Eight Months!

I can't believe my baby girl is eight months old! I have done such a bad job at keeping up with my blog. I'm working on posting all of the stuff that I missed between August and now. We've done a lot! Miss Cora has done a lot of growing! Being a full time Mom and full time night shift nurse has caught up with me. Pretty much what little down time that I do have is spent either napping, cleaning or catching up on my DVR'd shows! :) My sleep deprivation is catching up with me and blogging hasn't been at the top of my priority list. BUT, I am going to have a lot more free time on my hands in the New Year. I will start working weekends on January 9th. I will work Saturday and Sunday nights and I will be off the rest of the week with my Cora! It's going to be so nice to just work two nights a week. I can't wait!

So...my Cora! The sweetest one is eight months old today! I don't have an official list of "stats" right now, but we are getting the flu shot on Tuesday so we may have a new weight then. I can tell you that she is growing like a weed. Cora loves to eat and she is eating all kinds of things now! She pretty much loves everything. Cora continues to crack us up on a daily basis and she is into everything. We are crawling, pulling up, still clicking (her tongue), blowing raspberries and now clapping. She is so proud of herself when she claps and we clap and cheer in return. I also have given her the nickname "Octoarms". This girl is into everything and grabs anything in sight. She is quick and stealth. I have posted a few pics and a video of Cora. I am still working on older posts and hopefully will be caught up soon!

Cora in her Christmas jammies on our way to Daddy's work Christmas party

Goals

Goal for the day. Update this blog! We have been doing SO much! I turned 31, Cora turned 6 months, then 7 months. Halloween. Cora turned 8 months. Family photos. Thanksgiving. Cora's first snow. Plus lots of other things! My plan is to get all those posts up today. We are also going to visit Santa today!

It's been awhile

5 new posts!!!!

Playing outside!

As we were playing outside, watching Daddy wash the cars, I noticed something...we have a new birdnest! We think it might be a Dove's nest. I am hoping this one works out better than the last!

It's built right on top of the old nest.

First bites of food!

Here is video of Cora's first bites of food! Yummy rice cereal! The video is a little long and my hand is in the way for some of it but we think it's pretty cute!

ExcerSaucer

Cora in her ExcerSaucer flirting with the camera! We took this awhile back but I think it's still pretty cute. Plus I just figured out how to post video. I could never get video to download to Blogger.

Update

I worked on my Four Month blog (below) last week but just published it. We are happy to report that this week was a very good week at home with Dad while I was at work! She was a little fussy but nothing like last week. I am so relieved. My mom and sister helped out but both found that Cora now seems to prefer her Daddy. She took her bottle better with him and he was the one to get her to go to sleep. Please pray for her continued progress. It makes it so much easier for me to go to work knowing that she is not miserable.

Four Month Update!

Miss Cora is about 4 1/2 months old now. I can't believe it! I planned on posting the week of her 4 month birthday but I kept putting it off. Today was our check up with Dr. Towns and Cora looked great! Her current stats are:
Weight - 13 lbs 15 oz (50th percentile)
Length - 25 3/8 inches (75th percentile)
Head - 16 1/2 inches (70th percentile)

She is following the growth curve beautifully and has been pretty consistent with regards to her percentiles. Her head took a good jump from the 50th to 70th percentile...she's just growing lots of brains!!! We got two shots this visit and will likely get three at her 6 month appointment. She will be eligible for the flu shot when she is 6 months old so we will be getting that shot as well. No fun, but we want to make sure she stays healthy.

