Cora's Birthday/Christmas Sunday

December 22 was a big day: Cora's birthday and Christmas Sunday! Sometimes I feel really bad that both of my girls have Christmas birthdays. But, if they ever complain, I'll just remind them that they both came six weeks early, so I couldn't plan that!

We had a great birthday for my little one-year old. She loved to open her presents and eat/play with her cake.

I was surprised that she didn't eat more of the cake. Cora LOVES to eat. But, she mostly squished it, played with it, and made everybody laugh by throwing it on the floor. She had a great time.

We tried to get a photo of all three cousins matching by the Christmas tree, but Aubrey was not very co-operative. Who knew three-year olds could be so moody? At least the birthday girl was happy.

I'm so lucky to be a mom to those two sweet little girls. Cora is a beautiful girl with a big heart, and I'm glad we were able to celebrate her birthday with so much family around. There are positives to Christmas birthdays, because if we were at home, it would just be our little family.

This is my favorite birthday picture. I love that big grin.

Snow

We are here in Canada, celebrating Christmas with my family, and it has been great. The only thing I wanted for Christmas was for my whole family to be healthy! Cora is finishing her ear infection antibiotics, and Aubrey is dealing with a cough, but other than that, we are healthy. I'll take it, and I am grateful.

Our family were complete slackers and did not do a Christmas card this year. We have it for a 2014 goal, but Merry Christmas from the Foote Family!

Since moving to California three years ago, we have not been around snow at all. Aubrey has seen snow in books and talked about snow, but never actually experienced it. So, of course the first thing we did when we arrived last Friday was go play in the SNOW!

All bundled up, ready to go... Aubrey is similar to Randy on a Christmas Story- "I can't put my arms down!" And, I just can't get over how cute Cora is in that little hat.

Aubrey thought throwing snowballs was pretty great. She also fulfilled her dream of making a snowman.

I'm glad that my girls can experience some of the fun of snow. I'm afraid we have turned into wimps after spending three years with Bay Area weather.

More Canada pictures to come!

Cora is ONE!!!

I can't believe that it has been a year since all of this happened, and I met my sweet little Cora for the first time.

Cora is truly a joy and I can not imagine my life, or our family without her. She has gone from a calm, sleepy newborn, to a wiggly, happy beautiful little girl.

Here are a few things she is up to at ONE:

Finally got her consistently sleeping past 6 am. Months of 5:30 am wake-up calls were brutal. She never wakes up in the middle of the night, but that early rising was tough. We are at about 6:30 am now and I can live with that. 

She loves to eat! She eats everything, and her eating skills are impressive. 

The past month has been a hard one sick wise. She had a double ear infection that made her just miserable. Then literally the day after I took her in to get her ears checked to make sure that was gone, she got sick again.  Another ear infection. So we are on antibiotics round two, and hoping for a healthier next couple of months. 

SO close to walking! She stands pretty well and can get herself into a standing position. She takes a few steps at a time, so I think that full-on walking will be coming in the next few weeks. 

Says mama, dada, yeah, and hi (with a cute, little wave). Lots of random gibberish. 

Loves to cuddle and snuggle and be loved. 

Does not like when I leave her sight. Even if I do manage to sneak away, I always hear, "mama mama" as she comes down the hall looking for me. I'm definitely her favorite person, and I love it. 

Thinks her sister is hilarious and LOVES when she plays with her. She is also a typical younger sibling, always trying to get Aubrey's attention. Usually she does this by pulling Aubrey's hair, which gets her attention, but not the kind she wants :)

We LOVE our Cora. Happy Birthday sweet girl!

Here is Cora's first year of life in five minutes. What a year it has been!

CluedIn

Last night was Steven's LinkedIn Christmas party. Again, LinkedIn does not disappoint. The party was held in San Francisco at the new Exploratorium. The new museum is over pier 15 and the views are incredible.

We were really excited because since Steven's accident, we have been on like.... 2 dates. Pretty sad. But, much thanks to Stephanie and Jimmy for watching the girls. And, getting ready to go out is much different than before I had kids. I'm getting pretty good at multi-tasking...

The party was titled, "CluedIn" like the game clue. They had a murder mystery, dancing, drinks, food, photobooths, and all the exhibits were open which was really fun. I felt a little fancy. I ate sushi, used chopsticks, and had a beet salad. But... I wasn't feeling fancy enough to try the kale and potato smoothies. I try to feed my family healthy food, but that is crossing a line.

Driving in San Francisco was as always not fun. We left at 6:30 and didn't get to the party until 8:00. But, once we were there we had a great time. I love spending time with Steven. We had our first date NINE years ago, and he is still my best friend.

I wonder what the next nine years will bring? 

Aubrey's Party

Today we had Aubrey's "Teddy Bear Picnic" birthday party. I can't believe she is almost three. Due to the fact that my poor girls both have Christmas birthdays, we had her party a few weeks before her actual birthday. She was SO excited.

