First Easter Egg Hunt

Cora has her daddy wrapped around her cute little finger!  She melts his heart every time she yells "Daddy!" when he comes in our front door.  So, her daddy wanted to make sure he did her first Easter egg hunt up right.  And, to John, that means dyeing our own Easter eggs.  As soon as Cora went down for her nap, we set up a chemistry lab in the kitchen.  And, we successfully dyed 18 easter eggs.  Then, it was just a waiting game for Cora to wake up.  John was pretty eager to set up the hunt for sweet baby girl.  So, as soon as she showed any signs of life after her nap, he ran outside to act as the Easter bunny.

She was pretty unsure about the whole event at first, but pretty soon she got into it.  She would make a cute little face every time she would find an egg.  It was a lot of fun!

(Yes, she is clutching two graham crackers.  We could not get her to put them down!)

This purple egg was my favorite one.  I like how it is speckled pink and blue.  

Cora with her Easter treasures!

Jesus is Risen!

¹On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. ²They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, ³but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. ⁴While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. ⁵In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, "Why do you look for the living among the dead? ⁶He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: ⁷'The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.' " ⁸Then they remembered his words.
Luke 24:1-8

Joyous Easter from our family to yours!

Coloring (Way) Outside the Lines

When you're an on-the-go kind of girl, things like drawing and coloring are not that high on your priority list.  Cora is just now becoming interested in those fine motor type activities.  We decided to get her little table out so she could put a masterpiece down on paper.

The funny part is that she never actually drew on the paper.  She picked up the crayons and put them down.  She attempted to color on the crayons.  She even managed to get a stroke or two on the coffee table!  But, on the paper, nada!  Hah!  One of these days we'll get there!

Shoes - The Universal Girl Language

Cora's a rough and tumble kind of girl.  She likes to run, climb, scramble, jump, wiggle, flip, fly, and even fall on occasion.  But, she can be a prissy girly-girl, too.  Yia Yia and Dado took her shoe shopping recently and as soon as she got her new shoes on, she immediately cast off the old ones to the floor.  Apparently, the appeal of new shoes is universal!

I have a really bad habit of shucking my shoes as soon as I get in the door.  The problem is that I don't have a particular place I put them.  I just put them wherever I feel like at that moment.  So, at any given time, there may be a half dozen or so pairs of my shoes scattered about the house.  Cora's new favorite thing is to put my shoe on and walk around.  Notice I said 'my shoe.'  She puts one shoe on her right foot and walks wonkily around the house.  I tried to put the other shoe on her foot, but oh she got mad.  Did I mention she's fiercely independent?!

You'll notice she chose the black wedges to match her black and white striped pants.  She chose to accessorize with the red ball.  It was just the pop of color this outfit needed apparently!

My Kind of Game of Catch

This ball is much easier to catch!

Naptime Crafts

Recently, Cora and I had selected some fabric for the purpose of making a smaller, church-nursery friendly diaper bag.  Then, we met a friend who sells adorable monogrammed bags.  I couldn't resist her catalog!  So, I was left with some cute fabric that I wasn't sure what to do with. . .at least until I found this pattern for a reversible bubble dress in Tanya's Etsy shop.  Because I didn't use bandannas, I had to modify the pattern slightly.  But, I think it turned out pretty cute.  Here it is on the hanger.

It's not as puffy as I would like it to be, but that is from my miscalculation of Cora's size.  It was super easy to make, so I'll know better what to do next time.  

Next up, fun fleece scarves!

Cora's Many Faces (21 Months Edition)

All right Mr. DeMille, she's ready for her close-up!

Naptime Crafts

I've stated before, and I'll reiterate now, I'm not a crafty person.  I don't come up with great ideas, but I can take a great idea and recreate it.  I've seen a lot of little girls wearing cute little pillowcase dresses.  I was looking for a tutorial on the internet when I came across this tutorial for a cute dress out of hand towels.  As luck would have it, I had found some cup towels at Marshall's with an Easter theme.  I had to trim several inches off of the top of the towels since baby girl is a bit of a shortie.  But, after quick seams to the sides and a ribbon casing, we have a cute little Easter dress.  Yay for naptime!

The Amazing Coco

How does she do it??!!

Do Ya Like My Cap?

I got this cap here.

I think I'm gonna put it on.

Got it!

Whaddya think?

No? Not so much?

How 'bout now?

(I love it baby girl!  I love it!)

Go Bears!

Or, "Go, Bay-uhs!" as Cora says!

Fun With the Camera

Today I've been experimenting with my new camera.  And, without a doubt, I can definitely say that I have no idea what I'm doing!  But, even a blind squirrel finds an acorn now and then, or whatever they say . . .  

So, Cora and I played in the backyard for a little while this afternoon.  She ran around and chased Penny, and I managed to take about 164 photos.  Most of them were not really worth mentioning, but I did get a few that I just love.  

Here's my favorite.

I cannot believe I managed to get a straight-on smile.  Yay!

I like this one of her laughing, too.

So cute!

And, this one is kind of fun.

She looks very thoughtful. . . probably thinking when is Mommy gonna put that silly thing down!

Wordless Wednesday

A Surprise From Mema and P-pa

Seems like we always meander down to Mema and P-pa's during Spring Break.  Last year, Cora crawled for the first time right in Mema's kitchen.  This year, we did not meet any major developmental milestones, but we sure had fun!