We spent the week of Cora's 4 month birthday on the move with a trip to Oklahoma to visit her Mimi, Aunt Stefani and all of her cousins. We have also been able to spend a lot of time with my side of the family. We spent all day long with my Mimi, Cora's "Old" Mimi for Mimi's 82nd Birthday. Mimi loves Cora and I know she really enjoyed spending the day with her. Other than that we have just been enjoying having a 4 month old. She is usually smiling, laughing, talking, playing in her Bumbo or in her ExerSaucer. Sometimes we have a harder time. Cora has developed a pretty bad case of separation anxiety that sometimes makes life a little more difficult around the Stogner household. Life is good until Momma has to go to work. Poor Cora has been crying from about the time I leave for work at 5:45pm until around bedtime at 8:30pm. We are trying everything we can think of to help her out but it seems she just wants her Mom around for comfort and breastfeeding. Poor Matt. My Mom, Dad and sister have been all working together to help take care of her. She's never been thrilled to see me leave but this week has been awful. It makes me feel beyond terrible to know she is so upset when I am at work but I am hoping and praying that she will soon grow out of this. We were told by the pedi today to consider starting her on solid foods to see if this will help. We gave her rice cereal tonight for the first time and she wasn't really a fan! We videoed it and I am trying to get that plus another cute video of her up on the blog. I am having trouble figuring it out!

Bumbo and tummy time. She always leans herself over to her left side in the Bumbo.

Party girl ready to go to a baby shower with Mom and Dad

Cora kissin on her cousin Nathan

Cora and Nathan...and part of Mimi

We love to bathe in the sink at Mimi and Fluffy's house

Chewing on people's hands is another favorite pastime. This time it was Aunt Crissy but I don't think she minded!

Eating my cereal and chewing on my fingers!

What's Going On

A lot has been going on in Cora Jude's world lately. She is 3 1/2 months old and she is doing all kinds of things. Last weekend we went to a baby shower for our sweet friends, Jamie and Curtis. I went to high school with Jamie and Curtis and now they live in Nashville. We had a lot of fun seeing them and we can't wait to meet their little boy!! Cora had a real good time at the shower. This week we brought out the Bumbo and the ExerSaucer and I am happy to report that she loves both of them. She plays independently when she is in them which gives us time to get things done around the house or get some blogging done! We also started Music Class this week! My cousin Jennifer and her son Nicholas have been going to class for awhile now and having a lot of fun so we thought we would try it out. Cora was very interested in the class, she obviously didn't sing or play with the "instruments" but she was absorbing everything! The class is for infants to 3 year olds. Cora was the only girl and the youngest in the class. There were two boys there that were about two years old and her cousin, Nicholas, who is 6 months old. We will be going for the next five weeks. I am happy to get her out of the house and get her engaged with other people. I sometimes feel like she is quarantined in the house due to our crazy schedules and also because it's so HOT outside! I can't wait for it to cool down in the Fall. I already plan on taking her to the Arboretum, to the park, to the zoo...I can't wait!! Hopefully Matt and I can both take her. We pretty much are either working or watching the baby. Our schedules are not optimum and we really miss each other but we know we are doing what is best for Cora. Hopefully soon one of us will have a better work schedule and we will have more family time.

Cora and Mommy at the shower

Bumbo baby

I love my ExerSaucer!

A sneaky way to get tummy time in...give her something interesting to look at! She LOVES the computer!

Cora's favorite place to take a nap - Mommy and Daddy's bed!

Sad news...

Today, while walking our friends Eric and Jessica out, we made a sad discovery. I was telling Jessica about the sweet Momma bird and her cute little eggs that I have blogged about. It was when I was walking her over to the tree to see for herself that I noticed something was terribly wrong. The perfect little nest was not in it's correct place. It was turned sideways and I was sad to discover no eggs in the abandoned nest. Sadly, we looked down on the ground and found one little egg laying beneath the nest. What happened next was the worst part. Matt picked the egg up to place it back into the nest and it fell down and cracked open! Jessica and I were too horrified to look. I'm so sad. I know this is just Mother Nature but it broke my heart! That Momma bird was so protective of her little eggs and now I am guessing they are all gone. We think it must of been the rain that dislodged the nest. Poor Momma bird. :(

New posts

Two new posts! :)

Yard work

We decided to work on the yard today since we had the day off together and Aunt Robin was willing to come by and watch Cora. The weather was actually pretty nice and we didn't sweat nearly as much as I thought we would. I even mowed a lawn for the first time ever! We are very happy with the way everything turned out but we still have some work we want to do. We are going to remove a few more of the shrubs and add more flowers but we will have to do that later.

