If it isn't one thing, it's your mother.

On Mother's Day, after church Mike found out that our local NHL Hockey team, The Predators would be flying in and fans were encouraged to come welcome them off the plane after winning an amazing game the night before against Vancouver, 2nd round of playoffs. We decided there is nothing better to do on a Sunday afternoon than go for a drive with our family (in the hot heat and humidity to stand in blaring sun to wave at people we don't know). :) We actually had a great time and our niece even got her picture made with Jordan Tootoo, a definate favorite. Here's the kids giving me some love. Cora's tattoo isn't from the Godby's like Evan's awesome one awhile back, it is thanks to http://www.picnik.com/. Thanks Picnik. ;) he he he.

11 months 1 week and 1 day.

We cannot believe you are 11 months old. We still think you are 3 months old, that is until you show us you are very determined to get down and crawl around. At this age you are still very content and never complain unless it's something we have done wrong (like not put you to bed). You are STEALTH. I never know where you will end up in 3 seconds when I put you down, except for the fact that you LOVE to slap your open hands on the ground as you crawl. :) You really like to copy us. If we cough, you 'cough', if we growl at you, it is returned (you've done this growl on your own since only a few months old. It's hilarious from such a tiny and adorable baby) when I do this funny thing and sound with my lower lip, you do your best to repeat but it's much more adorable to see you do it. You really like to say "dadda, dadda, dadda" even though you have no idea why you're saying it (unless of course for some strange reason you are actually voicing your preference and in that case, there must be something wrong with you cause mommies are #1 little lady!). You crawl so fast and yesterday you and your 'boyfriend' Logen were so cute chasing each other in crawl, laughing as he was after you. You were so big to keep crawling away from him, giggling, only to stop to make sure he's still chasing you... a true girl. lol. Even when I stood you up, you wanted to 'walk' to him as I held your hands - such a big girl! Being so distracted with 2 and one being your brother, sometimes, Daddy and I forget to realize just how much you are learning and how instinctively smart you are getting. I'm grateful God is watching over you when I am not all there. One of your favorite and our favorite things you do is crawl to a gate, stand up and start 'rocking out' with your bouncing/jumping  and attempts to bang your head on the gates bars as you sort of grunt like a monkey. I describe it as your 'caged monkey' act. Banging your head... you like to bang your head on: the back window #1, trash can, ground, us, anything. I don't know why but it's funny. SHOES!!! You eat all shoes left in your wake. We cannot put shoes on the ground anymore which may be a hint that we should put them away... nah. You have two teeth on the bottom middle and one stared on the top/front but mysteriously, you have a single canine tooth appearing before the rest on the top and you like to grind it! :( This drives mommy crazy and you have been scolded for doing so, much to your sadness poor thing. You love Smokey's bed and his dog toy, DISGUSTING!!! You also love the cat's scratching post, gross. If you are not at one of those, you are of course at the dog bowl of water, splashing. rrrrr. Your favorite place to play lately is in Evan's room. You love it and I would forget you are in there if I wasn't staying on top of things, but you could play in there for an hour. Your room is boring so you come right out after 10 min of rummaging through your toys or wastebasket. Your biggest compliments from friends are: You beautiful blue eyes, your cute nose, your adorable face, your clapping talent (and waving), your gummy smile with crazy teeth and your sweetness. Mommy and Daddy second all of that. Evan loves to play with you more and more, often getting on top of you to tickle but we take him right off cause you only like it at first but then realize, he's too heavy. :) You will be one before you know it. We bought you and cousin Juliet matching outfits and pearls for your 1 year pictures plus I will be taking some in your pink tutu then packing it up for good in a frame. I hope Juliet is going to do the same? I'm going to look for a field with tall grasses to do the photo shoot. I saw a good spot at the Stones River Battle field I might try. It's very serene there so I hope it works out. Thank you for being such a beautiful daughter, full of happiness and laughter and goodness. We love you!

Here's your 11 month and Sealing Blessing dress photo shoot in our back yard...

{crazy teeth}

Her special dress

Sealed, Named and Blessed. Cora Grace's dress, hanging from her bird hook on the tree mommy painted on the wall of her nursary.

Our big Week... End. Before our new beginning.

After the already documented day of court on April 25th, C.G. was out of it...

... but still oh so good and cute. Daddy didn't mind lending her a shoulder. :)

The kids totally earned a little swim party after naps. They had the best time together and Evan figured out how to make the squirt toys squirt water for the first time ever:

um... yes. this IS the cutest bathing suit you've ever seen. ha ha. it was a gift at her baby shower that is finally fitting her. I couldn't bring myself to putting a big ol' diaper on her cause her buns looked so adorable in it! Thankfully she was potty free.

