One Month

Cora is officially one month old today! Hard to believe.

In the past month she has:

• Gotten a lot of hiccups (we both have them right now).
• Started looking directly at us and following us with her eyes for a few seconds.
• Developed more predictable eating/sleeping/playing patterns. 
• Started staying awake and alert for several hours at a stretch. Thankfully she's still a great sleeper and lets us get our shut-eye at night!
• Developed better head and neck control. Cora can now hold her head up stably for a good 10 to 15 seconds at a time.
• Given us a few precious smiles.
• Finally lost her umbilical cord stump, just yesterday. I kept it instead of throwing it away so Geoff could see it when he got home from school. I just new he'd want to see that shriveled up little piece of nastiness. Which reminds me, I think it's still sitting on the changing table - must remember to throw it away.
• Learned how to read and to solve differential equations.

Okay, that last one may not be strictly true.

Anyway. One of my coworkers gave me this really great idea of a way to document Cora's first year of life.  It's called "Marshmallow Pictures" and it's meant to capture your baby's development not only in growth, but also in her ability to interact with her surroundings. Here's how it works:

On her monthly birthdays, set her up in the same place. Same surroundings, same furniture, same everything. In front of her, set a marshmallow with an unlit candle in it - one marshmallow for each month of life. Then take a picture (or several). My coworker loves looking back at the pictures of her 3 kids and seeing them change from sleepy newborns who don't care about the marshmallows to inquisitive babies trying to grab them and shove them in their mouths.

It was a fun little photo shoot! Clark (the dog) just observed for most of it, but then decided to see what all the fuss was about for himself.

Day at the Park

Today was the last full day that my family was here visiting. A very active 5 year old and 3 year old don't do so well cooped up in a small apartment all day, so we decided to hit up the local park while it was still cool outside (below 95 degrees). There are several nice parks in our town, and one not very far from our place. We had a fun couple of hours until the sun came out in full force.

We played.

We slid.

We sat in the shade.

We found a nice shady spot and decided to take some family pictures.  Mom was put on camera duty for the group photos.  Half of the pictures, Geoff and I look horrible because Mom was only focusing on cute Cora!  Still, several pictures turned out great; here are our favorite shots from the day.  

Finally, our favorite of the family portraits, which Geoff cropped for our new header:

We've had a great time having family in town to visit, whether they stayed or were just passing through. It's sad to see them go, since we don't get to see our family nearly often enough. But I suppose that's one of the reasons we were so keen to start this blog - so you could all see Cora progress from a sleepy newborn to a screaming or smiley baby, to whatever she becomes in the future.

introductions part 2

Here are some more pictures of Cora being introduced to her family.  This is Gena's cousin, Aimee...

and here she is with Aimee's daughter Ali, followed by her nephew, Damien, playing with her tiny feet.

introductions

A few family members were able to make it down to visit this week, and we are having a great time introducing them to our new addition.  First my mother, Paula, was here for an entire week.  She was more than excited to meet her first granddaughter, and was a huge help while she was here.  Gena and I got a little spoiled having her cook and clean for us all week long!  We did let her hold Cora a few times though, so she was happy.  We realized a little too late that we didn't get any pictures of just her and Cora, a mistake we'll have to remedy during her next visit, but here she is with one member of the next visiting crew.

As you probably guessed, the second crew included Gena's mother Leta, our niece and nephew Ella and Weston, and our sister-in-law, Stephanie.  Here are Weston and Ella posing with their first cousin, and Stephanie with her first niece.  

Here is Leta adoring her fourth (and favorite we're sure) grandchild.  

Tomorrow we're hitting up the park, so hopefully we'll get an actual picture of GG&Co that is worth posting, so stay tuned for our first family portrait!  I'll leave you with one of our current favorites, hope you enjoy!  Believe it or not, the bracelet she is wearing was handmade by her Grandad, Matt...it has her name, a heart and a cross, and Cora loves to chew on the strings!

PS - Congratulations Cindy and Jake on your latest family addition, we wish you the best of luck with your 3rd beautiful child!