The past few nights Andy and I have been sitting on the floor and passing Cora back and forth between us to try and help her get comfortable with the idea of walking. She seems to know how but prefers the safe and familiar feel of crawling on the ground. Here is a video that captures some of her very first steps! (The beginning of the video is just her falling between us, she takes a few steps in a row toward the end as she is walking to me.)

The other day we were in the kitchen getting dinner ready and apparently Cora had her own dinner plans in mind.  It is hard not to just laugh at things like this.  She is so cute, we are so blessed.

(I took some pictures to share but have been unable to download them! I’ll get my tech support on it when he has a minute.)

Like all of my monthly postings I  am amazed at how fast she is growing and changing. I am grateful that while it is happening so fast Andy and I have made it a priority for me to be here with her and watch her transform.

Cora is funny and loves to make us laugh. She sucks her lips in and pops them out to make a kiss sound and waits for our smiles before doing it again. She also likes to pretend sneeze for a reaction. She still loves music and bounces and rocks back and forth to the beat. She is eating small pieces of fruit, cheese and crackers. We’ve tried giving her pasta and she’s not real sure about it yet. Cora melts us like butter when she smears our checks her wide mouthed “kisses.” She also gives hugs by squeezing her little arm around our necks and laying her head on our shoulder. Adorable. She has started giving hugs and kisses to her stuffed animals and dolls too. She also likes kissing other little kids and babies. She can be playing by another baby and without warning she’ll lean in and give them a kiss. Unfortunately, the other babies aren’t usually as excited about it as we are. We are working on getting Cora to stand by herself for a few seconds at a time and she has stood for about 10 seconds without help. The problem is she knows it’s easier to hold on to something and stand so she’s not sure why we are trying to make her life any more difficult.  I’m pretty sad at the realization that I need to start cutting back on nursing in able to wen her over the next few months. Nursing has been such a special time and I can’t imagine it not being a huge part of our day.

Cora’s goal in life for the past few months has been to crawl through the kitchen around the stove and into the forbidden laundry room undetected. The laundry room of coarse is where the big shiny silver bowls of secret dog food and mystery water reside. Yesterday morning Cora saw her dream come true. I was carefully cutting up small pieces of a pear for her breakfast as I saw her quietly pass me and the stove. I can usually gage her crawl and I know how much time I have to react. Well, I must have miscalculated because the next sound I heard was the tinging of Chase’s dog food  against the big shiny sliver bowls. By the time I made it to her she had a clenched fist full of yummy Purina One dog food and a confused look on her face. Apparently the food that made into her  mouth wasn’t all she’d dreamed it would be. I used my hook-like- finger to scoop the food out as she attempted her lock jaw move. I removed the dog food from her hands and got her into her high chair. By the way her high chair is amazing, not because it has any special bells or whistles, but it magically keeps her in one place. At last, I sit down and begin feeding Cora her breakfast to which she has no interest. Apparently Purina beats pears hands down.

Another month has flown by. Our baby girl is walking along anything that will hold  her up from furniture to the walls. She’s learned to clap and loves telling us how big she is by throwing her hands over her head with a big grin. When she gets really excited she bounces up and down and occasionally stomps her foot. We have seen a small glimpse of hope for our efforts of teaching her sign language, she almost did  the sign for “please” the other day. She has learned how to roll her ball back and forth on the floor with her Dada and she will grab anyones fingers she can reach and make you walk with her. She’s eating pretty well now, she’s had cauliflower & cheese, chicken and potatoes, graham crackers, some small amounts of juice (she’s learning to suck from the sippy cup) and her favorite has been the introduction to the timeless joy of Cheerioes. She is making out a few words, “Mama, Dada, and Chhzz.” She is a source of endless joy. I can’t image how much our Father, our Creator, our God must love us. If I, a flawed selfish human, have the capacity to love my daughter this deeply His perfect love for us must be amazing. I praise Him for all that He is and all that He does.

The marathon of Christmas ended with my parents waking up at our house the day after Christmas so we could enjoy some of Mom’s traditions. We woke up to Mom’s melt-in-your-mouth cinnamon rolls and a new batch of presents under the tree. We exchanged our gifts and enjoyed watching Cora open her gifts. After gifts and breakfast we took a walk to a school a few blocks from the house to let Chase run and feel the crisp morning on our checks.

In the midst of the business of Christmas Andy and I spent a lot of time talking about how hard it will be to keep the focus of Christmas on Christ for our kids as they grow up. We hope that while the world may leave Christ out of His own birthday that we will be able to instill the truth and importance about the celebration in our children.

Grandpa picked this out for Cora

Cora IN her present

The Botts Family (minus the 3 Kosters & 9 Michiganders)

I know…part 4.  Christmas was a bit of a marathon this year. So, after our quiet Christmas morning at the house we headed down to Port Charlotte for the Botts Christmas. Being that it was a Botts gathering we of course ate a huge meal before anyone even thought about gifts. We had all of the traditional Botts dishes from a ham to Auntie CoCo’s taco salad, and the dutch favorite Bon-Ket. After we ate we carried on the unique family tradition of arming ourselves with Nerf guns and ammo for the infamous “Nerf War.” Besides Grandma’s dutch style pig-in-the-blankets and Grandpa’s prayers, this may be one of my favorite traditions. Grandpa calmed the group and gathered us around the tree where DJ acted as Santa and passed out gifts one-by-one. Cora was spoiled once again with great gifts that lit up, sang and rolled, but this time she was more interested in DJ’s pink santa hat. The night ended with a buffet of  10 different desserts and once again, full bellies.

Aunt Michelle & Cora

Cora's mission: Get the Pink Santa hat!

Andy, Cora and I were able to spend Christmas morning at our house and really enjoyed starting some of our own traditions.  One of Andy’s favorites was the coffee cake recipe that I found from the summer camp in Missouri that we worked in the summer of 2002.  Cora got three presents from Santa, a ball, a tambourine, and a nursery rhymes book. We spent some time on the floor showing her how to roll the ball back and forth and she clearly didn’t need any help learning how to make the tambourine make noise. After we opened presents and ate our warm coffee cake, Andy, Cora, Chase and I piled onto the pull-out-bed from the couch and watched a few episodes of Andy’s gift, The Cosby Show. It didn’t take long for us all to drift off into a perfect Christmas morning nap.

Cora's first Christmas morning

On Christmas Eve we headed to Venice to spend the day with the Wells family. We tore through the presents in record time and Cora had a pile of presents to open, or rather to taste. She liked eating the bows and boxes more than discovering their contents. A few of us walked a couple of blocks to a little community park where Cora was able to try out the play equipment. We finished the day with a traditional Christmas feast and full bellies.

Andy & his baby girl!

Cora loves the swings.

She had two shoes at the top of the slide...?

Grandpa helping with the infamous lost shoe.

Cora eating the monkey bars

Cora sporting her new bib, thanks Grannin!