Boyd Orchards and Other Stuff

A couple of weekends ago, we made a trip to Boyd Orchards in Versailles, KY, and met up with our friends David and Laura Probus and their adorable little girl, Anna.  It was a beautiful day, and we had such a good time!  Cora liked the pumpkins, and she really enjoyed sticking her head through the wood cutout things for photo opportunities.  :)  We got to see some farm animals and went on a hayride.  The highlight of the trip was probably the fried apple pie and the apple cider!  It was a wonderful day.  Here are some pics:

Life for us has been pretty crazy the last couple of weeks.  We are finally getting ready to move!  We'll be heading south on October 31st.  We still haven't had any luck selling our house, but we trust that everything will work out when the time is right. 

Cora continues to learn and explores.  She is saying ball now...well, really it's baa, but we know what she means.  :)  She has been going absolutely insane with her ball popper lately!  It is so fun to watch.  She is also saying "mama" all the time.  It's driving Daddy crazy.  We'll ask her to say 'dada' and she won't say it anymore.  Instead she usually responds with an enthusiastic "mama!"  Of course, I get a kick out of this.  It was a long time coming!  Cora also pointed and asked for something for the first time on October 22nd.  I had given her a little bite of my iced sugar cookie which she had never had before.  She liked it enough to actually ask for more!  With Jeremy and I as her parents, she's bound to enjoy sweets.  :)  Cora still hasn't taken her first steps yet, but she is getting more and more confident walking with fingers.  I don't think it will be much longer.


Here are some other pictures from the last couple of weeks.  Hopefully we'll have some fun videos up soon.

Cora looking quite stylish in her Sunday dress

Something about black tights on such little stubby legs makes me smile.

It's for you!

Cora's first pigtail!

Cora discovered her shadow - she enjoyed watching it dance!

Cora LOVES to watch mommy through the glass when I am outside grilling

Cora's New Toys

Cora got lots of fun new toys for her birthday!  Here are some pictures and videos of play time.  :)

She loves to take the balls out, but she is also very good at putting them back in.

She's a pro now and starting it up!

She has really enjoyed reading all of her new books!

She certainly can make a mess...

Cora got a Winnie the Pooh card that played the song - she really enjoyed it!


Here's Cora playing with her ball popper and her musical table:


And more dancing with her musical table:

Cora Leigh's Birthday! (2 weeks later...)

So, I'm a little late posting this, but our baby girl is now a year old!  Cora celebrated her first birthday on Thursday, September 16th, and I cannot believe it.  We went to Tennessee for a long weekend to celebrate her birthday.  We started on her birthday by taking her to the doctor to get her shots.  Not exactly a fun gift, but the gift of health is worth something, right?!?  :)  She weighed in at 19 pounds, 2 ounces (20th percentile) and was 27.75 inches tall (13th percentile).  Her head circumference was 46.5 cm which is the 86th percentile...poor thing is definitely top heavy!  Maybe that's why she's not walking yet - hard to balance all that weight on her little body!!  Anyway, I always enjoy looking back at mine and Jeremy's milestones for comparison - at 1 year, Jeremy was 31 inches tall and 26 pounds, 4 ounces; I was 28 inches and 19 pounds, 8 ounces.  She's definitely more on track with my growth rate.  Dr. Gillispie said that she looked great.  She did pretty well with her shots this time around.  She didn't get mad until her second one, but she was able to get over it pretty quickly afterward by reading one of her books that we brought with us.  After her appointment, we headed to Tennessee for the weekend.

It was a crazy but fun weekend!  Saturday, Jeremy and his dad went up to Knoxville for the football game, so all the ladies hung out at Mandy's apartment and made preparations for the party.  It was quite a crazy day preparing food and decorating for the party.  The theme for the party was kitty since that was Cora's first word.  We made kitty balloons and kitty cat plates.  They turned out really cute, but unfortunately the helium didn't hold in our "helium quality" balloons.  All of our poor kitties were laying on the ground Sunday morning (the morning of her party).  Luckily they started going south on Saturday, so we knew we were going to have a problem.  We made it work with some balloon sticks that Mom found at Hobby Lobby - it was just quite an ordeal.

Cora's party was Sunday afternoon, and she did very well for the most part.  She didn't participate in the gift opening much, but she did enjoy playing with them after they were open.  She really enjoyed the birthday card that she got that played "Winnie the Pooh" when you opened it.  We were so excited for cake time, and were fully prepared for a big mess.  Cora was not so enthusiastic.  She kind of picked at it a little bit and licked some icing off of her fingers, but didn't make much of a mess at all.  Oh, well!  We still had a wonderful time celebrating with our family and friends.  You can see the pictures on my facebook album: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2478132&id=12924167&l=f0a0a230e7

It sure has been an amazing year.  We have no idea what we did with all our time before Cora was in our lives.  We can't wait to see what kind of fun this next year has in store for us!