Before pic of the house (this was a pic before we even bought the house!)

Another before pic, taken today

Cora came out to visit and actually enjoyed some time outside in the milder weather

Me, starting to plant the flowers!

After pic, it was starting to get a little dark out

Can't wait to plant more!

Matt noticed a little bird nest in our tree! I tried to get a pic of the bird but she flew away. Looks like she was hiding something! Three cute little eggs! I felt so bad that I scared her away. She perched herself on the roof of a house across the street. She was making all kinds of noise and kept her eye on us. I know she must of been worried about her little eggs. I was afraid she might not come back, but she did! What a good momma! I can't wait for the babies to hatch!!!

Mimi and Fluffy came by later in the evening and Cora got her first bath in the kitchen sink.

She wanted to stand for most of her bath

Mimi drying Cora off!

3 months old!

Our baby girl is three months old! I can't believe it! She is so sweet and such a happy little baby. She still gets a little fussy at night but it's not too bad and we all seem to be getting into more of a night time routine. Cora's Mimi Carol has been keeping her the past few Monday nights so Matt and I could work a few shifts together and have a day off together during the week. Cora loves going to her Mimi and Fluffy's house and she has done really well spending the night. I loved going to my Mimi and Papa's house for "slumber parties" while growing up. Now Cora is doing the same thing and in the same house! Cora is smiling, laughing and talking up a storm! We are still working on getting her to turn over consistently and tummy time is still a beating, but she seems to be hitting her developmental milestones and she is getting big!!

I love bath time!!!!

July 4th

We had a great 4th of July at our house this year! Matt's family came down from Oklahoma to celebrate. My parents and sister also came over for dinner. We tried to watch the fireworks from our back yard but we couldn't see very much. I think Cora really had a good time seeing her family and playing with her cousins.

Friday night. One of her July 4th outfits. We couldn't get a good pic of her Friday night!

Mom and Cora on July 4th.

My camera died right after we took this picture. So of course, we didn't get any pictures with the rest of the family. :(

Family Time

My cousin Clint is home on leave from the Navy before being shipped out to Korea in August. Clint and his twin brother, Clay, have not been able to meet Cora yet so we had a party on Sunday to get the family together. Cora wore her Sailor dress and loved meeting her cousins. We all had such a great time hanging out! We also took Cora to church for the first time this morning. She made it about half way through the service before I had to exit to the nursery to calm her down (there are no babies in the church and no nursery staff).

Clint and Cora

Two Month Old

Cora is now almost three months old but two weeks ago I went to get pics taken of baby girl to remember her at two months. She looks so much different than she did when we had her newborn pics taken! We treked out to Plano to the home of one of my coworkers and she shot pics of Cora in her home studio. There are some really cute shots and one of them we are using for her baby announcement (yes, I am just now getting around to sending out announcements!). Here are some of the best ones below!

Father's Day

We celebrated Matt's first Father's Day last night with my parents, aunt and uncle and with Robin. We had everyone over to the house for dinner to celebrate the dads as well as my Dad's birthday, which was Thursday. Cora had a good time visiting with her family. Today Matt slept in since he has to go to work tonight. Cora and I had lunch with my parents and all of my sisters. It's been a great weekend! We enjoyed one of our two days off together this month. :( Now, back to single parenting!

Getting ready for lunch with my family

Cora on Saturday after we worked on her cradle cap. Aquaphor to the head is not the best idea. It did help though! We had to seize the chance to sport a faux hawk!

Cora and Daddy

Littlest Beatles fan. Got that tongue sticking out again!