Life With Cora : 7 Years

Cora is 7 years old! So much has happened since her last birthday. Cora wrapped up her Kindergarten year, we spent a lot of time at the pool over the summer, Cora learned to swim, we traveled to our favorite place, Cora started first grade at a new school, she started playing soccer, she lost 3 more teeth, and we enjoyed so many play dates with friends and family. I was looking back at last year's post and was just reminded how consistently awesome Cora is. She is always loving, creative, driven, silly, helpful, strong, intelligent, beautiful, and so much more. She has grown so much over the years, but she is also always so much herself and I love that about her. 

I love that Cora is always so fashionable. She has an opinion on everything she wears and is pretty particular about her hair, outfits, and accessories. Cora picks some wild outfits and rocks them! She draws lots of pictures and her characters always have the most creative and awesome outfits.

I love that Cora is so thoughtful. She is always helping her sister out, taking great care of the dog, and is always the first to offer to help me with whatever I'm working on. I love watching her with her little sister. They have such a great bond and they are always off playing games, coloring, watching tv, and playing dress up and having fashion shows. 

Happy Birthday sweet Cora - you bring so much light to our lives. This birthday is hard because we do not get to do our regular birthday things like going to the zoo or throwing a birthday party, but you roll with the punches and enjoy each and every little thing to celebrate. We are so grateful that you joined our family 7 years ago. I am the luckiest mommy in the world. May this birthday be the best one yet. xxoo!

Cincinnati Art Museum - No Spectators

We like to make a trip to the Cincinnati Art Museum every couple of months to check out new exhibits. When we saw pictures of the Burning Man exhibit, going to the museum moved to the top of our list.

The girls and I got there right when it opened (maybe a couple minutes before) and headed straight to the mushroom room. There weren't that many people there yet, so the girls and I had the room mostly to ourselves for 10-15 minutes. When the ring turns green, you can step on it and activate the movement of the mushroom top. After the initial scare of the movement, Cora really got into going around the room and activating each pad... and Ida held tight and was very cautious about enjoying the display. We went back to this room on our way out and it was pretty crowded.. I recommend going early so you can get this space to yourself for a bit.

All of the No Spectators pieces were scattered throughout the museum so we zipped around the entire place to make sure we wouldn't miss anything.  We passed the Rosenthal Education Center, which previously we either didn't have time to check it out or Cora wasn't very interested, but the girls beelined in there as soon as they saw it. They had a blast trying out some crafts and playing dress up. This place had so many great activities... and its all FREE!

Cora was most excited to see what she called the "Ice Princess". She asked about 100x times to go upstairs so she could look at it.

There were a bunch of other great pieces and it was neat to interact with them. The girls and I had a lot of fun and we definitely plan go go back for phase 2 (starting June 7th).

This was the first thing we crossed off on our 2019 Summer To Do list and we're looking forward to all the other activities.

Cora's 6th Birthday Celebrations

Cora Jean is someone that loves a good party... which is fitting because she was named after my grandma that loved parties. Cora talked about having a birthday for months, so she was extremely excited when the day finally came.

We did a joint birthday party with my aunt and uncle. We stuck with the birthday brunch because it is fairly easy to do and Saturday mornings are a perfect time to have a party and celebrate without eating up the entire weekend. We had bagels, smoked salmon, fruit, veggie tray, and a variety of drinks.

On her actual birthday, Ben took Ida on some jobs with him so I got lots of one-on-one time with Cora. After school, we stopped by the elementary school plant sale and headed over to my sister's for dinner with the family.

For Cora's friend party, we just did a simplified lunch version of the family party. I made a veggie tray, ordered some pizza, and made a big jug of lemonade. Cora loved getting to run around and play with her friends. She was excited to see each friend and ran around the entire time. Later that day, she told me she wanted to start the whole day over again because it was so much fun.

See Cora's previous birthday posts here: birth, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th.

Life With Cora : 6 Years

Cora turns 6 years old today!!! A lot has happened since she turned 5. Cora finished preschool, started Kindergarten, lost 5 teeth , went on vacations to the cottage (Cora is obsessed) and Tybee Island, and has made a friend everywhere we go. 

I could not gush enough about this girl! There has been some sass, like most kids, but Cora is so sweet. She is thoughtful, and smart, and sooooo funny. She makes me laugh out loud on a daily basis. Lately, she has been working on knock-knock jokes and practicing her delivery. Not only is she practicing knock-knock jokes, she is practicing reading and writing and drawing. She pulls out her sketchbook any chance she gets to sketch her sister or clothing ideas or some form of cat teenagers on skateboards. Each drawing is better than the last and it is so fun to see what her little imagination comes up with.

