Meeting baby Charlotte.

Old blog post catch up!

Ashlee had Charlotte Jane Rodriguez April 14. She is perfect, and we had a trip planned to see the Cherry Blossom festival in Japantown the next weekend. So it was perfect to meet her!

 Some random pictures: 

 Cora instantly fell in love. James... not so much.

 We went to go see the 16th street tile mosaic steps. Cora is so cute.

I got to match Cora in Japantown. The kimono was totally worth it!

 We got some Shabushabu Japanese food. It's cook it yourself. Cora loved learning to use chopsticks!

 James looks enormous!

 If I couldn't find Cora, she was holding baby Charlotte.

 Oh yeah, and James learned to climb stairs. Ugh.

We can't wait to spend more time with her!

Cora Quarterly Report- 3 years.

Old blog post catch up!

How do I have a 3 year old?

Cora is growing by leaps and bounds. She is now 38 inches tall and 34 pounds. I don't think of it too much until I see the difference between this year and last year. For example, this picture from Brandon's first day of work in 2017 vs. a year later:

LOOK AT THOSE LEGS. She didn't have any legs last year!

Cora's speech is still improving. Now that we know that her ear infections were chronic and not going to go away, I know that her hearing will improve that much more.

She's kind of sassy. KIND of. But she's so funny, she wants to copy everything we do. She wants so badly to be a big girl!

One of her favorite things to do is get ready to "go on a run". I love that I'm at least teaching her to be active.

Cora, you're a great first child. Nowwwww let's see what 3 has in store for us!

Cora's 3rd birthday party

Cora's third birthday party was-of course- princess themed. What else would it be? We invited a bunch of her princess friends to the park, and had a pinata and cupcakes. That's pretty much the theme of all her parties.

 The princesses.

 The most delicate pinata hitting ever.

 Since I had been dealing with sick baby and student teaching, I bought cupcakes. Thank goodness!

 Reminds me of a picture of me from long ago...

This is how you know it was a hit. She fell asleep SO fast!

The day was full of squeals, giggles, drama ("I don't WANT to sit by her!" and other 3 year old girl nonsense), cupcakes, and happiness. Not much more you can ask for!

Frogs and Fairytales at the zoo.

A few weeks ago, Cora and I needed some time to ourselves. I found this activity at the zoo that seemed super cute. So one Saturday morning we went!

Cora had messed up two of her three dresses already that week, and the one that was left was Moana which seemed too cold. So thankfully I had this Rapunzel dress from Christmas that we had never given her.

She was excited to see the princesses, but got a little bit shy at first.

 Then she started to hit her stride about the third princess in. (Apparently this princess company requires them to buy their own dresses, which is why this Cinderella doesn't look like the classic one. I think she looks like the live action version?)

 JUST as we got to Rapunzel she started to leave for her break. So I ran after her yelling "WAIT! SHE HAS A RAPUNZEL DRESS ON!" She was nice enough to take a picture. Look at Cora's face!

 She also really liked Snow White.

 But the person she was the most excited to meet?? The frog. She was a little shy when we got up there... But I mean really, they couldn't have found a Tiana princess?

 After meeting the princesses, we went around and did the usual zoo things. Thank goodness she didn't know about the beauty makeovers, because I didn't feel like standing in line again.

 She walked around the whole way! Which was over 2 miles. So she got tuckered out and fell asleep about 1/4 of the drive home. What you don't see is the half a quesadilla in her hand.

Life with a toddler is hard. You try to do a lot of fun things with them and usually don't feel like it's noticed (based on how they're acting). But then you once in a while find something like this that makes everything better, even just for a day. 

And to all you people who say "Those princesses aren't even real looking!" I will gladly do that a hundred times over to avoid the crowds and cost of Disneyland!

Sanger Blossom Trail 10k

I signed up for a 10k to run with my friend who is training for the Yosemite half as her first half marathon. But then her back hurt, so I figured I'd run it since I already paid.

It was the same place that we went to last year to see the Blossom Trail.

Remember this? So cute.

So the 10K starts the blossom festival that we attended, and since it was a cheap run it was good since everything went wrong. Everyone has been praying for rain, and every one of those prayers was answered between Thursday and Saturday morning. The mountains supposedly got 5 or 6 FEET of snow. Which is great, except when you're trying to drive. I don't know how we drove in 6 Rexburg winters without getting in an accident.

So once I got there, I got my packet and dropped it off at the car. Which I hoped wouldn't be towed (the race director said I was fine parked where I was buuuuuut you never know). I decided to leave my phone in the car since it was raining so much. As I was getting ready, I heard an air horn blast. I booked it over there, and thankfully I didn't miss the start. The rain slowed down, and I realized I wouldn't need my jacket but it was too late to bring it back. So i tried to start my headphones... dead. The portable charger I should have been using the whole drive up was in the car. So, that was the longest I've run without music!

At first I thought the Blossom Trail was going to be in name only, since we kept moving through these neighborhoods with big barking dogs. But we finally made it out to the fields. It smells AMAZING. Almond trees, apple trees, orange trees, etc. But all the rain came with a ton of mud. I almost lost a shoe in it. Thankfully not! 

As we went around a turn, I saw flashing lights behind me. There was a police car that seemed to be picking up the people who were falling too far behind. (The walkers started earlier) I had a handful of people behind me, but every time I looked back there were fewer people behind me and the car was getting closer. So I tried to run a little faster, just ahead of the car. By the time I finished, there were only 2 other people behind me. But I didn't get picked up by the street sweeper!

My time was 1:21:30. 10k is a struggle distance for me, because since the groups are always so small I am usually one of the last few people to come in. It makes it hard to stay motivated.

Now it's time to get ready for the Yosemite half! My goal is to beat my best time of 2:49.

8 Months of James Murphy.

Since it's February 30 (haha), today James is 8 months old!

James has grown SO much the last month. He is now scooting around everywhere, and he got FIVE new teeth this month. Holy cow. Needless to say, it was rough for a while there. But we made it through, and now he's sleeping great again!

(Girl look at that body!)

He eats SO SO SO much. Like 28 ounces of food a day. Plus nursing a few times a day still. I'm actually trying to help him learn that he doesn't need to eat so much, because he'll eat eat eat then spew a few minutes later.

He is starting to get a sense of humor. If we make a funny sound, he will turn around and smile super big at us.

He is now obsessed with dogs and balloons. So we're going to have an Up themed birthday party at this rate (HOW IS THAT COMING UP SO FAST?!)

Brandon got him a balloon for Valentine's Day, and he dragged that thing around with him for a week.

James is developing a very nice little dinosaur screech. It's pretty funny. He has also started saying "Da da", and thinks it's funny when I try to convince him to say "Mama" instead.

Now that his teeth are through, he's starting to sleep better. THANK GOODNESS. He has not been a happy camper the last few weeks.

His cheeks are UNREAL. I can tell if he's starting to smile even when he isn't looking in my direction, because I can see his cheeks!

He sure loves his dad and Cora. He loves his mom, but more so when he realizes that someone else is holding him.

After months of screaming when he was on his stomach, James has finally embraced it and even sleeps on his stomach now. And he LOVES his big boy crib!

Buddy, I love how busy you are. It's exhausting and I'm always running over to save you from what you found, but I love it. You're the sweetest little addition to our family!