One.

My baby girl is ONE! Okay, she's been one for over a month already, but I am finally posting a few pictures.












My silly boy dressed like a pirate.







Cora is 19 lbs.
Her favorite thing to say is, "No, mine!"
She eats A LOT and is very assertive when she wants "MORE!"
She gave up breastfeeding a few weeks ago, but refuses to drink milk.
She is taking only one nap a day. Usually for about an hour and a half.
She loves Ty Ty. When he wakes up from his nap, she runs to his door and screeches until I open it.
She is into everything, opening every cabinet, dropping toys in the toilet, pulling diapers out of drawers, etc.
When I say, "Come here, Cora." she will either obey, or she will smile, and run the other way while cracking up. She also runs away laughing when I say, "I'm gonna get you!" Usually when that happens, Tyler starts running with her and laughing, saying, "Come get us!" Tyler has been much nicer to her lately, and it's so sweet when they play together.

Tyler is so funny. He's constantly being silly, telling stories (about "when I was a little boy..."), and singing.
He loves the show "Jake and the Neverland Pirates" and I love hearing him sing the theme song.
We don't let him watch "Spongebob Square Pants", but on two separate occasions, when two of his babysitters (My close friends) were here recently, he LIED and told them he is allowed. So, we had a talk about all this with Tyler. So, I recently bought him a Spongebob toothbrush by mistake. A few days later, my friend was here babysitting when Ty woke up from his nap. The first thing he said was, "Mommy bought me a Spongebob toothbrush. I will show you!"
My mom was recently asking him a bunch of questions about something because she wanted to hear a story he had already told her a few days earlier. He said, "I already told you that, Gma."
The other day, we went to my mom's house. Tyler opened the door, stuck his head in and said, "Yoohoo!" It was so cute - My mom and I laughed so hard because we realized that my mom says that a lot when she comes over. He doesn't miss a thing!

White Christmas

Cora didn't like Santa.


Tyler wouldn't go near Santa.

We ventured up to Ohio this Christmas to see Nana, Papa, Uncle Luke, Aunt Megan and cousins Caleb, Joy and Grace. We had a wonderful visit. The flights were a little difficult (Tyler did great - watched movies and ate snacks - but Cora was a little harder to handle. She did pretty well on the flight there, but I was by myself with her on the way home. It was pretty stressful. She went to the bathroom right when she and I boarded the first plane. I had to wait over 45 minutes to actually change her diaper (on  my neighbor's seat, because they don't have anywhere to change a baby!) as we waited on the runway to deice the plane and wait our turn to take off, then wait until we were at the appropriate altitude to unbuckle my seat belt. She screamed her head off for the first half of the flight, then passed out in a restless sleep. On the second flight, I exhausted myself trying to keep her entertained. Then about 2 minutes before we touched down in West Palm, she fell asleep. But, we made it!

Anyway, we had a wonderful Christmas! We took the kid's to Papa's church the day after we arrived, which was great. Then on Christmas Eve while everyone was at church, we stayed home (no child care at that service) and watched Polar Express in our Christmas jammies. Tyler loved it! Then we put out milk and cookies for Santa Claus.





On Christmas morning, Tyler ran out to see the plate of cookies. When he saw the empty plate, he gasped and yelled, "Look! He ate them all!!" It was so cute.



We opened lots of presents that day and had some great family time. The cousins came over that afternoon. It was great to spend time with them and see the kids play together (And I'm looking forward to meeting my new niece or nephew in June because Megan is expecting again.). We spent a lot of the day shooting each other with Nerf guns.























Christmas night, a blizzard rolled in so we had a lot of snow for the rest of our trip. Tyler didn't love the snow at first, but warmed up to it as the week went on. We went on walks (One night we took Tyler to see Christmas decorations and it was really sweet. He loves those decorations.), threw snowballs and went sledding in the front yard.












Joy


Ty Ty had so much fun playing with (and lining up) Matt's old cars.


Tyler and Caleb


Megan and Caleb

One of the greatest things that happened this Christmas is that Cora started walking! She had taken a few steps on her own just before our trip, but really took off while we were in Ohio. Now, she is walking everywhere she goes.








Tyler and Mikey














Cora and Nana


Cora and Papa




Tyler and Daddy playing air hockey

Joy and Chris came to visit in the beginning of January, so we had a second Christmas. Early on Sunday morning, Cora was baptized at First Presbyterian Church. After church, we went home to have our Laub family Christmas. The kids have SO many toys now; it's a bit ridiculous! Even so, we are very thankful for our generous family. Our children are so blessed.






























Waiting for one of his big presents to be revealed.







Cora Update:

She just turned one year old!
She is walking.
She weighs 18 lbs.
She says: mama, dada, Bubba, ball, uh-oh, NO.
She loves to eat.
She gives kisses and hugs.
She holds out her feet when we wants me to put her shoes or socks on.
She points and yells to tell me what she wants.
She is still breastfeeding, but it's becoming quite infrequent and might not last much longer. However, she refuses to drink anything else besides water.

Tyler Update:

He is potty trained! I told him a bunch of times that when we got home from Ohio, we wouldn't have any more diapers. He kept saying, "No, not yet!" So, the first morning he was home from Ohio, I asked him what was going to happen today, and he said, "No more diapers." He has done so great! I'm in shock. He had a few pee-pee accidents during the first few days, but nothing major. He even goes #2 on the potty. He wears underwear at night and has never had an accident during the night. I'm so proud of him.
The other day, he took a toy from Cora so she screamed at him. Then he said, "Inside voice, baby."
He recently opened a birthday card for Cora that she got in the mail. Then he said, "You want me to read it to you? Otay. 'Dear Baby. Thank you. Happy Birthday, Baby!'"