Our Family

Our Family

Sunday, October 30, 2011

1st Birthday and a Busy 1st Year

So many friends and family have told us that we are in dire need to update the blog.  Yes, it's been a long time and there is a lot to share.  A very much fast forward to where we're at at the first birthday and our busy month of October.  On October 8th we celebrated the big ONE!  It's hard to believe that it's already been a year.  We remember a lot but at the same time a lot of the past year is a blur.  We have our journal notes and pictures organized in a Shutterfly book but without these quick drafts we would have lost a lot of memories.  Time goes by very quickly for us and we defenatly feel like survivors of the biggest year of our lives. 
Evelynn is almost to the point of walking.  She is very determined and is crawling all over the place.  She pulls her self up to anything that will support her and she walks around everything.  Cora got a push and walk dino for her birthday from Marjean and Ken (family friends) and Evelynn has claimed this as her own.  Evelynn was the most into opening gifts and looking at the cards.  She loves books and flips page after page while telling a story in baby talk.  She has taken a large interest in the dog, Caina.  She crawls all over the house to keep track of where the dog is.  She can say "Momma"  "Dadda" "dog" "doggie"  "baby"

Cora is very observant.  She can scoot along on her butt and loves to have someone hold her hands so she can walk around.  We think she is going to skip the crawling and go straight into walking.  Cora's always been one to take time to observe, wait, and then skip all of the progress steps to just accomplishing the task at hand.  She has a lot of personality and loves to pick on her brother.  He can get the best of her too.  Cora is still our smallest but she has been growing quickly.  We call her "itty bitty."  Cora may be small but she has the most teeth and can some days almost eat more than Noah.  She cut six teeth at once and now has eight teeth.  She's the leader with this milestone.  She can say "Momma" "Dadda" "dog" "uh oh" "touch" (Noah has learned touchdown) and we have thought that she's said "thank you" a few times but this might be a stretch.

Noah has been nicknamed "Noah Bear."  He's always willing to flash a smile and reaches up to anyone who wants to hold him.  He loves to cuddle and will let you know when he's upset.  Cora and Noah have a love/hate relationship.  They can be playing well together one moment and then trying to steal toys from each other the next.  Noah loves to please.  During the Iowa vs. Iowa State game this September Noah learned to say "touchdown" while holding his hands up in the touchdown motion.  (Go Cyclones)  Noah has been frustrated with the motion to crawl for quite some time now.  Tonight, October 30th, Noah took his first five "steps" in the forward crawling position.  He loves to laugh and if he does something that makes you laugh he will do it again and again.  He says "Momma" "Dadda" "touchdown."

It was great to have so many friends and family join us for the first birthday!  We hope to keep up with at least posting pictures to the blog.  Our pictures with pumpkins this fall are much different from our pumpkin pictures last year.  This year each baby was at least bigger than the pumpkin.