Birthday #28

Thank you to my wonderful friends (Amanda, Val, Marian and Cheri) who surprised me on the morning of my birthday by taking me out for coffee. I'm so thankful to have such good friends and to have been able to spend some of my birthday with them!

Thank you to my wonderful husband, Brad, who surprised me with a night away from home at a B&B in Paonia, CO. A family from church watched Cora for the night and it was wonderful to have time with just Brad!

And thanks to all my friends and family who live at a distance and sent their birthday blessings, too!

This was the best birthday I've had in a number of years, so thanks to everyone for making it special!

Help, advice, ideas please

I'm frustrated by my video creating options. Here's our situation:

1. Our digital camera takes videos and they look decent (although not great) when we view them on the computer but they don't upload to the Internet well at all. I can't upload them to blogger directly so I end up using Youtube and they don't look as nice on youtube as before they are uploaded. Should I try a different website? Or is the problem the quality of video that our camera takes?

2. We also have a mini-dvd video camera. It does not have a usb port to connect it directly to a computer. Our computer's dvd drive is broken so we can't view dvd's on the computer. Since I can't figure out how to edit and, most importantly, share movies that we take on this device we don't use it very often, which seems like a shame and a waste. Anyone have advice here? Do we fix the DVD drive on the computer? Will it be able to view mini-dvds? Do we sell this camera and purchase one that connects with a USB cable? (I've seen the Flip Video cameras which seem quite affordable and simple BUT...how do I know what kind of quality videos I'll be getting with different devices?)

3. I don't know how to edit videos very well...Any advice here?

Maybe I should take these questions to Best Buy. But hopefully someone who's not trying to sell my anything will answer my questions here first, so I can go into Best Buy a little more prepared. Thanks in advance for any help or suggestions.

All by myself!

Cora learned how to swim "on her own" today! We have a suit with floatation chambers but we only use it sometimes because in the past it would put her flat on her face in the water or flat on her back and she couldn't seem to maneuver herself very well in it. Today I thought I'd try it again since she's been getting so brave in the water and tries really hard to swim. Another thing we encourage her to do in the pool is to move along the side of the pool by herself using her hands. I was trying to get her to move along the wall/side to the ladder and she started doing it with just one hand on the side, rather than both. Then all of a sudden she let go with both hands and started swimming! She was ecstatic and just kept swimming and swimming. Brad came home from work just a little while later and got to see her swimming and take a video of it, too. We could see that she was so excited about this new discovery - it was all she wanted to do! She seemed to be so proud of herself and her new ability! We are so proud of her too!

She also learned two new words today while swimming: splash ("spash") and down ("don"). Every time I witness her learning something new - a new word, a new discovery, a new ability - I feel like I'm witnessing a little miracle! It's so amazing how God has made us!

Little Helper

The dishwasher was full and clean...again. Time to empty it so the dirty dishes could go in. I started putting some bowls and dishes in the cupboard and pondered what else I had to do before heading to small group later this evening.

After a few minutes the little "pat, pat, pat" of Cora's feet registered in my consciousness and I tuned in to what she was doing. I turned to see her walking away from the silverware drawer back to the dishwasher.

The drawer was opened only about 2 inches and there were a fork and spoon haphazardly placed in the drawer!

Cora has helped me a few times in the past unloading the dishwasher but I was so surprised to see that she had, on her own initiative, started to help me AND had remembered which drawer the silverware goes! Her little mind is amazing.

Now, I could leave the story here and let you imagine that she proceeded to put all the silverware away in the drawer like a little trained robot. That wasn't exactly how the rest of the story goes...but let's just pretend it was that hassle-free!

18 months and growing

Cora is 18 months old! She is a little sponge, soaking up everything around her. Here are some details about Cora:
She tries so hard to mimic new words that she hears, sometimes getting close, often sounding like adorable gibberish!

She is into climbing ladders on things: ladders, couches, chairs, etc.

She hasn't quite figured out how to run yet, but it just may not be in her nature to want to. She never was a fast crawler, never seemed in a hurry and that hasn't changed now.

She is still a good eater and will eat almost anything we put in front of her, and a lot of it! She even ate chips and (medium) salsa with Brad and I the other day...not much but a few bites. The only thing she seems to really dislike is plain meat. If the meat is part of something else, like a casserole, she'll eat it all up.

She still really enjoys going for walks in the stroller and has come to like going for bike rides in the trailer.

She LOVES babies! Any picture of a baby excites her and she loves to nurture her baby doll. She feeds her, tries to clothe her, pats her back, and pushes her in the toy stroller around the house.

She can point to her nose, eyes, ears, mouth, hair/head, feet and belly button.
She's becoming a very brave swimmer, blowing bubbles with her mouth in the water and attempting to swim on her own. It definitely keeps us on our toes.

I think she's finally down to one nap a day, but it's still a little bit of a stretch for her to make it from waking up in the morning to nap time, and from nap time to bedtime, but two naps usually never happens so hopefully she'll adjust quickly to the new schedule.

I just wrote a bunch of other stuff on a recent post so I'll quit here. She sure is a joy! And what a blessing she is to Brad and me. Thank you, Lord, for our precious little girl!

6 Years and a vacation at home

Today is our 6th wedding anniversary! I'm so thankful for my wonderful husband. He's an amazing man, father, husband and my best friend. Even during the bumpy times he is always patient and loving, never willing to give up. I love you, Brad!

We celebrated by having a calm and relaxing day. In fact the whole weekend has been calm and relaxing! We had planned a camping trip to Rocky Mountain National Park, a Rockies baseball game, an AVP tournament in Boulder, and the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo for this weekend. Sadly, both of our vehicles got sick and we canceled/postponed our trip. The Jetta has been in the shop for almost a month now. They were having a hard time locating the problem and when they did, the one mechanic who could fix it was on vacation and had a backup of other vehicles to work on. Can't wait to see that bill! The Jeep has not been running well either and Brad decided it should get checked out before driving it across the mountains and it turns out there is some problem that I don't understand but was serious enough that we had to leave it with them in the shop.

We had a few vehicles offered to us so we could still go on our trip - thank you to these generous people! - but we decided not to force the issue and take it as a God-thing. Since we had just gone to the cabin I was a little overwhelmed with the unpacking, repacking and meal planning for another trip; plus, all the driving with Cora gets a little daunting so to go drive another 4+ hours made me tired just thinking about it. Since everyone knew Brad was going on vacation it has been very easy to stay home and relax without work tempting him or interrupting our time. It has been a wonderful weekend! We've enjoyed playing games (Ticket to Ride is our newest addition), swimming, riding bikes, and simply being together as a family. I think this type of vacation is exactly what we needed right now! God knew it...we didn't. I guess it took both vehicles going to the mechanics to get our attention and make us slow down! (Please pray that they do get fixed quickly and for minimal fees.)

We'll hopefully still get our camping trip in later this summer. We won't be able to see the AVP tourney unfortunately, but I think everything else will still be available.