Positive Thinking

So, for those of you who know me, I grew up in a pretty small town/area.  So when my we found out that we were moving to the Vegas area last year for John's new job, I was both excited and a little nervous.  Sin City is a fun place to visit ( in my opinion, John just hates it all around ) but I was a little nervous about living here.  We couldn't be too picky about where we went either, with the economy the way it is/was ya gotta go where the job is.  So we decided it would be a good chance for us to be away from family and start our own thing.  I was pretty excited.  And it has been great, except since we've been here. . . I have come to dislike, HATE Vegas!!!  Luckily we live in a little town about 30 minutes south east of Vegas, but we still find ourselves having to drive into town for some shopping, doctors appts., dentist appts., etc.  I loathe having to go into town ( unless it is to go on a "fun shopping day" at all of the shopping outlets )  Vegas drivers are not too friendly and I'm always praying that I make it home alive.  In my attempt to be a positive person, I have tried to come up with a list of things that I really do like about living in this area.  It's a short list, but a list nonetheless.
1. I LOVE THE WEATHER!!!  For the first year of my life, I wasn't snowed in on my birthday, but was actually out in the sunshine and LOVING every minute of it!!!!  I like the snow, but after about a month, I just want it gone, so the desert weather has been nice ( excluding the 120 degree weather that we had this summer for a couple weeks, KILL ME!!!!! )
2.  Like I mentioned before, the shopping down here is awesome!  They have almost any story you can think of and you can usually find some good deals if you are a good bargain shopper ( which I am )
3.  The Vaught's and The Dearden's.  Our bestest pals down here in Vegas have made it a lot of fun!  They both have little boys who aren't too much older than Cora, so she has friends that she can play with.  And we get to chill/hangout with them and just have a grand old time!  I will miss them THE MOST when we move :(
4.  The only other thing I like about Vegas is that we will be leaving it before it gets bloomin hot again :) hee hee!
We are moving to a more nothern town that won't be so dang hot and is A LOT smaller!  I will definitely miss the convenience of all of the shopping, but am excited to start a new adventure with my two sweetheart's!!!  I'll talk a little bit more about where we are moving in the future.  For now I just wanna vent to you all about this ................... place!!!

NO THANKS :)

Where does time go ???

I don't know why, but I swear ever since I had Cora, time has gone by 10 times faster!  I'm sure other moms can relate!  I have had so many things I've wanted to blog about in the past few months, but never find time.  I'm going to make it a goal to take time and blog at least once a week AT LEAST!  I eventually would like to print it out and have it as a book (I've heard of people doing that ....)  Anyways, this post is just going to be an update of pictures and my sweet little gal and how much she has grown up!!!! Hopefully I can get all of my numbers straight :)

6 MONTHS

She was so close to crawling when she turned 6 months, but didn't quite have it down.  She did have a cute little way of getting up on her feet and hands to do what we called her "baby yoga".  

She did this ALL DAY LONG for a couple of weeks!

7 MONTHS

She finally decided to crawl over Thanksgiving weekend while we were in Colorado at my parents house.  She just needed an audience I guess.  She hasn't stopped going and going since!  

8 MONTHS

Cora was soooo spoiled at Christmas time (and so were John and I).  Gramma and Grampa Jenkins got her this GIANT bear!!!  She is sooooo in love!!!

9 MONTHS

Here she is standing all by herself!!!!  AHHHHHH!!!!!  A lot has happened in the past month or so for her.  She is trying/loving a lot of new foods!!!!  She can stand on her own, and a few nights ago took her first steps.  She is becoming more and more brave, which scares the crap outta me, but I am so excited to see her learning all these new fun things.  She loves to make faces, click her tongue and take baths in the sink :)  Oh and how could I forget, she got her first two teeth too!  Big month for little Cora girl!!!

I LOVE HER... just a little ;) 

Wow..... I WIN!!!

Yep, I win the prize for the worst blogger EVER!!!  I like to look at all of my friends blog's, sometimes on a daily basis to see if they have updated them from the last time I have looked at them and I always get so sad/disappointed/annoyed when it has been months on end since they have updated them. . . I have become one of those people who takes forever to update my blog.  So I can no longer get upset with my friends LOL!  I'm just gonna have to do a quick update, not too many details, but plenty of pictures :)

John graduated from Police Academy, Wahoo!!!!  So we celebrated by driving up to Washington to visit the Family!!!!  Cora also turned 5 months old on the very day that the picture above was taken.  We loved seeing everybody and made us really sad that we don't live closer and get to see them more often :'(

When we got back from Washington we moved into a new apartment.  It is a bit smaller than our last one, and lots older, but we LOVE IT!!!  We live next to some really nice people and it is all carpeted, just in time for Cora to learn how to scoot around and crawl and all that good stuff.

Oh my, I forgot about our trip to Colorado/Utah.  My Bro (Joey) left for his mission in September, so we all got together in Colorado right before his farewell to have some good ol fashioned family time.  It was so much fun!  Cora and I got to stay for a whole week.  I loved being able to spend so much time with Joey before he left.  I miss him sooooooo much, but am so excited that he is serving.  He is loving it!!!!

Oh, we miss our Joey!  

Hmmmmm. . . . well honestly, TONS more has happened!!!  But I just can't remember it all let alone put it all into one post.  So here are some fun pics from the past few weeks.  

