++ 9 months! ++

We have reached the home stretch for the first year and my goodness how things have flown by. Because Brett was away with our camera, snapping photos in far away lands, I don't have quite as many pictures to commemorate the 9 month milestone as I would like, but I've put in a few here. Recent developments and activities:

• Crawling like nobody's business and very steathy about it, too, I might add. Not so interested in pulling up to stand just yet, but up on her knees to get better views of what's going on.
• Loves waving bye-bye, or really just waving in general. Does it with both hands at once.
• Despite the slow start to solid foods, once she got the idea, she has decided that she loves to eat! This girl can pack away a 4oz container of plain yogurt, a small bowl of cereal and multiple handfuls of Cheerios, and that's just for breakfast! And she loves doing the feeding herself - not happy unless there's something on her tray that she can do herself.
• Lots of babbling these days, in a very cute, conversational kind of way.
• Loves watching anything and everything that big brother Larson is doing or saying.

Below: Cora's demonstration of "so big!"

Sitting pretty, showing off her growing hair, which now very nicely covers any evidence of a former bald spot.

I love this one: I think she's both talking to herself and concentrating really hard on playing the drums on my belly.

Likes:

• The Bath! Not afraid of the water, this one. She keeps trying to get down to "mouth" the tub drain and doesn't seem to remember from the time before that she got merely a mouthful of water instead. It's pretty funny to watch and totally doesn't bother her in the least.
• Eating, see above
• The tupperware drawer in the kitchen. We pretty much have to wash our food containers before we use them, because they've been emptied out onto the floor a dozen or so times by Miss Cora on a nightly basis.
• The cat. Squeals of delight any time there's a cat sighting.
  

Hiatus

Whew. It's been a bit of a month, if you know what I mean. Hopefully my 5 readers out there haven't completely given up on us! I'm back, have lots of photos to post and things to share...

First:
Brett made another marathon business trip (now that it's over, I can tell you about it) to here:

Can you figure it out? (Hint: They speak Turkish.)
Larson wanted to go, too.

But the three of us stayed behind, with business as (almost) usual. Daddy was missed and we were very glad when he came back! Grandma once again arrived to save everyone's sanity for the second half of the trip. After our amazing nanny, Lindsey, put in some extra time, including an entire busy call weekend! Larson gave Grandma a thorough education on all the cars in "Cars", his current favorite topic of conversation. You know the Flame Guys, right? Cora took about 30 minutes to decide that Grandma could be let into her inner circle and practiced getting yet another grown-up wrapped around her finger. Hopefully it wasn't all work and no play for Grandma and she'll keep wanting to come back. :)

Second:
Garden update! Maybe it's not so exciting to others, but the fact that I can actually get things to grow just tickles me, so I'm going to post a few pictures (I'm sure they won't be the last...) Just scroll down if you only want to look at people-pictures :) We had a great showing of our tulips and cherry blossoms. Now as those have faded, the perennials are starting to flower. I can't believe that the columbines I planted in a corner came back, much bigger, too, and some of the shrubs that were nearly dead when we re-planted our "yard" a couple of years ago have made it through and actually produced flowers this year! To think we almost threw them out. The dogwood tree is just blooming now and the white flowers are so pretty. Don't have a good photo of them yet, but hopefully soon.
Here are the ranunculus near the front door:

Tulips, daffodils and Japanese barberry (which only a few weeks later are so much fuller than in this picture!).
Larson and I doing some spring planting while Brett was away. The flowers to his left are Iceland Poppies.
The above picture reminds me...
Third:
One of Larson's first real boy moments happened a week or so before Brett left. They were coming home after it had rained one day and Larson said, "Look, Dad, I found a worm!" Brett turned around to see Larson holding said worm up in his fist. Then, "I'm SQUISHING it!"
Despite the fact that squishing worms is something I find pretty disgusting, I just smile every time I think of that story. All of it said with sheer joy and excitment on Larson's part. These are the stories I want to remember always.

Lastly, a trip to the park on one of the first warm, sunny spring days. We somehow managed to get Cora strapped onto my back (not a one-man job!) and hiked down to the beach to watch all the sailboats and enjoy the sunshine.

Next on the agenda is Cora's 9m update and some more silly pictures of a typical evening in our home. Happy Spring!

