Fresh off our Christmas trip to Wyoming, we landed in Utah to bring in the New Year and to meet the newest member of the family, just five days old. Cohen Jacob Tarabilda was born the day after Christmas, and the family was gathering in Utah to meet him. He is already a chunky blond boy. It was such a blast from the past to be around a newborn again. He is a pretty cute kid.
But look at this girl! Grandma Buzz is always good about taking lots of pictures, and she snapped this beauty. It is my absolute favorite picture of Emmy. She just looks so precious. Those eyes. Those cheeks. Those lips. My heart...
Emmy loved getting to know her new baby cousin. Buzz rented out the Alumni House on 500 N. for all of us to stay in. It was filled with BYU memorabilia, had enough rooms for everyone, and provided a place for us to all be together. When Cohen wasn't with his momma, we would take turns holding him. It was what we looked forward to during the day. Emmy and I took some time right when we woke up in the morning to get some bonding time in.
Here is a video of Emmy trying to show some affection to Cohen. She is still learning how to be gentle.
Cohen is quite a bit different than Emmy was. He is incredibly active. I just remember Emmy melting into me when I held her. Cohen is constantly moving his arms and legs around, stiffening up and then relaxing every so often. It felt like he was always trying to break free of his swaddle, or my arms when I held him. He is probably going to be a freak athlete. Cory and I both enjoyed Uncle and Aunt duties.
Like I said, Emmy loved Cohen, but don't think she let people off the hook from giving her attention. She made sure Uncle Jake still gave her bites of his dinner. Buzz made her famous enchiladas, and had plenty of treats, cookies, and assorted gourmet hot chocolate flavors to choose from. There is something satisfying about everyone having a cup of hot chocolate together at the end of the day, when you know it is super cold and dark outside. We also watched movies, played Heads Up! and did puzzles.
In addition to hot chocolate parties, we were also having some pretty sick dance parties. Cohen even joined in and displayed some impressive moves.
Aside from hanging together at the house, we also got reacquainted with Provo. It was my first time back since leaving 18 months ago. Cory had been back already, though. I wanted to head back to BYU campus and take a look around. It seemed like I was at BYU for such a long time, and at the end I was so ready to leave. Coming back after all this time, though, made me really miss it. All the nostalgic feels were getting to me. We checked out the new Life Sciences Building. I was in Life Sciences, but this building wasn't finished until I left. It is massive and super impressive. I had a very strange desire to walk around and figure out where I which parts of the building I would go to if I was still a student. Also, I got a kick out of seeing all of my professors' names on the directory. Cory was patient with me, but eventually I had to leave my nostalgic fantasy world.
We also took Emmy to the Wilk to walk around the bookstore, and we got a picture with Cosmo at The Wall.
We also headed to Provo Town Center to walk around the mall. Emmy likes doing that, and it is a warm place to walk around and get the blood pumping. Right when we walked in, we saw some motorized animal scooters and Cory suggested that I take Emmy on a ride around the mall. I have to admit that I thought it would have been fun even without Emmy, but I let her tag along.
If you watch the video closely, you can see Emmy's facial reactions to riding around on our giraffe.
One of the nights, Jake and I caught a BYU basketball game at the Marriott Center. They have a huge new video scoreboard. BYU won and we saw Kyle Collinsworth record a triple-double, so it was a great game to go to. It was nice of the girls to stay home with the babes so we could go to the game. A different day we tried to return to favor by watching the kids while Buzz, Anna, and Cory all went to see the new Star Wars movie. I will never be able to do as much for Emmy as Cory does, but I think it is alright for Cory to leave us to fend for ourselves every once in a while. Mostly, Emmy took a nap while Jake, Cohen, and I watched a documentary on Jeremy Lin...so it was super strenuous.
We loved our time in Utah with family. Buzz always puts a lot of thought into bringing us all together. She has two grand-babies now! I won't speak for Cohen, but we know Emmy always loves her special time with Grandma.
Of course, congratulations to Jake and Anna. Cohen is just awesome. They were also such troopers for staying in that house with the rest of the family. Being parents for the first time and not even being in your home for the first weeks of your baby's life is not ideal, but they never complained. We are excited to see Emmy and Cohen grow up together.
Here is proof that Cory was there during the trip! We need to get some more pictures from Buzz that have Cory in them! All the time with family has been awesome, but after three weeks of being away from home, it was time to head back to Memphis. Emmy was very excited when we told her we were going back on a plane. We won't show her reaction of when we explained that meant we had to leave Cohen.
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