 Fast Forward to Saturday, April 30th, We are at the temple to FINALLY be sealed to Cora Grace. Ahhh... What a beautiful day it was by the way.

 And the friends and family that were able to make it to the ceremony are below (minus Chuck Scott who had to get home to Freda who wasn't feeling well. Sorry we missed getting your picture!). It was fun to take everyone's picture individually with Cora Grace. She loved it too? :) ha ha ha.

2nd couple: Amy and Asher, we had only met through the phone and computer through Tennessee FSA and we invited them to come, partly so we could finally meet them! Thank you guys so much for coming to our sealing, it was very special to have you there to celebrate the joy we share in Adoption.

 Here's the girl of the day... Cora Grace. Her dress was made by my sister in law Jennifer who is married to my brother Bennett who came to the Sealing and Blessing with my mom. Ben and Jen are the parents of Juliet (thier #4) who is 4 hours older than C.G. and just as cute. Let me just also mention that Jen made this dress while caring for 4 children, one being a nursing 6mo old and a husband. She hurried the job too because we thought we would be doing this 5 months ago. I am so happy her dress still fit after being made in December. That is a little blessing cause she worked so hard on it and I loved the design so much. Thank you Jen, you know we love you so much, we wish you and the kids could have made it out but we'll plan another time for you to make a trek to Tennessee from California. ha ha ha.

Our friend Rachel took many of these pictures of us. Thank you so much, we really appreciate your generosity and we got some good shots!

don't worry, that's Rachel's shadow to make sure she didn't fall while I took this picture. whew.

see! ;)

Not only did Jen make the dress but she made this bracelet for Cora and she even made it the whole day before riping it off and losing it. I found it later near her crib. Thankful. :)

My Mommy, Karla and my brother Bennett (6th of 11 children) were the representatives for my 10 siblings. :) If only airfair wasn't so ridiculous right now, more would have been able to make it but we were happy that anyone could come from California and we definately felt the love of all my family who wanted to come. I'm working on a transporter for any future events ya'll want to come to so you won't have to miss so much work or spend so much money to come see me (and vice versa). We enjoyed the 2 of you. We aren't used to that little of family around when we're together are we? ha ha ha. Usually we have around 30 people minimum at our family get togethers... homesick for California all the sudden.

Our local temple here in Franklin/Nashville Tennessee. We feel so blessed to have a temple so close to our home.

Sunday, May 1, 2011 was Cora's blessing. Michael gave it and was assisted by Bennett W. Spencer O., Stephen J.,  Christopher W., and Joel R. (maybe missing someone? hope not, sorry if I am). It was very nice: blessed that she was surrounded by love by parents, family and ward family. that many prayers were given in her behalf that she would be here. blessed to be strong, healthy, happy and that she has a sweet spirit. she will have a strong bond with her brother. blessed to recieve an education where she will seek knowledge and share it with others. she will be blessed with a love of the scriptures and the words of living prophets and testimony of Jesus Christ that she will share with others. blessed to choose a worthy husband who she will go to the temple with and be sealed as a family and to have children. At the end she was blessed again to know she is loved by all those around her.

When Bennett came back to sit down he said she was doing gymnastics in their arms, ha ha ha. Michael said she did a 360. :). Normally babies are around 1 month and sleeping when they recieve this blessing but Cora's couldn't be done until finalization and she was practically a toddler. Good thing they were all strong men. :)

4 others besides myself took notes of the blessing, thank you so much. Not only will I keep it for her but now my family who couldn't be there can 'hear' it. :)

Papa George and Grandma Jennie came from Nashville to hear my blessing.
 (although I'm not sure how much they heard as they were graciously entertaining Evan so I could hear and write what I could. Thank you!)

Evan showing some love to his official sister. It couldv'e been worse. ;)



funnies

Today (on her last day) our babysitter Sara asked if Evan has ever said the following....

"Look! Daddylions... (dandelions) ... and Mommy Lions ... and Baby Lions."

no. but I wish he would have! hilarious.

the house that poop built...