Cuties in the tub

What more can I add? This is pretty standard bathtime fare at our house. Cora's starting to really move these days (she just discovered the cat food this weekend, yikes!), so I want to enjoy her chubbiness while it lasts.

+ Happy Easter! +

[Eating very first Cadbury cream egg, and surely not the last...] "Mom! There's YOGURT inside!"
Happy Easter! Now that we've had enough warm weather for the tulips and daffodils to finally appear and the cherry trees to bloom, I feel like spring has arrived. Here's wishing everyone the best in this season of rebirth and renewal.

Here is a play-by-play of Larson's egg hunt. Chilly weather and rain forced our Easter Bunny to hide the eggs indoors and Larson was determined to find them all...even the ones hidden under the couch cushions! (there weren't actually any eggs in the couch cushions, but a helper (that would be dad) sneaked one in there while Larson had his head buried to help him out a bit).

On Saturday night, Cora was baptized at the Easter Vigil service at our church. It was a very long service but both kids held up remarkably well, especially Larson, who was _fabulous_ up until the very end. Even to cooperate for pictures at 9:30pm (waaaaay past his usual bedtime!). Cora's dress was picked out by Nana and will probably also be used for Claire's baptism sometime soon. It was a very special evening for our family.

PS New Memphis post following, so keep reading!

Spring Break

Yes, that's right folks, we headed to Memphis for a week of BBQ, Graceland, Peabody Ducks and rollicking good family times! What's not to love about 4 adults, 3 kids and 1 newborn all under one roof? Here's Cora doing her Elvis impersonation:Here's the real thing, too, just to prove we were there:
Not only did Cora got to meet her cousins, but she also got to meet Scott and Jonnett and Baby Jane! Scott is a residency friend of Susan's who is doing a fellowship in Memphis. As you can see, he and Cora hit if off pretty well. You can see more photos here on the Maurer blog.

Keepin' it real with matching shirts on the way to the Fire Museum:

The family photographer, Kate, has even more pictures of the visit here, and our attempt at getting all 4 kids in one shot here. She also took some great portraits of Larson & Cora which will hopefully be gracing our home in the near future. Thanks for hosting us and putting up with all the craziness - we had a blast!

You know you're a mom when...

...your snacks for school/work are packed in re-used plastic Gerber baby food containers

...you're really good at counting to 3

...8am is considered "sleeping in"

...you reach into your jacket pocket for your car keys and find Lightning McQueen instead

...wiping a toddler's runny nose on your own sleeve seems like the best alternative in the absence of a tissue (hey, we were at the park and it was cold!)

...you know which airports have the best family bathrooms (DFW, SEA and MSP get two thumbs up!)

...you notice every emergency/police/construction vehicle on the road...even when you're driving alone

...you refer to the bathroom as "the potty" when it's just you and your spouse



I'm sure lists of this type have been done before but I just had to add my own little bit :) Additions welcome!
~Susan

Garden find

Today I was very excited to find a bunch of ranunculus (ranunculuses? ranunculi?) when shopping for some flowers to plant. The photo is just to give you an idea what they look like...I got yellow, bright orange and a corally red color - just lovely! I'm probably planting a little too early, but I just couldn't help myself. Cross your fingers for me that we're done with frost and torrential spring rains so mine will look as fabulous as those in the picture :)

Larson helped me in the garden today and he had a blast. I've now come to terms with the fact that my child has reached the age where he needs a separate wardrobe of clothing that can basically be destroyed and stained with all mode of outdoor boy adventures. Having done so, I can also relax and enjoy such activities without a thought about where all the dirt is actually ending up. Ah.

So my mom (aka my landscape gardening consultant, as mentioned previously) gave me her recipe for making a potting soil mix out of topsoil and manure and I'm trying it for the first time this year. Larson was just SOOOO tickled that we were "playing with cow poop" today. So easy to please, that guy! Poor Cora was relegated to the pack&play and not exactly thrilled about it, so we only got a partial planting completed.

Other items on my gardening agenda for the spring: window boxes for our upstairs balcony, locate and plant a peony bush (today was "too early" I was told), re-do the flower bed in the main part of our garden, find a cool tree/shrub to put in the two big planters on our upstairs balcony (ideas anyone???), and spruce up the flowers under our cherry trees by the street (I think I need some kind of stones to outline the planting area to prevent the grass from creeping back in...). Can't wait!

PS Here are some preview pictures from our trip to Memphis a couple of weeks ago. More to come later!