18 Months Old and Visit with the Willmarth's

Cora turned 18 months old on March 16th.  At her appointment, she weighed 22 lbs, 5 ounces, and was 32 inches tall.  Her weight was in the 25th-50th percentile while her height was right around average.  Her head circumference was in the 75th to 90th percentile.  Still our top-heavy baby!  I knew she had hit a growth spurt recently because overnight her 12 month pants seemed to get shorter.  She can actually wear some of her 18 month pants now, though many of them are still too big.  I'm hoping she may be able to wear those next fall...  She is continuing to grow and learn every day.  She counted from 3 to 10 the other day, but I've only heard her do that once.  She comes up with new words all the time - purse, Pooh, beans, spaghetti, hat, good girl, thank you, flower, and she even said bra today - haha!

Last week, we were so delighted to get to meet our good friends, the Willmarth's, in Nashville.  We only got to spend one evening and morning with them, but it was so great to see them!  For those who don't know, they were our best friends in Lexington and they moved near Dallas, TX last summer.  A visit was long overdue!  It was great to get to catch up and see how much their little boy, Jonah, had grown.  He and Cora had such a fun time playing together!  They played with Cora's little soccer ball for the longest time on Thursday night.  Jonah was good to share with her most of the time, but we could definitely see the gender difference in roughness!  It is so neat to see how differently God created us, even from early on.  One of my favorite moments was Friday morning after I got Cora dressed in her cute little outfit (thanks Auntie Amy!) when Jonah told his daddy to look at Cora.  John said something about how pretty Cora looked, and Jonah said so sweetly, "She looks like a princess!"  It was just precious.  We're thinking of an arranged marriage for them...  :)  I didn't take enough pictures, but we really had a wonderful time.

We went to my parents' house yesterday to celebrate my grandfather's birthday.  Cora and her little cousin, Hayden, got to play together for a while before Hayden headed north to see Amye's parents.  They had the best time playing with an animated duck that my grandmother had bought them last Easter!  It flaps its wings and nods its head while quacking "Here Comes Peter Cottontail."  Hayden was busting a move like nobody's business.  I honestly thought she was going to come up off the floor!  I so wish I would have gotten a video of it.  Cora enjoyed moving a bit, but she decided that it was more fun to sing along.  She also was singing along with a little bunny who sings "Jesus Loves Me" and she has been singing a lot of the "ABC" song.  She gets random letter in there, but is especially good at S, T, and U.  I just love to hear her sing!

We went out to eat with Jeremy's parents this evening, and we got to see a first.  There was a little boy across the way (15 months old) who started crying.  Cora has definitely cried before when another baby was crying just because it seemed like the thing to do, but this was different.  She kept looking over at the little boy and her bottom lip would come out.  She kept looking at me with big tears in her eyes, chin quivering, and I really think she was worried about this little boy.  My big girl is learning empathy!  It was so precious and pitiful, I nearly cried myself.  We had to take a walk to keep her from getting upset.  It was quite a neat moment.

Here are some pictures from the last couple of weeks.

Jonah and Cora checking out the dog

Puffs please!

She loves to play with air conditioning units

Playing

John and Jonah at breakfast

Jonah and his mommy - not sure what that face is!

Couldn't get him to smile for the camera, but I got lots of smiles when he was watching a video of himself!  :)

Sharon and I with our "babies", getting ready to head south

Cora playing Playstation football with Daddy and Grandpa (or "Papaw" according to Cora :))