We celebrated Cora’s first birthday in several phases, that lucky little gal. First phase was in Texas, with family and good friends in Houston and Dallas. In Dallas, she was able to meet for the first time her maternal-paternal great-grandparents, Granny and PawPaw Henderson and Grandpa and Grandma Thomas. She also was able to meet several cousins (Liz and Will, Sam and Tameka, Rachel and RaShad, Lydia, great-aunts and uncles and cousins Becky, Doris, Town and Stace, and I’m sure I missed somebody… big families == BIG LOVE, right?).

The second installment was a birthday party at the park near our house in Seattle. Once again, that girl has everything anyone could ever ask for. Mama and babe both had runny noses and low grade fevers, but that little Bam Bam didn’t bat an eye. I can’t say the same for myself.

And in case you were wondering why this post took almost three months to appear, happily our blogs are back up, the webserver, fileshares, etc. are all rocking big boy style, and the posts will flow aplenty now… because Sean also figured out how to add time in to the day while he was learning Linux.

It’s been a tragically full summer thus far for our family. On July 16th, we lost Cora’s current sitter, Marilyn. It was a surprise to our family and hers and a huge shock to our lives after just recently losing Sean’s grandmother.  Cora’s short life has already been punctuated with much sadness. We are only grateful that she is so young and will most likely not remember, at least not with the sadness that typically comes with such events.

We sent our condolences to Marilyn’s family and made a donation to the Seattle Parks Foundation in her memory. She shared the parks with Cora and the other kids in her care over her 30+ years as a provider.  Rest in peace, Miss Marilyn.

Some of my favorite things from this month:

Frantic arm waving/giggling/body shaking at the sight of water or food; that ticklish spot on her collarbones and the resulting laughter, the slow smile she gives when her daddy enters the room; how amazing it is she can recognize her grandparents via Skype when it’s been months since she’s seen them in person; grabbing my hands to clap them together (but not clapping on her own); rolling, rolling, rolling around.

Some pictures from her 9th month on the outside (equal time out as inside, says her dad).

I had no idea what it was like to have my baby able to move on her own until it suddenly just WAS. She is officially mobile. The rolling around only got her so far and she usually got bored with it before too long. This week however, my little gal is fit for the army with her creeping on elbows and hands movement. It’s not a full blown crawl, but she can get clear across the room and into anything she finds interesting in less time than it takes to tell a bad joke.

She also is really into food now, too. Can I get an A-MEN? Because something has to keep that girl full and I just haven’t been able to keep up!

I’ll dig up some pictures (hopefully a useful video) to add to this but it’s so hard to just enjoy her while trying to capture it all on camera sometimes …

I can’t even believe how fast time flies. Cora turned 8 months old yesterday and she’s so different than that first day we brought her home.

We’ve tried to capture as much of the wonder that is a little baby growing up in pictures and video. In stories we’ve got a few choice tales to tell.

Her paternal grandparents got Cora a bike trailer for Christmas and the weather shared a nice day for us to go on a ride in it for the first time last week. Despite some hiccups getting started, she seemed to really enjoy the ride. I know I did. I’m enjoying the improving weather and opportunities to take Cora out in it.

For the big kids in the family, the baseball season has started and Cora and I went gone out to cheer on Sean at his first game last weekend.

I’m playing league ultimate with several friends from Rice on a fun and laid back team. It’s nice to get back on the field to play snd have Cora there on the sideline to snuggle between points.

There’s more going on but I don’t want to bore you and frankly I’m happy I got this much into a post!

PICTURES! – Cora Month 6

More PICTURES! – Cora Month 7

and yet more PICTURES – Cora’s First Easter

Well folks the time sure does fly when you’re having fun. And Cora is a ball of fun most days of the week. She gives us a LOT to laugh about.

Some fun she’s thrown our way since 6 months old:

• Sprouted two new teeth
• Rolling over from front to back, back to front and using these skills to move across the room when we’re not looking (which isn’t that often, HONEST)
• Sitting up on her own
• Eating “solids” (seriously why do they call this stuff solids, it’s practically all liquid!)
• Feeding herself (hand held foods) and occasionally the spoon makes it to her mouth
• Been to her first ComicCon
• and conversely, is teaching her mama about dressing like a lady*

She has continued to be quite the chatterbox. We’re pretty sure “mama” and “dada” have escaped her lips and we’re happy to possibly even be the intended subject BUT we’re still waiting to claim first word for non-babble words with purpose. Stay tuned there.

Pictures have been added to the gallery and it was really fun taking Cora and her birth buddy Orion out to Madrona Park to take pictures and “play”.

The move has really afforded us easy access to green space and beautiful views. I hope that Cora is learning to appreciate the beautiful things around us and personally that I never lose my awe and wonder at them either.

* If you know me at all, you know this has been a struggle 🙂