Pictures of a Few Days Past

A few favorite pictures from the days I haven't been posting.

I cleared out all of Cora's baby clothes. It's possible I cried, but Cora helped and was so adorable I had to smile. There are no words for awesome and fun and awesome it has been to have this baby in our lives for the last year.

So much fun and SO MUCH awesome.

Also awesome has been watching the kids play together. This is largely due to Landon and his tone from the top with Claire- he LOVES babies and loves family and could not be more patient and kind to his sisters, and the two of them are always looking to include Cora in what they do. Just tonight as I was walking Cora into her room, both Landon and Claire ran out of their room where they were supposed to be picking out clothes to wear tomorrow to give her hugs.

Here they are playing in the Britax car seat box now living in our kitchen because I realized that the convertible car seat Cora was in was the same one we used for Landon in 2007 which is slightly more than the 5 years car seats are good for before they expire. Oops. Third baby.

The box is now a rocket ship and all three kids travel to far flung places regularly before dinner. No one told me three kids would be this much fun.

This is a phone pic from Halloween night that I forgot to upload. She kills me.

Every night Cora helps JP load up the dishwasher.

We're big believers in chores and Cora, always wanting to be like her big siblings, has caught on early.

She isn't big on snuggles or hugs or really anything that doesn't involve forward motion and/or Landon or Claire, but sometimes she'll make a little sigh, tuck her hands between your bodies, and lean in to you and it is The Best. Here, she is Cora-Hugging JP.

Every morning she screams and waves a joyful goodbye to me as I head to the car to go to work and it is both the best and worst way to start the day. Her joy is infectious and makes me want to turn around and stay home. Unfortunately on that particular day I was taking 8 hours of testimony, which is one of the most intense but fun things I do at my job, so staying home was definitely not an option.

After MUCH delay on our kitchen (our original cabinet maker disappeared; like actually left the company and disappeared and didn't tell anyone), we finally have our cabinet drawings finalized with building underway. The original granite we picked out weeks ago was sold, so JP and I went to the granite warehouse on Friday and picked out something new which I maybe like even better.

It's going to be so pretty!

And finally, Cora is walking! She's been standing for MONTHS, crawling and then popping up on her two feet to wave her hands around and do things before dropping back down to crawl furiously again, but in the last few days she has decided to give walking a try and now she's walking all the way across rooms! (Now with a better quality video.)

Walking! from Lag Liv on Vimeo.

Tomorrow I head to the FBI, Friday is Landon's school's fall festival, Saturday is cooking, cleaning, and party prep, and Sunday is CoraBunny's first birthday party. It's rainbow themed and it's going to be wonderful and maybe the planning and cooking and cleaning will distract me from the fact my baby is turning one and I can't believe how sad I am about it. I have LOVED having a baby this time around, all of it, from day 1 to today, and no one is more surprised about that than me. I think it's because I also have two super fun big kids, so I get to do all the fun big kid things and have conversations and read books and go on adventures and not have to hands-on-do much of anything for either of them anymore, so I can just enjoy the hell out of the fun, smiley, chubby baby who doesn't argue about anything and seems perpetually delighted to be here AND gets to tag along on all the adventures we never would have done if we only had a baby. Two big kids and a baby may be the best family unit combo ever and I don't see why we can't just stay here forever.

Cora, who thinks she's a big kid already anyway, has agreed.