It's a miracle!

Monday morning, I opened the sliding glass door to put Cora's diaper in the diaper pail, and I felt a most wonderful sensation--cool air!!!!! We got a cold front, so at night it's been getting to 60 degrees, and today the high is only 87, with very little humidity! Fall is finally coming! (yes, it's very sad that 87 is fall weather, but this is the South).

And along with fall comes football! Here's Cora and Daddy watching football together. It's always very cute. We've been keeping up with the Cougars, and it's been a little depressing(they're 1-3 now), but we're optimistic about Jake Heaps as the QB. He's already pretty good, and experience can only help.

Daddy's not the only one teaching Cora bad habits. I made cookies last Wednesday, and taught Cora the noble art of snitching. That's my favorite part of baking. I only baked two or three pans at the time (I can't remember now how many it was) because I had to get working on dinner, fully intending to bake the rest of the dough. Well, that never happened. I've eaten most of it, with a little help from Cora and Josh. Whenever I open the fridge, Cora tries to get into it. She was doing that before the cookie dough was in there, though.

For about two weeks, Cora has been reaching for the doorknob. She knows it leads to outside, and she loves to go outside. In fact, twice on Saturday she ran outside when I was putting the trash out in front of the door, and I had to chase her down in my PJ's. Anyways, last Wednesday I heard her playing with the door, looked up, and saw that she was trying to put one of my keys in the door! All this time she's been watching me open the door, and now she's figured out what keys are for! Smarty pants! It was the car key, but still.

Cora's first Play-doh adventure. She only tried to eat it once. She didn't really do anything with it, except squish it a little, which is all I expected. She enjoyed watching me makes balls and snakes, though. We only played with it for five minutes or so.


Cora enjoyed this more. I got "What to Expect: The Toddler Years" because I had "What to Expect When You're Expecting" and loved it. It's great because it has all sorts of advice, from health to activities to development. I love it. Anyways, it said that at 13 months, kids can enjoy coloring. So I taped a piece of scratch paper to Cora's table and gave her a few crayons. She took to it very well--I didn't have to demonstrate at all, so every line on the page is hers. It's on our fridge now. Isn't she just so cute?

Life in general is good. School is getting much better for Josh. He's still gone a lot, but the school day itself is less stressful and frustrating, so he's much happier when he is home. He's still only getting 5-6 hours of sleep a night because he has a lot of planning to do, and if he has anything in the evening, like visits with the Elders Quorum Presidency, he gets less.

I've been going to the library on Thursdays for storytime with a lady in our ward. It's been really fun for Cora because she gets to be around other kids, and they have playtime afterwards, and fun for me because I get to get books to read. I'm working on reading books that have won the Newbery award (best book by an American author every year since 1920). Tomorrow I'm going to see if I can upload some videos via the library computers. Cross your fingers!

Miscellaneous

The last few weeks have been just normal. Josh has been really busy with school, since he has to be there ten hours a day, not including the commute or planning. The first week was really tough on both of us, since we barely got to talk to each other the whole week. Josh was always so exhausted when he got home that he barely had energy to get ready for the next day. Since then, we've made sure to talk about our days and spend time together. We've made sure to go on dates every week.
(Here's the little cutie on her first birthday. Doesn't she look so grown up?)
I understand now why my parents were so excited when I turned 11 and could babysit. It's really annoying, having to get a babysitter every week.

Cora's started wanting to spoonfeed herself, which makes quite a mess. But she's getting better. She pretty much eats everything we do. I made alambre the other night (similar to fajitas, but without the spices), and gave her some of the bell peppers, expecting her to make a face. Just like when I gave her a lemon, she surprised me by loving it and wanting more. I made Mexican lasagna last night, and she liked that, too. It makes dinnertime much easier, now that I can just give her some food and she'll eat it, instead of having to feed her myself.




Cora and her "leather boa"
She likes putting stuff around her neck, including this stuffed snake. I dressed her in this cute, girly outfit one day, and when she put the snake on, I thought of a feather boa. Josh came up with the name of leather boa.








This is the reason we got her a push toy for her birthday. Whenever I leave the stroller out, she tries to push it around.

This is kind of a random post, but hopefully enjoyable. We're all well. Cora is learning a lot. We are a happy family!