We spend a lot of time outside. Going on walks and playing in the backyard. Cora is always up for outdoor time. She isn't afraid to dig in the dirt, pick up bugs, and lend a helping hand. I'm looking forward to this year's gardening season as we expand our space and she is able to help out more and take some ownership of some space.

Cora is such a great big sister to Ida! They are not without their squabbles, but most of the time they get along really well. Cora is quick to help Ida when she needs it. She is always looking out for her little sister. I love their sweet little relationship. 

Happy birthday sweet Cora! I am the luckiest mommy in the whole world to have you as a daughter. I can't wait so see what 6 has to offer. I love you so much! xxoo!

See Cora's previous birthday posts here: birth, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th.

Snow Days

There has been quite a bit of snow over the last couple of days and we're loving all of the extra outdoor time. Saturday, the girls were at my parent's house for most of the morning so I had lots of extra time to shovel the steps, walkway, and driveway. When we got home from my parent's house, we played on the patio for a bit before having friends over for hot chocolate. We leaned into that hibernation feeling and spent the evening hanging around and watching movies.

Sunday morning, we woke up and found a whole lot more snow. We had a couple things to do in the morning and we could hardly wait to get outside to play. The walks to and from the car were very slow and involved a lot of snow stomping. After lunchtime, we bundled up and headed outside. Cora got a snowball maker from my parents, so we spent a lot of time throwing snowballs at the fence. The girls spent most of the time just stomping around the backyard making as many footprints as possible. Ben and I had a heated snowball fight and it was hilarious to watch the girls cheer us on and try to help.

Monday was a long day at work and I wanted nothing more than to get outside for a walk. We walked a little bit down the street, but the girls just wanted to stomp through everybody's yards. We headed to our backyard to throw snowballs and watch the sunset. Playing in the snow is always best when followed by hot chocolate and pizza picnics in front of a movie... so that's exactly what we did.

Thanksgiving Break

I unintentionally took a little blogging break for the last couple of weeks. I have experienced a lot of loss in the last year and a half (more on that another time) and the last couple of weeks have been surprisingly overwhelming with approaching anniversaries, some firsts, and the colder weather/shorter days... so I have some posts to catch up on, but first Thanksgiving!

For Thanksgiving, we always do a large family gathering. We ate an early dinner and hung out for most of the afternoon/evening then had another meal of turkey sandwiches and leftovers. Cora ran around with her cousins all day so I barely even saw her. Ida was a little bit clingier, but managed to get in a good nap/cuddle and has been warming up a lot to family. We loved getting to spend the day relaxing with family.

I made skyline dip and my cucumber bacon bites, which I had to check my blog for my recipe because I couldn't remember how to make them. I let Cora taste test the bites earlier in the morning and was begging for them all day long. Luckily, I had some extra dip and cucumbers so we could have it the following day.

Friday and the following weekend was spent mostly around the house. Since we bought our house, I've found that I really love being a homebody... especially in the winter. My aunt gave me the turkey carcass and I spent most of Friday making turkey broth and turkey noodle bean soup. This was my first attempt and now I can't believe I've been throwing away all the vegetable clippings and leftover bones. 

During most of my soup making, I had Ida napping on in the ergobaby. Cora was a little jealous so she kept asking if I could carry her around on my back when Ida was finished. While the limit of our ergobaby is around 45lbs (she is about 50lbs), I was still able to comfortably carry Cora around for a bit. It was so funny because she is soo tall and her legs were all over the place, but I was definitely feeling nostalgic about carrying her around when she was a little babe.

Over the weekend, our Elf on the Shelf made an appearance. The last couple of years we've just hung him on our tree and haven't really been into it, but I decided I would see how the girls liked it and so far they have been wowed by the magical elf. One of the days, our elf was sitting on the beaded garland and fell over into a lying position while Cora was in the room. She was in awe and couldn't believe that he laid down while she was in the room. So far, our elf has just moved around each night (except I forgot last night) and will hopefully be bringing some cool treats or craftivities for us over the weekends.

On Saturday, the girls and I took a trip to Hobby Lobby with my aunt and she got me started with some embroidery. We spent a lot of time walking around the store looking at basically every single thing including all of the Christmas stuff.

We also did some gingerbread cookie decorating later in the break, but most of the weekend was spent being lazy around the house. Ida is really into having hot chocolate lately, so we had lots of that through the weekend. I love our sweet little hot chocolate dates where she'll drink and chat the whole time.

We had a great lazy Thanksgiving break. I'm thankful for so many things in my life, but family is for sure the top of my list. I loved getting to spend all the extra time over break with them and it is getting me really excited for December and Christmas break.>