when she is feeling lazy I get a clip in my hair ( my dad says this is his favorite because he is really good at putting a clip in my hair).

At the beginning of October my mom and I went to Chicago to visit Uncle Micah and my cousin Mia! My Uncle Micah was amazed at how much I had grown and the adults were excited for me to meet my cousin again. On my first day in Chicago it was beautiful and sunny with a nice breeze. After my nap Mia and I saw each other. She was so excited and had so much to say and I just loved looking at her. I think I kind of stressed Mia out because I was getting into all of her things, but she was pretty gracious over all! Uncle Micah cooked a lot of meals for us and I enjoyed each one of them. We had a quick visit and we were sad to go, but I was ready to get home and see my daddy!

Just yesterday I started climbing. My dad was watching the UT game and I climbed up on the couch with him. He was surprised, but I just wanted to be close. I am not sure what my mom is being so uptight about. Kids are supposed to climb right??? Now that I can climb on things, my parents are going to be real busy.

I am still working on my vocabulary. Dadda and Momma are still my favorite words, but dadda is the number one word in my vocabulary; I love my daddy! I have added light= ight, thank you=tank u, baby= dee, and yes= yesh. I am still working on saying my dog's names: Toby and Baily. I am in no real rush though; I get plenty of attention from them. I have also been working on matching my farm animals on my puzzle and sorting shapes in my shape sorter. Sometimes I get frustrated and just throw all of the shapes into the center just to hear the sound; that's good enough for me sometimes. I also have a little duster and dust pan that I get out and clean with; I like to help my mom. I also like to get my little puppy vacuum cleaner out when my mom is vacuuming.

Yesterday my family and I went to a family picnic with my daddy's company. We went to the Serengeti Resort. There was food, games and humongous moon walks and best of all was the wildlife! I really got a kick out of being able to walk all over the place. I had the biggest grin on my face; it was discovery time. I also did a lot of people watching. I loved looking at the animals too. There were ostriches and a camel, a giraffe, zebras, and impala's. One of the ostriches came up to the fence and I had a blast looking at this gigantic bird! Later on when we went to the fence the camel was there. My mommy lifted me up and I got to pet his humongous nose; that was the highlight of my day!

Well, I am still discovering everything and loving it. I know I will keep my parents very busy as I always do! I am looking forward to meeting the newest member of the extended family, Miss Lucy Jane! I am also looking forward to my Aunt Abigail's wedding in December; it will be like a family reunion! I am sure plenty of other things will happen so I will have some things to share on my next blog. I hope everyone is doing well and I am going to do my Cora thing!

Love,

Cora Ann

I'm One!! Woohoo!

Wow! I am officially one year old now! At my 12 month check up I weighed in at 22 lbs. 13 oz. (75 %) and my height was 31 1/4 inches (96%). I am just growing like a sprout! Well, a couple of weeks before my first birthday I began walking and my mom made a big, big deal about it. I decided I was going to take my time instead; a few steps here and a few steps there. At the beginning of this week I really started walking, more and more each day! Don't worry though I still speed crawl when I get tired of looking like a drunken sailor. We had a celebration with the family on July 4th (my due date) for my first birthday! It was great fun! I enjoyed hot dogs and fruit for lunch and then most important; my personal size Birthday cake. At first I just touched the cake and I wasn't sure what to do with it. Then I took a scoop of icing with my finger...uuuummm. Then another finger-full of icing, then a fist full and then mush, mush, mush. This was my first introduction to sugar and I had a sugar high for a while after my cake. It was a very fun filled day and it is was wonderful to be with my family on my special day!

I have been intertaining my family quite a bit lately. I love to clap and wave hi and bye! I love to blow raspberries, click my tongue and make all kinds of noises. I have added 'da' for dog to my vocabulary. I am still very much in love with my dogs! I love to pet and pat my puppy dogs and talk to them. I believe the dogs still love me, but they are not too sure about me walking around; now I can get to them a different way!