[warning, very tired mommy blogging. may be delirious. don't judge me :)]

Man. I love to blog and talk and share and post pictures and repeat. I now also need to post about Cora Grace at 11 months as well as about her Adoption. We really had such an amazing week last week/weekend for Cora Grace's finalization and adding my Mom and brother Bennett here, it was really so great but I'M EXHAUSTED!! I didn't even want to blog this but wanted to journal my failure in blogging about the weekend. I will still blog it but maybe not till next week. Bennett has 4 children and a wife he loves so much and is so dedicated to. He was understandably looking forward to his mini vacation from lots of kids and demands of work and fatherhood. Even so, he was so helpful without asking, with our high spirited 2 1/2 year old and I think enjoyed himself when he made either of the kids giggle. Thank you Bennett for having fun with Evan and treating him like you enjoyed him. He misses you. I'm so glad the house didn't attack you with allergies this time and you could save the money spent at a hotel.
My brother left Monday morning and then got my mom all to ourselves. I really needed that and Michael always enjoys weaseling a foot rub out of her ha ha ha. My mom is 'chicken soup for the soul' for me. I enjoy becoming my own woman, wife and mother in some ways but admit in others, I just wish I lived closer to my parents so I could seek their love and advice more often, face to face. I'm grateful to modern technology of telephones and skype if we wanted to see each other face to face. My mom really said some nice things to me while she was here that were very validating but also humbling in her advice of things I could seek to improve ( and definitely DO seek to approve ). I'm grateful for her insight and her spiritual maturity that I can glean from. Thank you mom! We both really loved your advice and encouragement on our relationship and our parenting.
So, back to reality: I took my mom to the airport this morning before anyone else was up, I was back. As soon as I walked in the door, motherhood began. Mike was groggy from just waking up. I heard C.G. doing her monkey cage jump in her crib (video soon) so I went to her first: diaper change, clothes change, kisses and hugs. Evan stirred so I went in his room for more of the same. I had a fleeting thought that I could actually attempt to get started on Cora's 'blankie' today that I've wanted to make for 11 months now but knew we all needed some food first. Waffles of course! They ate some and I froze the rest to be toasted on demand. Point really being that it took some time to do that. I realized I hadn't sent my reminders to clients yet (usually send out on Tuesday) so now, I had to lock Evan in his room and Cora in her crib to accomplish this in peace. It took about 15 minutes. When I went to get Cora she was fine... when I got to Evan... OH... MY... GOSH!! For the second time in 2 days, he had removed his own pants and POOPY diaper. This time though, he had dumped the poop right on the carpet and smeared it here and there around his room (i'm afraid of still finding poop somewhere). He also attempted to clean it up with all the wipes left in his wipes container which ground it further into the carpet!! barf barf barf!!! I just wanted to die thinking of how I would clean this or IF I could clean this. As I unsuccessfully wiped up Evan and the floor, I carefully next moved him to the bathroom and started the tub filling. Cora who had been wandering in her room on the floor now, came quickly to her doorway gate when she heard the tub and whimpered to join Evan in a splashing good time in the tub. Well, after washing him off, draining the tub and re-filling it for C.G. to join. I let him play while I remove her clothes only to find a baby poopy blowout! SHEESH! I seriously am mentally and physically exhausted at this point from the week. Luckily she's even adorable when she's pooped all over herself so I calmed down but the damage was done. Not only did I have baths to give, now I had 2 1/2 heaping loads of laundry to do. :/ Oh my gosh, I'm going crazy thinking about it again. lol. Anyway, by the time I got things sort of sorted with the kids cleaned, dried and clothed... and 1 load of laundry in I looked at the clock to find... 1pm! I couldn't believe it. I lost 3 hours of my life and didn't notice. ha ha ha. I made C.G. her belated bottle (she was due for one at 12, yikes!) and put her strait to bed, then Evan followed at 130p. Instead of taking a MUCH needed nap myself, I instead watched a movie like a zombie. ha ha ha. Anyway, I was still busy during and after that movie especially once the kids woke up at the same time (by the way, the poop seems to have come out with oxy clean... we'll see in the next few days. we're renting a floor cleaner at some point in the next 5 days to do both kids whole carpets). Anyway, I'm not exactly mentally prepared to go back to work tomorrow especially with the overwhelming challenge of yet again finding a new babysitter (ours is pregnant with twins, due soon enough). ugh, my least favorite thing to do in life. Can't a magical perfect person just show up in my path and offer to be a babysitter for the price we can pay and treat our kids as their own?.... I wish.
Ok, now that I am now cross eyed, I will stop rambling and go to sleep. I may not even take my clothes off..... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....................

Sealed

What a beautiful day we had today. What a blessing. Thank you for all that were able to make it and share this special moment with us. We enjoyed our visit with you and your spirits of love.

(more pictures and commentary from today, tomorrow after we have pictures of her blessing in the morning)