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!

Beginning of Semester 2

Well, since Brandon's back at school (wahhhh!), I thought I'd do exactly what he told me not to do and brag talk about how well he did last semester.

We have been told since he got accepted into PA school that the first semester would be the hardest. We are still hoping that is true. Because after last semester, you would think he could do anything but we are having a baby right before his finals week! So the adventures never stop.

But when I found out I was pregnant just as his semester was starting, I had no idea that meant I would be basically out of the running for an entire semester. This semester, I've made a resolve to be much better about being productive and contributing to this household. But Brandon picked up the slack, and as hard as I knew it was for him he really did not blame me.

In addition to my being sick, Brandon was called as the Ward Mission Leader in our ward. I found out yesterday that they've never called a grad student to be the WML because it is such a time consuming calling. Naturally. But he really has never complained about it. He hasn't been able to do 100% of his calling, because there aren't enough hours in the day to do that and be a balanced student, but he has stretched himself to make sure he can get done what needs to get done.

I think that because he has taken on all this without putting anyone else at fault, and with a positive attitude, he did as well as he did. Because he got a 4.0! Thank goodness. He is the epitome of "Be prepared and ye shall not fear". From day 1 he made sure to set aside a few hours a day to study, and by the time finals came around he wasn't cramming to make sure he got the absolute best grade possible because his final grade depended on it. No, he went in with a clear conscience knowing that he needed to get above a B (or C, or D, whatever) to get an A in the class. Granted, he got A's on all his finals but he was not overly stressed out about it. He had already built up such a padding that he didn't need to pull any all nighters to make sure he was ok. 

I'm proud of how hard he has worked so far, and I know he will work hard this semester too. He did say that he will have a harder time studying for finals this semester, because he'll just be thinking about the baby coming. I'll keep pushing him to study, but I'll secretly enjoy that.

Weekend of partying! (Memorial Day Weekend)

Brandon and I are constantly in the struggle between time and money when we want to go explore. Exploring during the school year was always hard, because of homework and whatever. Our first summer= time. Second summer we had time, but Brandon wasn't working so money was lacking. This summer, we can finally afford to explore (a little), but we don't get to spend much time together on the weekends.

So, fast forward to this week. Brandon got called into work on Tuesday 4 hours early, which meant he didn't have to go to work on Saturday until 6. We decided to go to the wind caves. That's the hike we tried 2 years ago with Dallin and Mikey. Where we didn't make it. But we were DETERMINED this time!
On the way up to the trail, we noticed some snow on the side of the road. Weird, since it was 65 degrees outside. But we kept going. When we got to the trail however, we realized it would be harder than we thought to get to the caves. The trail was completely snowed over! We could only make it about 500 feet. Fail.

 We decided since we were 3/4 of the way out to Jackson, we'd make it out. The pass was BEAUTIFUL, and besides a motorcyclist almost making himself our new hood ornament the drive was uneventful.

We were walking around, and saw that Jackson Hole has a "Ripley's Believe it or Not!" exhibit. I LOVE visiting those places, so I said let's check out the price. It was $12 a person, so we went. Here were some of the highlights from there:

Allosaurus skull.

Made entirely out of matchsticks.

This cat was made entirely out of used up dollar bills. $2,000,000 worth, to be exact.

This picture was made out of dryer lint. Pretty impressive for sure.

The world's largest ball of barbed wire. So obviously I'm trying to look scared.

A single whale baleen. Which just shows how massive whales are.

Us and the world's tallest man... something I'm pretty sure is at every Ripley's exhibit.

This 20 foot long snake skin belongs to a snake commonly found in Miami. Greaaaaat.

Buffalo couch?
There were also bears, vampires, and statues of all the Wild West figures. Annie Oakley, Jesse James, Butch Cassidy, Billy the Kids, etc. Oh yeah, and the world's largest belt buckle collection!
Unfortunately, the pizza place we like in Jackson got closed down so we just got a bagel at a shop for lunch. We took the scenic route back, through the Palisades (where I saw lightning strike the ground, which was intense) and Swan Valley. Of COURSE we had to stop and get square ice cream from Rainey Creek.

Then I brought Brandon to work, but since he only worked for 4 hours we decided to go see the new "X-Men" movie at 10:10. Seriously, we were in party mode! Something about the warm weather...
Sunday we decided to go camping (yes, on Sunday. But it was free so it was like a sleepover outside.) We went with our friends Trent and Chelsea, who by the way is 34 weeks pregnant and a TROOPER! Luckily they had an air mattress for her. It was just way fun to sit around the campfire at night with friends and talk, even when we heard a pack of coyotes... luckily Trent has a pistol.
So Monday, we got back from camping, showered off the smoke smell, and decided that instead of going into work to do paperwork, we'd go to Mesa Falls. I love driving north of Rexburg, because it's so beautiful once you hit Ashton and north.

That was at the lower falls. We heard there was a hike to the upper falls, but after driving around to the upper falls and realizing we'd have to pay to park there we kept driving to Island Park. Brandon wanted to go fish at the dam, so that's what we did.

I ended up just napping in the car... we didn't have pillows while camping.

Now time to wrap up the school year!!