I am still enjoying feeding myself and I enjoy eating anything and everything. My mom has been given the okay to start on dairy. My mom has been trying to get me to drink milk and I don't quite know what I think. My mom is still working on me though. In the meantime I have been eating cheese and yogurt and I am really enjoying both! I have been feeding myself breakfast with a spoon and working very hard on feeding myself with a fork as well. Using a fork is still a work in progress, but I am enjoying it all just the same! Now I have 8 teeth and I am working on 4 more; I am doing lots and lots of chewing!

I had my first beach experience as well, towards the end of June! We went to Rockport for a big Williams get-together. I got to use my floatie suit in the pool and my parents thought I looked like a little turtle. We then gathered and had a cook-out with the entire family after the pool! What a fun time to visit with family. I took a nice nap and then we went to the beach after my nap. I went into the water with my mom and dad. I didn't really like the waves very much, but I was okay with the water hitting my toes! My favorite part was playing in the sand! I had a great time using my shovel and pail! I made a big mess, but it was big fun!!

I know there is so much ahead of me, but right now I am really enjoying the mastery of walking. I love to snuggle with my mommy and daddy and other loved family members. I am learning so much with all of my playgroup buddies! I know I have so much to learn, but I am taking it one day at a time. Mommy still does my hair in the spout style, hopefully she will get better at doing hair, cause that is getting pretty boring. She told me she is not quite ready to cut my hair yet, so I guess the spout it is until then. I will try my very best to keep everyon posted as I am a very, very busy girl now as you all know. Hope this blog finds everyone well!

Love,

Cora Ann

Ten Months and Growing!

Well I am now a little over 10 months old!! Quite a bit has happened since my last post. I now have 6 teeth; 4 on top and 2 on the bottom. I am also working on 2 more teeth coming in on the bottom, so I will have my matching 4 on top and 4 on bottom. I am very much enjoying being able to use my teeth to much on things:) As of a couple of weeks ago I stopped eating my mom's food she mills for me. My mom thought it might be because I was sick, but no I just wanted to eat like a big girl. After the the second day or so my mom was so exasperated with me she decided to heat up some chicken and squash and rice and put it on my tray and I just went for it. I was very happy and focused and this is what I was trying to tell my mom; it just took a while for her to figure it out. This week I had my first BBQ experience at Rudy's and I ate turkey, brisket and baked beans. I was a happy, messy baby!


I am officially mobile...I was pulling up on all kinds of furniture before I started crawling. I started crawling at about 8 1/2 months and everyone thought it was very cute how cautious I was at first. Now I speed crawl and you can hear me coming. I keep my parents and family very busy. I crawl, pull up, cruise and stand and steady myself. Today I believe I probably wore my mom out. I either wanted to stand and be right beside mom or I wanted her to walk around with me. I started walking around quite well with help a couple of weeks ago at Playgroup and that is one of my new obsessions. Everyone thinks it is very cute that sometimes I look like I am marching because I really bring my knees up when taking steps. I have started to look slightly more graceful; at least I think so. My other obsession is the stairs; I crawled up with my mom following right behind me. Last week was a very busy week for mommy and daddy, but mostly mommy. That is all I wanted to do; mommy could distract me for about 10 minutes tops and then I was back at the stairs. Now miraculously there is a gate at the stairs and I was none too happy to realize I couldn't make a trip up the stairs. Mommy is much more relaxed now I have noticed.

I have also been saying "dada" and "mama", but I started saying "dada" first and still say that more often. I stared saying "mama" Easter Sunday! I have to say my mom acted a bit silly about the entire thing and still does. I also say "nana" and many other small words, but I am still keeping up conversation with anyone and everyone who will listen.


I have also enjoyed all of the attention I receive from the dogs while I eat. They sit/lay at my high chair hoping I miss my mouth; which I still do on a pretty regular basis. Speaking of animals our family also made their first trip to the zoo and Aunt Abigail joined us. It was a great time seeing all types of animals. My favorite was the black leopard; I watched it as it passed back and forth in front of the window. I also really enjoyed the fish and the monkeys. I was pointing and "talking" up a storm. So many new things to see. It was great and we were all pooped at the end of our visit. We are looking forward to more visits in the future!! This is a fun time for me because I am learning and exploring so much! I hope this blog finds everyone well!!

Cora is 8 months old!

