Life With Cora : 18 Months

Since my last update, we went on our first vacation as a family (see here, here, here, here, and here), Cora has added a lot of words to her vocabulary, she has become a dancing machine (see here, here, here, here, here, and here), and she loves to explore now more than ever.

Probably 90% of the photos on my phone are of Cora on our walks (see more here and here).  This is a special time that I get to spend one-on-one with her and she really comes alive when she gets to explore and observe nature.  She loves to try and sneak away from me by running down the sidewalk and going onto our neighbor's steps.  She always glances back with a mischievous grin to make sure I'm trying to catch her.

It is unbelievable how quickly Cora's vocabulary develops.  Somedays I come home from work and she has added a couple words to her repertoire in the 9 hours I was away.  My favorite thing she says is 'happy'.  She uses it at different times when she is telling us she is happy, saying it when she wants to be happy but isn't (diaper changes), or checking to see if we're happy.  

We have a lot of books laying around our apartment so Cora has access to a book whenever she wants to read.  Throughout the day, she'll grab a book and nuzzle up to us to read.  Sometimes she takes charge and flips the pages and babbles through the story as if she is reading. 

Cora and Clove have the sweetest little friendship.  I love watching them follow each other around and play together.  Wherever Clove is lounging, you will find Cora right there cuddling with her.

 

See more Life With Cora posts here or follow me on Instagram to see more day-to-day life with Cora.

Fall Walks With Cora

I've mentioned this before, but Cora and I try to get out on a walk on our street almost every day. Some days our walks last 5 minutes and some days I have to drag Cora in for dinner.  Yesterday, was one of those drag-Cora-in-for-dinner days, but I'm not complaining.  Cora finds so much excitement in ever little thing.  Cora got so excited to see a squirrel sitting on the fence that we paused for a couple minutes to watch it sit there and run around, then we focused our attention on a single leaf falling from a tree.  She also crouched down and squawked as she searched for noisy birds in the bushes.  It is so fun to experience things through the eyes of a child. Fall has brought so many fun things to discover and I'm looking forward to more fall activities.

Follow along on Instagram to see more #walkswithcora and progress on my current project. 

Fall Leaves

It all started during my first year of college...  We had an assignment in our color class to collect leaves and create a collage.  This was always one of my favorite projects because it involved nature and color (and positive feedback from my professor and classmates always helps).  We collected leaves for a couple weeks and I used pages I pulled out from my hoard of National Geographic magazines.  Below is the project that I turned in.  The photo quality is poor because these photos are from 7 years ago, but tilt your head to the left and you get the gist of what it looked like when it was hanging up for critique... that and the one on the bottom (far right) is supposed to be flipped 180 degrees.

Now every year when fall rolls around, I always find myself walking with my eyes searching through the leaves on the ground for that perfect leaf.  Clove and I went on a walk while Cora was napping and I took the extra baby-free time to collect a couple leaves, remember my days in art school, and snap some pictures.