Having fun at the pumpkin walk!!!

Cora loves her new toy.....

And mommy loves her new toy (iPhone) :)

Cora turned 6 months old about a week ago and is learning lots of new stuff.  She scoots all over the place, can sit up on her own and loves eating all of the new foods that come with growing up.  She keeps us both very busy and we love it.  Watching her learn so many new, fun things is so exciting.  We can't wait until she starts crawling, although I'm sure we'll be going a little crazy once she does start!

 Cora was a pretty little flower for Halloween!  I decided to do this because Uncle Joey used to call her "Little Flower" and I thought that was really cute!

To all of our friends who actually follow this blog. . . which I'm sure are very few, I'm sorry and I promise I'm going to get better.

Peace and Blessings ;)

4 Months. . . Growing up so fast :)

Cora turned 4 months this past week.  I can't believe how much she has changed since the day she was born, her features and everything.  She is such a cute little girl, I can't get enough of her (good things she's mine) We went to the doctor and she got her 4 month shots, she only cried for a little bit at the doctor's office, but when we got home after a little bit of shopping, she was not a happy camper.  She cried harder and longer than I have ever seen.  It made me sad, but at the same time, she looks so cute when she is crying (am I a terrible mother to say that?) As soon as she got some food in her she was out like a light!!! And she slept for 5 hours!  So of course as soon as I was ready to go to bed, guess who decided to wake up and play?!  I couldn't be mad at her so we played a little bit then she fell back asleep.

She can now roll from her tummy to her back.  It is so fun to see her do it, she rolls over and looks all surprised that she did it and a little confused.  I would up load a video but it won't let me for some reason : (

Today we started feeding her rice cereal, and she really seemed to like it!  We can't wait to feed her fruit and veggies. . . . oh and her dad really wants to feed her some steak : )

We love our little girl, she makes us so happy!  We feel so blessed to have her and are having so much fun watching her grow up : )

Catching up. . . .

Oh man, has it really been a whole month since I've updated this thing?! Sheesh!!!  We've been too busy having fun : )

We've had a lot of visitors in the past few weeks (which makes us very happy)  We got to see our best pals, Kristin and Teddy for a day.  They were down in Vegas celebrating their one year anniversary (can't believe it's already been a year) and they came and spent the day with us at the lake.  You know you've got some dang good friends when they are willing to take some time out of their anniversary trip to come see you.  We love them and miss being their neighbors.  Congrats on one year of marriage guys!!!  We can't wait till we get to see you again.  Oh and a Happy Happy Birthday to Teddy too (it was last weekend)

Soakin up some sun!

She loves her Auntie Kristin!

I love this gal!!!!  She is the reason I have my Hubby and Beautiful little girl!  Love you Kristin and Teddy (sorry I didn't get a pic of Teddy)

Here ya go!!!!  hee hee hee, we are so awesome!

Well. . . Then we had a really fun time with my Aunt Krystle and Uncle Sam and their cute little kiddos.  I was an idiot and didn't get any pics of them.  DOOOOFUS!!!  We went and played at the splash pad and then went and did some shopping and got a nice din din at Tony Roma's.  It was so good to see them and I was so glad that they got to spend some more time with Cora!

The next week we had a full house with my whole family down for Cora's baby blessing.  It was SO MUCH FUN!  We spent the day at the lake and then just chilled and at lots of yummy food.  Cora's blessing was so good.  John did a great job and it was all around just a fun day with family and friends.  Jake, Kim and Joey got to stay an extra day so we went to the splash pad late Sunday night and had a good ol time : )

Delicious Smore cookies we made for everyone!!!

Joe and Mama playin with Cora.

This girl isn't spoiled or anything.

Our cute little gal : )

SPLASH PAAAADDDDDD TIME!!!!!!!!

Forgot to take my glasses off. . . . . . . .

And of course there is more. . . How could I not shower you with pictures of our little gal?!  She is growing so much and learning so much and . . . . oh man, I am so excited about it but at the same time kinda sad that she is growing so fast.  It is definitely more fun than sad though, and I feel so blessed that I am able to stay at home with her so that I don't miss a thing !!!!

She loves watching her TV

She's got the best seat in the house.

Learning to hold her bottle

Learning how to chill : )

She LOVES the taste of her hands. . . and she drools all over EVERYTHING!!!!!

Again. . .with the hands.

This is Cora's new best pal, G. Raff : )

Poor guy is getting a slobber bath!!!

And last but not least, She loves her bath time.  But when we take her out she gets really mad at us.  We would let her sit in the bath for a really long time, but she's had sensitive skin and it gets really dried out really fast.

So that is the past month in a nut shell.  We've got lots going on the next month.  John will finish up at the Academy,  Joey is going to come visit us for a week ( and we are gonna partay!!!) then we are off to Colorado to visit my parents in their new home AND THEN we go to Utah for Joey's farewell :(  It is going to be a crazy month, but it will be a lot of fun!!!  Now we are just hoping that the heat will let up down here. We've had a couple of weeks of over 110 degrees and it is getting really hard to stay sane in the house.  We wanna go outside and play!!!

Until next time. . . .

4th of July!!!

We had a GREAT 4th in Boulder City!!! We look forward to many more fun holidays in "The City That Built Hoover Dam"