4 Years of Marriage.

Wow, I can't believe it's been 4 years. On the one hand, that seemed to go so fast. On the other hand, it feels like it has been much longer (but not in a bad way...)

In those four years, we've gotten 2 bachelor's degrees, moved once (not bad at all!), and of course had our wonderful little Cora. 3 of those years have had a sibling on a mission, and I taught for one. Brandon is now done with his first year of PA school (WOOHOO!) and starts his clinicals on Monday.

I told Brandon this has been the hardest year yet. PA school was hard for him, being pregnant was hard for me, moving was hard, sleep deprivation was hard, etc. But it has been the best year yet as well. I thought I loved Brandon before. But as it turns out our love has exponentially grown this past year... or more like these past 4 months and 4 days. Brandon as a husband was great, but Brandon as a dad is spectacular.

As we are up to our nose in hospital bills (yay!), we weren't really going to do much. But of course Brandon went way above and beyond that. He bought a waffle maker and ordered Harry Potter 7 from Amazon for our bookshelf. We decided from now on to get one each year, so by the time we are done it will be our 10th anniversary. Just a fun thing to have. I, of course, did not go above and beyond because I'm not Brandon. But I did get a "date in a box", as per a suggestion. It had some sparkling cider (which was gross, don't deviate from Martinelli's or Meier's), Swedish Fish, a card game of "Would you Rather?", the DVD "Jack Ryan", and a Dr. Seuss book because Brandon really loves reading with Cora.

We walked across the street to the beach after the sun went down, and stood in the water. Of course, the smallest member of the family did NOT like that. I guess it's easy to forget that when your legs are only 6 inches long (or so), that any ripple in the water is a big wave that crashes into your heavily padded rear end and is a catastrophe, even if you are being held still by your parents.

We took a picture of us kissing Cora, and saw she was this mad:

Sorry Cora, we really do love you!

Luckily, she took a bath then went right to bed after that.

So, bring on marriage year 5!

4 months- I never want to forget.

How can this be?! I told Brandon she is closer to 6 months than to being born... this is crazy. It still feels like yesterday that we were terrified of picking her up because she seemed so tiny.

But this has really started getting fun. She is developing a personality and I love it!

I never want to forget:

- Her noises. She will talk your ear off if she is in the mood. She has also started giggling a lot. See example here:

She has started making some funny squeals as well. While we were flying home she saw some girls that were talking to her, and she would do this super high pitched squeal once in a while and it was cracking up the people behind us.

- Her hands. She is always clasping her hands together, which is so stinking cute. It makes her look like she is being really polite.

She even does it with her toes sometimes.

- Her thumb sucking. She just discovered it and while I know it will be a nasty habit to break eventually, for right now it's so cute.

She only does it when she's really tired. I have to keep that nail trimmed so she doesn't poke herself in the eye with it!

- THE HAIR. It is still red, and I love it. I want it to stay red forever.

- The bubbles. She doesn't even realize it, but she blows bubbles all the time and they just hang out there. (Now, this picture it from when she was mad, so don't think we are bad parents. She was just grumpy.)

So while it means we have to change our shirts a lot because she always has drool bubbles (and spit up bubbles, ugh) coming out of her mouth, we get a kick out of it.

Have there been parents more obsessed with their baby? If not that is OK, I love her so.

Cora's 4 month stats.

So safe to say, Cora is no longer the tiny strawberry we once had. I mean, look at these thighs!

 And those arms! (Taken today at church.)

So we speculated how much she would weigh. When we got to the doctor's office, she was 15 pounds! That is 3 pounds in 2 months. And 23 1/2 inches long. Not bad!
That puts her in the 79th percentile for weight and 16th for height haha. My tiny chunky monkey. She is starting to get heavy.
PS- she did great with her shots. She took a nap afterwards and gave me this face when she woke up. What an angel. You spoil us, Cora.

When Aunt Bubba comes to town.

Warning: This has over 100 pictures on it. Just too many fun things to see!

So Bethany got to go to Dallas and then out to Miami over the course of a week. Since we only had 3 days with her, we tried to make the most of it. Granted, that is kind of hard when you have a baby who needs naps, so hopefully she wasn't too bored.

She flew in late Wednesday night, and since SOMEONE was still not on Florida time for sleeping I took her with me to the airport. The next day, we went down to Wynwoods and saw the wall art there. I have heard a lot about it but have never been. It is really amazing to see!

 

 

 We said this was Graham during his intense moments. Haha sorry Graham!

  

 

 "Stop teasing!"

 

 

 

 

 And of course we found a Cars picture for Dane!

It was SO hot. We had to leave earlier than planned because Cora was turning super red and I didn't want her to get dehydrated.

The next day Cora had her 4 month appointment, and did super well with the shots so we decided to meet up with some friends down in Key Biscayne, about 30-40 minutes away. Unfortunately, I got ONE picture the whole time because Cora got a little sensitive so we had to leave pretty quickly again. Luckily they all have kids so they know how it is with babies and shots. But it is a beautiful beach and I want to bring Brandon back to it!

And look at that, we have a tiny thumb sucker! I love it.

Saturday we went up to Palm Beach County to go to Lion Country Safari. So funny story about this, we went to Bear World with Bethany when she came to Rexburg. This was similar, but about 10,000 times cooler. So we decided that when she comes to visit us wherever we live next we will go find a drive-through animal experience for her to enjoy.

 We saw rheas (similar to the ostrich...)

 And ostriches... they are HUGE!

 They came running toward us. It reminded me of Fantasia.

 YES finally the animals we wanted to see, lions!

 According to our audio guide, lions can sleep up to 20 hours a day. When we got into this section the lions were all asleep at the other end of the enclosure. Very lame.

 But, right as we were driving through the part where the lions were sleeping there was a HUGE crack of thunder and it startled all the lions out. So Bethany (as our photographer) got some good pictures!

 We also saw wild donkeys...

 And miniature antelope... (they were super animated and funny.)

 Nice action shot Bethany! It was a fight between two of the males.

 We also got some water buffalo in there...

 More ostriches.

 When it starts to rain they sit down, or "batten down the hatches" as they wait for the storm to pass.

 Cora even got to see one.

 This was probably my favorite part. You drove in a big loop around rhinos and zebras. Rhinos are becoming extremely endangered so it was awesome to see some. Hopefully they are still around when Cora is our age!

 Don't mind me just hanging out in the backseat with the screaming baby.

 The giraffes standing around. They are SO tall.

 Also chimps.

 At the end of the drive is a little park. They even had camel rides! (but it was closed... we are going to go back so I can ride a camel though.)

 About this time Cora woke up from her nap (she fell asleep screaming at about the giraffes part of the drive) and was not too impressed.

 Giant tortoises.

 Beautiful macaws.

 The last thing we did was feed the goats. Bethany was a little afraid of them but they were hilarious.

And then Sunday just came too soon! I feel bad, Bethany didn't get to spend too much time holding Cora. A big part of that was that she was kind of tender right now. I also told Bethany it's just kind of my default to hold her, so I didn't even realize I was doing it all the time until it was too late. Sorry Bethany!

(Ignore my double chin, I swear it's the angle.)