LIGHT THE NIGHT!

It was so awesome! What a fun, family oriented event for a great cause!!! Thank you so much for all of your "Cora's Crew" team! We had a little trouble staying together in a giant group of 40 plus for the actual walk, but it was so fun to see you all in your shirts! Cora and Cade had a BLAST having all of their friends there! The walk was great, but it didn't really hit me just how much of a difference we were making until after the walk. As we were ready to leave, I saw this woman and immediately recognized her. Her 7 year old son was diagnosed with AML (the other common form of leukemia) the same day Cora was diagnosed. He spent a week directly across the hall from Cora in the hospital. As we shared the same diagnosis day, we watched each other's families suffer with the trauma of diagnosis. She pulled me aside for a second one day as I'd been "melting down" gave me a hug and said, "we're both gonna get through this." I was going to go over and speak to her until I saw her "team shirt" it said, Cody's Angels. I'm walking in MEMORY of Cody. I welled up with tears and walked away as I just didn't have the words in that moment. Then it truly hit both Rob and I as to just how blessed we are to be walking with our girl instead of in her memory. All leukemia patients are not as lucky. We DREAM of a day that treatment for even the most aggressive forms of leukemia will be treatable and curable! We are sorry that Cody didn't get to see that day, but for him and all those others we'll do our part to continue to work and pray for a cure. Thanks so much for all of those who went before us and paved the way for our Cora. And thanks to our wonderful Heavenly Father who for whatever reason chose to give us many more years with our precious sassy little angel! We are so grateful!

ARGH!

This weekend for the first time ever we visited Tybee Island's Pirate Festival. Whoa! It resembled a circus sideshow more than a festival, but it was entertaining to say the least! We took some really cute pirates who completely picked their own costumes.

One of which chose to wear pants that were WAY too small and shortly after this photo he split a hole right down the seat of them. (that's why he's shirtless in the remainder of the pictures)

We saw all kinds of pirate ships.
Some filled with "real" pirates. (notice one of the foursome is missing from this pic, she wasn't too sure about these guys!)

And some we got to jump inside.

We saw all kinds of animals. Apparently pirates like kangaroos.

And a VERY crazy guy doing tricks with a grizzly bear???

There were tiny pirates.

And four legged pirates,

VERY tall pirates! (just the sight of this guy sent Clara into a frenzy!)
And armed pirates with attitude!!! Argh matey!!!

Cora Digs Hot Dogs!

The first month of preschool Cora's class did an all about me unit. The teacher interviewed the class and put all the interviews together in a newspaper format. Here's what Cora's interview said.

Cora Digs Hot Dogs
My mom works out and has lunch with my brother while I am at school. My dad goes to school and teaches and has games of football and stuff. I like to give out my job in the classroom like napkins and cups. I love hot dogs. I don't really like lasagna. I like to dance at my house. I am going to be a teacher when I grow up. Monkey Joes is my favorite place to go and Carson is my favorite friend.

too cute!

baby clara's 8 month update!

I AM ALREADY 8 MONTHS OLD!!! And boy am I suddenly a handful! I am weighing in at a whopping 17 pounds 11 ounces! Mom says I've learned like 3 month worth of stuff in the past month! She wants me to slow down, but I just keep going and growing! Check out my new skills!(pause the play list for this...it's my theme song!)


I can crawl.
I can pull up on things.
I can almost horsey walk on all fours.
I can wave!
I can "love on mama" on command.
I eat real food smooshed up.
I find every tiny speck of anything left on the floor.
I eat every tiny speck of anything left on the floor.
I can pinch things with two fingers.
I can babble all sorts of new sounds.
I can bounce and dance when I hear music.
And I'm real cute!

A-S-S

Bet that got your attention, huh???

Cade is now attending Isle of Hope Elementary, our neighborhood school. It has really gone very well thus far. He LOVES his teacher and so do I. She is so funny and quick witted! He is ,however, being introduced into the world of public school. Here's what he told me about school the other day.
(don't quote me on this story. i wasn't there. you'll get the gist of it anyway. I'd love to hear Mrs. R's version.)

Mommy "so what happened on the playground today?"
Cade "Lee (his cute friend who just traded schools with him) and I got to be like detectives at recess today."
Mommy "detectives, huh? did you play detective?"
Cade "no, we found this word written on the playground by the climbing wall and I thought it was the bad word so we went and told Mrs. R. Mrs. R said that we were like detectives to discover that word and that it was the letters A-S-S that stood for something. She said it stood for "ALWAYS STAY SAFE!" That's probably why it was written next to the climbing wall. We spent the rest of recess walking around looking for other letters to decode, but didn't find any."

now that's a quick thinkin' teacher!
Thank you Mrs. R for protecting our boys innocence for one more day!

third child

here's the scenerio.... jogging with baby in the jog stroller. Baby unbeknownst to mama drops one of the two pacifiers left in the house.

child #1... totally written it off, forgotten it, and made a quick run to Wal-Mart for a new 10 pack of pacis.

child #2 ...Looked for the paci on the jog home if found and the nipple wasn't touching the road it would have been grabbed, stuck it in the stroller, eventually washed it in the dishwasher and reused after that.

child #3 ...steps immediately retraced until the paci was found (which by the way had been totally run over by a car), paci was stuck it in the stroller, brought it home, mama considered throwing it away but then thought to herself, "the part she sucks on is still intact, it will still work in an emergency." Unfortunately for Clara, today we resorted to the run over paci! poor clara!

LLS Regatta Kids Fishing Tournament and the Saga of "Bunny Love"

Today was the Leukemia Lymphoma Society's Kids Fishing Tournament at the Yacht Club. If you'll remember Cade took first place last year with a record of 23 fish in one hour. He was very excited to try to defend his title today. Daddy was very firm about Cade catching his own fish today, although he was still there to help with fish removal. Cade caught 9 fish in an hour and won SECOND PLACE!!! He was a little peeved that he got beat by a girl, but still he did it on his own! Of course mommy wasn't there with the camera when he reeled in his biggest catch of the day and 11 inch redfish, but I did get a few pictures!

Although Cade did great, I must say the catch of the day went to daddy! It wouldn't be a Garola Gang outing if it didn't include some sort of drama. And today's drama came in the form of a pink fuzzy bunny lovey. Clara's FAVORITE thing to sleep with is her "bunny love" as we call it. It's soft and pink and monogrammed with her initials. It's a small blanket with the head of a bunny attached. We take that thing everywhere and all we have to do to get her to sleep is give her that and a paci. Well... today Clara had the fore mentioned bunny love in her stroller on the dock as we watched the boys fish. Cora's fishing lasted all of 2 minutes. Unbeknownst to mommy, Clara drops bunny love onto the concrete marina walkway. Which would have been fine if the wind hadn't been blowing at like 9000 miles per hour. The minute I saw bunny love was the minute it flew from the walkway over the dock railing, plummeting approximately 30 feet into the waters below. I scream, "LOVEY!!!" and lurch forward as if there was something I could do at this point! Cora immediately flies into hysterics as Clara stares as an onlooker watching her bunny soak in more water and slowly sink by the second. Cora is crying like it's her blanket in the waters below and leaning over the rail as if she's considering jumping for it! Rob flies into action as he's mumbling something underneath his breath, tears the unused bait off Cora's fishing pole, drops it in with only a hook and weight on the end, lands it directly under bunny love, and then as he reels it back up, hooks the bunny seconds before it became waterlogged to the point of submersion. Cade cheered! Cora cried (because although bunny love was safe, he was now stinky and wet.) And Clara just sat there. I love that daddy's such a quick thinker! You know not all superheroes wear capes!