November 2015 Recap

Just a ton of pictures and videos from November!

 Seriously, she is so cute!

 Cora helped Sister Robles be the reverence police in Primary one day. If someone was talking she would just turn and stare at them.

 

 We finally got the hang of eating solids!

 When the sun is too bright, I pull the shade visor down over her face. Well NOW she has learned to pull it down, so I will see little fingers poking at it then her proud face as it comes down.

 Here is sweet baby Jane. She was born at the end of October, and gave us quite a scare for a little bit! She was in the hospital for about 2 weeks but finally made it home.

 I love these two.

 Look at those THIGHS. I love them!

 Small, medium, and large babies. I love having so many girls close in age around here! 

 Daylight Savings did a number on us. Cora has been conking out in the car ever since.

 Poor Brandon, the end of his rotations are always rough.

 I love her eyes.

 Grandma Myres got these pajamas for Cora before she was born, and they are SO cute! She looks like a cabbage patch doll in them.

 She LOVES the keyboard. I was trying to play for her but she whined until I picked her up and let her play herself.

 Here is baby Jane again. Either transfixed by Brandon or the light behind him.

 One of the days I ran a Color Run with Ingrid and Star, two of the girls around here! It was was fun, and we got a picture with the mascot.

  Cora in her mermaid tail towel. It is so cute.  

 We live in a very safe area, but it's easy to forget that we don't live far from the crazy. One day on the 95 freeway there was a drive by shooting so the freeway was closed for hours. The traffic was AWFUL! Brandon worked only about 5 miles away and it took him 45 minutes to get home.

 

 So funny story with this. Brandon was SUPPOSED to be done with his rotation by 5, but the doctor kept him late. So I was supposed to go to a dinner for Kendra (in the middle)'s upcoming baby, but I had to bring little Cora along. I mean I couldn't have put her to bed anyway so might as well right? And it was a stressful time so I didn't even have the chance to get ready so we showed up as bums. Sorry everyone else who looked so cute! 

 Got drool? The teething has begun...

 

 Cora really liked Puffs, but was still learning how to eat them.

 It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

 I ran a "virtual 5k", where you sign up and they ship you a medal to go run by yourself. Brandon thinks it's a waste of money and he's probably right, but I still like it. And they are always for good causes. This one was for clean water in Africa, and the medal is a Port-a-Potty.

 We already talked about how Cora hates Santa, but this picture will never not be funny.

 Sweet baby cut her first tooth this day, and the tiniest red mohawk ever!

 This is how we wake up from naps in this house. And she is ALWAYS pulling out my hair, so what's the point in trying to do it?

 And again. Post nap face.

  Day after Thanksgiving, we went to American Airlines arena and watched Kentucky play South Florida University. The tickets, after all taxes and whatnot, cost less than TWENTY DOLLARS. So Brandon got his basketball fix in and I didn't freak out over the price! Win win!

 Seriously. Her legs kill me.

 She is becoming quite the little singer in Primary

 She LOVES the leaves outside. Just inspecting them!

Thanksgiving 2015

I am in total denial that it's almost December. That is just too crazy for me!

This Thanksgiving was a very nice one. Brandon found out the week before that he actually had the WHOLE week off, which meant plenty of time to get things scratched off our perpetual to-do list. Of course, not as much got done as we wanted since Cora was just thrilled to have both of us around. Which means she won't nap very well. Which means grumpy baby by the end of the day.

One of our traditions is doing a "Turkey Trot", which is an unfortunate name for a fun event. Last year I did it with my friend Jeni and her little boy, while Brandon played football with some of the other students.

So I was excited to run it with him this year! But this turned out to be the "Murphy's Law" of runs. Cora was up from 11:30-2:30 the night before (teething...ugh). so we got about 3 hours of sleep. I told Brandon that if she woke up another time I would just run on my own later, but not go to that race. I was exhausted. And of COURSE Cora was totally awake when we had to get up!

We went outside and the wind was HOWLING. Luckily it is warm enough that even with wind blowing like crazy it isn't freezing. And Cora had long sleeves, pants, socks, and a hat on. The Fort Lauderdale Turkey Trot is right on the A1A highway which runs by the beach. We got there and the wind was as strong as ever. In addition, it was whipping the sand off the beach and exfoliating our legs as it went by. We had Cora covered in the stroller but by the end of mile 1 she was screaming her head off so Brandon got her out. Then she was happy, and shrieking at the other strollers as they went by, as if to say "Hey BABIES!"

Overall, not even close to the race we had in mind, but Brandon did get a big bicep workout and a fun time was had.

After that was time for the dinner. We were able to finally get all the grad students together in one spot, minus the 1 couple who was out of town, the 1 family who had a baby who had just gotten home from the NICU, and the 1 family that had some serious morning sickness going on. Brandon made a third small turkey just in case there wasn't enough, then we made stuffing, deviled eggs (with bacon bits- which I HIGHLY recommend), and I made a few chocolate cream pies that are supposed to imitate the Burger King Hershey's Cream pie.
We were grateful for everyone who came together and brought food to make sure that our Thanksgiving dinner could be a success. That's quite a few babies in that crowd!

There are 5 baby girls born within a year of each other- from youngest to oldest it's Jane, Brielle, Cora, Lianna, and Brynlee. I wish we could watch them grow up together more!

We have so much to be thankful for this year. Our sweet little Cora has been the greatest blessing in our lives, and while I used to roll my eyes when new parents would say "What did we ever do without them?" It is SO true! Even with her being so small still, I can't imagine what we did to occupy our time before this. Life was good then, but not this good.