Favorite Photo Friday: My Cutie Girl

In keeping with my recent tendency for few words, I'd like to share some of my favorite photos from a photo shoot with Owls Eye Photography in October.  Although it was difficult, I kept them (mostly) under wraps until Christmas.  Here are my favorites.  With a subject this cute, it's not hard to see why.

A Very Beanie Christmas

Whew. The season of excess and merriment has somehow come to a close. After leaving computers turned off, letting phones die without recharging and not touching the t.v. remote for several days, I am back to the land of the plugged in.

And oh, what a Christmas it was. Cora was a true party animal, loving up all the attention of her grandparents, aunts, uncles and little cousin. She played with paper and ornaments, got excited over new toys, blissed out in the hot tub, played dress up and had a ball. We ate way too much, cooked and cleaned for days, spent the whole time on "holiday schedule" and laughed harder than I have in ages.

There are some thoughts a-brewing and I'll post some of them soon, but for now, I want to just get some of the adorable cuteness out there.

Cora loving on her cousin Kai.  He is quite the inspiration for her with all his moving around.

These cousins got seriously spoiled for their first Christmas.  

But with all the loving silliness they gifted us all, it was well worth it.

One of my favorite plaid wearing families: Eri, Jon and Kai, 

celebrating their first Christmas as a family of three.

And of course, I have to include my little Beanie girl on Christmas morning, 

rocking her bedhead and mismatched headband with her polka dotted jammies, courtesy of the Christmas Faerie (who delivers new pajamas to all on Christmas Eve.)

One of her awesome fancy new gifts came from Favorite Auntie Erin, who gave her a selection of multi-colored silk scarves for play.  In my family, this means dress up AND peekaboo!  

Check out Cora's lovely fashion statement.
(Plus a bonus demonstration of her ridiculous flexibility-  Thank you ligamentous laxity!)

No holiday is complete without Santa's Elves.  Well, check out these little sweetie elves in their coordinated re-purposed sweater outfits, again, courtesy of Auntie Eri.

And, just for good measure, a glimpse of my beautiful nephew, Kai.

And one of my sassy little girl, giving the camera the eye while playing on my lap.

Yes, it was a holiday to remember.  Love to all my family that made it great.  Now just getting ready for the New Year and some first birthday celebrations.

Slacker

OK, so I'm not actually a slacker.  I am a busy mommy working part-time from home on less than ideal sleep, doing last-minute Christmas shopping and prepping and planning, and attending Christmas gatherings and parties.  So I've been kind of quiet on the blogging front, still.

I realized today that I haven't even snapped a picture of Cora in several days.  Wow.  I'm currently wrapping up the week and getting ready to head out of town tomorrow for my parents house, where I'll get to hunker down and celebrate Christmas properly, with holiday schedule (our code for putting something sinful in your coffee OR starting your day with a mimosa OR anything indulgent that can be safely explained by the holidays).  I'll be trying to get snuggles from my nephew Kai in between his efforts to learn to walk.  I'll be sitting in the hot-tub with my girlie (turned, of course, to a baby-appropriate temperature with Little Miss in a swim diaper to avoid any mishaps).  I'll be taking my husband out to a movie for his birthday, which will be an exciting "first this year" kind of event.

So with all that, I can't really guarantee how much I'll be posting.  Hopefully I'll be taking lots of pictures and feeling inspired.  If not, then please forgive me.

In the meantime, my slacker self will post these adorable Santa pics.  Yes, those of you on Facebook have already seen them, but for the rest of my blogger friends and for appropriate chronicling of Cora's first Christmas, I present:  The Little Beanie Girl with her first ever Santa.  And isn't he a jolly Santa Claus at that?  I am very impressed with the Northwest Down Syndrome Association Santa pics this year.  Very impressed, indeed.

Season's Greetings

Merry Christmas to all my bloggy friends. A little taste of our first family Christmas card.

Photo Friday

Another Year

Today I turn 34. Ah, birthdays...

As a child, I would make myself sick with excitement in the weeks leading up to my birthday.  I'd count down the days and the months with anticipation of something fantastical.  But, not surprisingly, that fantasy always left me hanging.  Every year I'd face disappointment and tears.  Because it could never live up to my crazy unfounded ideas about what my birthday should be.  Over the years I tried to scale back my expectations, but for some reason even that tended to jinx things for me.  No matter how modest the plans there has almost always been some level of disappointment.  Kind of embarrassing, really.  Always plotting a rush, as my father-in-law would say.

This year the plans are modest again, but already seem like they'll be much more fun. (Wait, is that me with too many expectations again?)  To start with, instead of trudging to the office I woke with the cutest little girl I've ever seen, snuggled into her soft little self and kissed her delectable cheeks.  After brewing my coffee and adding a little "holiday schedule" for proper merriment, I sat down to an elegant breakfast of Cheerios (for me and Beanie) and spoon-fed coconut yogurt into the silliest little face while she spat it back at me. 

My best friend Christine will be over soon to share the day playing with Cora, making lunch and just having some girl time.  Then tonight when Nick comes home, we'll snack on some of our favorite things (baguette, St. Andre cheese and olives) and head to Portland's Candy Cane Lane, picking up Thai food on the way home.  Sounds downright lovely.  Are my expectations too high? Am I bound to shoot myself in the foot and go to bed hating my birthday yet again, my silly pre-school ideas once again put to rest?  I guess we'll see.

But for now, I'm going to clean the yogurt off a pretty little face and get ready to enjoy the one thing that has brought me more joy than I'd ever thought possible:  my little girlie girl.  What a lucky, lucky mumma am I.

11 months old

My baby is growing up... (sniff, sniff!)

I have an almost one-year old.  It's just shocking, really.  And she is getting bigger.  After almost 2 months of staying at the same weight, she's been starting to look a little doughy of late.  The cheeks are bigger, the chin hangs down, and her little Michelin man arms are getting rounder.  And the scale this morning said....  16 lb 10 oz! 

I spent a few minutes browsing online yesterday, which I seldom do anymore, since I am obsessed with blogs and trying to get work done.  But instead I read a an article that says that working moms are happier and healthier than SAHMs.  For some reason that just seems a little bit hard to believe.  It talks about how isolated and depressing being a SAHM is.  And it got me wondering whether this is really true for the majority of people, let alone for me.

I do agree that being a SAHM is a lot of work.  And hard work, despite the fact that it's not physically grueling or remarkably intellectually exhausting.  We don't get weekends and evenings off, of course, and since Miss Cora wakes up often and for prolonged periods throughout the night, I do too.  I get a little antsy for big people conversation here and there, and get tired of finding different ways to run through my list of Cora's therapies and developmental games.  But am I more depressed?

At my beautiful friend's Christmas party the other day, she remarked that I seem in a better mood and happier in general since Cora has arrived.  She's also said that Nick and I seem happier as a couple, too.   And that put a big smile on my face.  Even with the very little sleep and the extra stress that having a child "with special needs" is supposed to put on my life, one of the people who knows me best thinks I am happier.  And that makes me happy.

When I look at it, I am happier, though tired and often stressed.  Even though I fantasize about going to a movie sometimes, or getting to read in the middle of the day and ignoring the house and home for a while, I really am thrilled being Cora's stay at home mama.  To get to spend my days with the most amazing little person in the world really is the best job I can think of.

I leave you with an image from yesterday's fun activity.  Well, fun for me at least.  Cora tolerated it fairly well.  I think it may be a little premature to be experimenting with pigtails.  Granted, her hair is growing, but there's still not a heck of a lot to work with. 

Mummy's big girl!