Mema and P-pa had a special surprise for John and I - a new camera!  P-pa dabbles in photography, and he helped me pick out a nice camera in order that I can take better pictures for my blog.  (But, I think he had an ulterior motive. . . I think he just wants more, more, more pictures of little missy!!)  So, here are the first pictures with my new dslr camera.

Two of my favorite subjects!

I like this picture even though little missy is a little blurry.

On the go!

More to come!

The Post Where The Mom Breathes a Sigh of Relief. . .Sort Of

You may remember this post from some months ago.  I was a little worried about little missy's mothering skills.  But, I am happy to report that she has bonded with her new baby.  Recently, Mema came was her for a visit, and she brought Cora a new baby doll blanket.  Cora is very fond of this new blanket and she loves to wrap up her baby and hug and coo over her.  Adorable!!  She also loves to feed her baby 'duce' (juice).
So, she will lovingly put baby on the coffee table  

and offer her the sippy of juice. (She may or may not take a pretend sip for herself before offering it to baby!)

The mommy was so excited to see this improvement in her nurturing.  At least she was excited until the mini-mommy repeatedly picked up and slammed down the poor dolly to get her positioned just right.  sigh.  Baby steps, I suppose.

At least we are no longer throwing the baby out of the stroller!

More Fun at the Park

The weather has been just beautiful here this week.  So, of course, Cora and I were just itching to get out in the fresh air.  We took a little walk over to our favorite neighborhood park to play.   My little monkey had such a blast!

You notice these are all action shots - as usual.  I asked Yia Yia when kids begin to sit still and pose for photos.  She told me that it was about 6 months ago! Hah!  

I love this shot.  Something about the sunbeams shining down on little missy makes me really happy.  I hope y'all are having sunbeams shining down where you are, too!

March Resolution Update

As I mentioned in this post, John and I vowed recently vowed to "get in shape, by golly!"  John found this fab website called SparkPeople. If you are unfamiliar with it, this site is basically like Weight Watchers online except. . .wait for it. . .wait for it. . . it's FREE!!  (Disclaimer:  This is not a paid endorsement, but I would gladly take it under advisement should anyone at SparkPeople decide that they should like to advertise in this very small and narrow market.  Clearly, this blog is an advertiser's dream!)  John and I are both experiencing immediate success.  Although, I have come to accept that there are some hard lessons to be learned:

1. Men can eat a lot more than women and still lose weight. (Especially men who are almost a foot taller than you!) The lower end of John's caloric threshold is the maximum of mine.  Tonight after dinner when I had reached my threshold level, John started to inform me "I still need to eat about. . . "  His voice trailed off when he saw the look of death I was giving him.
2. Men get more credit for the same amount of exercise.  Sunday, we had to trade off walks because of our schedules and Cora's naptime.  So, John speedwalked down to the trail and back for a total of 2.6 miles in 39 minutes.  He got credit for 319 calories.  I walked and ran the same distance in the same amount of time and only got credit for 150.
3. Men can just eat more.  John's basal metabolic rate (the amount of calories he needs per day just to stay alive) is 2500.  My basal metabolic rate is 1645.  This means that when we have reached our goals and just want to maintain our weight, John can eat almost a THOUSAND more calories than me - without exercising!  'Sup with that??

So it should not surprise you that John has lost about 10 pounds, and I have lost about 4.  But, I still love it, despite the fact that the process is cosmically (or is that comically?!) unfair.  The easy thing about it is that since you are recording everything you eat, you subconsciously make more of an effort to eat better.  Still, it will not necessarily stop me from a splurge now and then.  Like when I had a 500 calorie muffin for breakfast and washed it down with 250 calories worth of Dr. Pepper.   I balanced my 750 calorie breakfast with a 42 calorie lunch.  (It was a giant bowl of lettuce and some tomatoes with balsamic vinaigrette. You can eat about a ton of lettuce for about 7 calories!)  I realize this is not the best approach to dieting, but that was the one day it was really off balance.  So, friend, you have endured all of that drivel so that you could get to the point of this post - Cora anecdotes!!

Along with watching what we eat, we have been exercising most days of the week.  So, Cora (who has incidentally now mastered climbing into her stroller by herself) is in heaven.  The day of my muffin transgression I had decided that Cora and I would walk to the store instead of drive.  She gets so excited about going for walks that John and I have to be very careful not to say 'walk' within her earshot unless we are planning on going immediately.   Anywho, we trounced off to the store where I discovered all kinds of wonderful things that I should probably not eat.  And, where Cora found all kinds of wonderful things that she would like to play with - things including a shiny purple pinwheel which happened to be only $1!  Score!  Best dollar I've ever spent.  

She loved watching it blow in the wind so much so that her poor mother spent about 20 minutes trying to replicate the wind with her lung power after they were back home.  (Some free advice:  Make sure to stop blowing on the pinwheel when you feel your head getting fuzzy and your heartrate rapidly increase!)  So, every walk since, she has held her pinwheel proudly in the air 

(It's hard to get a great picture of a pinwheel in action, so I took the liberty of labeling it for you. ; )  And, because I am a sucker for her sweet little self, her is another jewel for you.

She loves her sunglasses!  (I think she kind of looks like a cute, girly Johnny 05.  Bragging rights to anyone who can identify that reference!) Well, I think that ends this excessively long and boring post.  Happy March Resolutions, y'all!