Waiting around this morning for her friends to show up was pretty hard.

And... I seriously don't know how moms do complete "Pinterest style" birthday parties. I threw up a few decorations, planned some games, favors, and food, and just that was completely exhausting! Mostly because when you throw a toddler birthday party, you have well... your kids around "helping" with everything.

 Cora is a pretty cute little helper.

But, it was all worth it because Aubrey was really happy. She loved her party and she loves her friends. She was allowed to invite four little friends, and they all came. She also invited Stephanie. Stephanie is actually my friend, but Aubrey is in love with her.

We had teddy bear shaped food, teddy bear coloring, parachute games, story time, dancing, presents, and cake. The kids were all really good.

Steven was the official photographer, but he was there. He was also such a help with decorating and keeping the kids occupied in the back while I finished the food this morning. 

Blowing out the candles.

The best part was seeing the look of joy on Aubrey's face.

And now... I need a nap.

Fall has Arrived

Weather wise, living in the Bay Area is pretty close to perfect. The weather is almost always warm and sunny, but we do get some seasons. It may be November, but things are starting to feel like Fall around here and I love it. *Most* days, we can now wear long-sleeved shirts, and the leaves are starting to turn.

We spent a Saturday morning down at Ardenwood farm in Fremont, and it was really rejuvinating. Which was needed since we have all spent the past week sick. Sick kids? Not fun. Taking care of sick kids while you are also sick? Really not fun.

The little farm was perfect and we were almost the only ones there! Rare in California. Aubrey ran around like crazy, Steven walked! (he is slow... but pretty much off crutches), Cora crawled around and tried to eat everything, and we all enjoyed looking at the animals.

Oh, Aubrey got to milk a pretend cow too. And we found our Thanksgiving turkey :)

I can't believe we have almost lived here for three years. They have been some of the best, yet definitely the hardest years of my life. Two preemie babies, one horrible pregnancy, lots of sickness, the year Steven worked for E&Y, Steven getting hit by a car.... those have definitely been the difficult parts.

But.. two beautiful daughters, a great job, spending my days as a play-at-home mom, wonderful weather, and the most wonderful husband means I am a very lucky girl. I always try to remember my blessings, but this time of year brings extra chances to remember how grateful I am. 

So, not all days can be spent lazily hanging out with my family, but I definitely like to remember the fun days for when the harder days come around. Today was one of those fun days.

Halloween 2013

My little lamb...

And my cinderella princess....

had a great Halloween this year. I don't like to put pressure to have fun on holidays, but I was really hopeful for Halloween this year. The past two months since Steven's accident have seemed like a blur and our family really needed some fun.

Aubrey totally got the whole trick-or-treating thing this year, and Cora actually seemed to think that wearing her lamb costume was hilarious instead of crying like I thought she would.

A couple of days ago we decorated pumpkins. We started out the traditional way, but Aubrey was a little dangerous with a knife, so we ended up just letting the girls loose with some finger paint.

We then spent the afternoon on Halloween trick-or-treating with some friends in downtown Los Altos. We had a great time. Aubrey's favorite part was in the bathroom supply store, they had the kids pick candy out of a toilet bowl. I'm lucky we have such good friends here.

We then went to Chipotle for dinner because on Halloween if you wear a costume, you get a $3 "boorito." Our brother-in-law Miguel is staying with us a couple of days, so he got to join in for all the trick-or-treating fun.

And since we had somebody else around to take pictures besides me, we got a shot with our whole family.

Happy Halloween!

The Wedding

We just got back from a whirl-wind trip to Las Vegas to celebrate the wedding of Jason and Shanna. They are such a fantastic couple and we are so happy for them. I'm so excited to have Shanna join the family. She is great, and Aubrey is now into playing wedding with her " Shanna married dress." 

The one really sad part about the wedding is that I was so busy keeping track of my munchkins, and Steven was so busy explaining his accident (seriously... crutches are quite the conversation starter) that I didn't take a single picture. I don't even think we were in that many pictures. Way sad because the girls looked adorable in their matching dresses. And I had a dress, which may not seem like a big deal but thanks to slow shipping my dress arrived at 8 pm the night before we left... So, no pictures, but, we were there!

Instead of my own photos, I had to be creepy and take an engagement picture off of Jason's Facebook page. Thanks Tyler as always for the photography :)

 Congrats guys!

Steven's parents even flew in from Germany for the wedding. The girls had so much fun playing with their cousins. They were so exhausted from staying up late and partying that Aubrey has taken a long nap the past 2 days. I can get used to that.

I love weddings. I am definitely a classic romantic girl at heart, and their wedding was perfect.

I may not have any wedding pictures, but what we do have is lots of photo booth shots. Aubrey is in love with photo booth:

I love my family.