Hello Family and Friends!! I am now 8 months old and still changing and growing everyday! Mommy and I finally got through vegetables and fruits. It took me a while, but I finally started to get a taste for different fruits. Now I have cereal and fruit for breakfast and my Mommy makes meals for dinner that I have been enjoying. So far chicken, lima beans, squash and rice has been my favorite dinner! Right now I am about 21 pounds and 30 inches long and still growing. I will know how much I have grown for sure when I have my 9 month appointment in April. Mommy will also hopefully get the go-ahead to slowly re-introduce dairy into her diet in April as well. She is definitley more excited about this than I am.

The last few weeks have been kind of tough for me because I am cutting 3 of my top teeth right now and it is just really uncomfortabl! Daddy and Mommy have been trying everything they can to make me more comfortable, but sometimes nothing helps. Mommy actually saw a little bit of teeth coming in this morning and got pretty excited, but I didn't let her look too long, because who likes people sticking thier fingers in their mouths? That's right; no one! My parents and the rest of my extended family have enjoyed the transformation from a gummy grin to grins will cute little teeth here and there!

I must say I have been working really hard over the last month! I have been trying really hard to crawl. I get on my hands and knees and I rock back and forth, I stick my bum in the air and I move my knees, but not my hands so I end up in a sitting position or I just kind of colapse. I have teased my parents a couple of times with one set of a crawl and then I colapse! This is a lot of work for a growing girl! In the meantime, while I have been working on the whole crawling thing; I scootch everywhere to get where I need to go. I love that I can scootch right up to the puppies, Baily quickly moves out of the way, but Toby loves me and he paitiently hangs around while I grab on him, pet him and talk to him. Within the last week I sit up straight from my back; so now I have figured out two ways to get to a sitting position so I can check everything out from a different view! I have also started working really hard at pulling myself up to a standing position. If I am stading up and holding on to Mommy's fingers sometimes I become brave and I try to steady myself and let go. This makes Mommy very nervous, but I am learning so many things; I gotta try it out.

The latest things my parents are trying with me is Baby Sign Language; we will see what happens with that. In the meantime I am really enjoying babbling and talking and learning new ways to manipulate my voice and mouth! Grandpa Wentworth has been having conversations with me so that I understands that my first word needs to be Grandpa. I will have to see, but in the meantime I am enjoying having all kinds of conversations with whomever will listen to me! I am also enjoying my playgroup and interacting with all of the other kiddos. I am learning so much from them and I enjoy watching all the action when we all meet up! I must say I have a pretty busy life, but life is good!! I hope everyone is doing well and I will continue to keep everyone updated!

So Miss Cora Ann is now a little over 6 months old now!! Quite a bit has changed since the last time I blogged. She has gone through many many vegetables and the only ones she wasn't crazy about were carrots. I know it's surprising; who doesn't like carrots!? She just doesn't eat them with the same gusto she does every other vegetable she has tried. Right now we are finishing up zuccinni and then we will try potatoes and end with sweet potatoes. Then we will finally try fruit!! We did slip in some applesauce with Grandma Wentworth and she had us all in tears because we were laughing so hard. She would scrunch up her face something awful and then open her mouth for more. We will try it again later.

Cora has been able to meet a lot of family over the holidays. Towards the beginning of December we went to Fort Worth to see some family for the first time. We went and visited Great Gran, Great Granny and Great Grandpa. We were able to get a generational picture with Cora, her daddy, Grandpa and Great Grandpa!!

During the Christmas holiday Cora got to meet more family and friends. Cora's Uncle Clay came in from Australia to surprise everyone for Christmas! Cora helped us keep the secret and she finally got to meet her Uncle Clay and received her first 'Roo'. She also got to meet her Great Aunt Brenda which was great as well!! She also got to meet Jeffrey Barkemeyer and they were so very cute together; so interested in someone their own size. ALso during the month of December Cora has gotten 2 of her front bottom teeth and she is sitting quite well unsupported. Oh and of course she is still very taken with Toby and most other dogs she meets, but Toby is still her favorite and she is his favorite!! We are just so amazed how well she is doing and how much she is growing; although she has finally slowed down a little bit which is fine with us. We are loving this time with Cora; she is exploring so much and growing and learning so much and it is a joy to be able to experience all of it!!