Happy St. Patrick's Day!

She wasn't really in the picture taking mood, but apparently she was pretty excited about showing off her sunglasses so we had to take what we could get!

This one is from mom. Maybe she can fill in the blanks. Dancing? :)

Spring has Arrived... Hopefully!

It was so nice to get outside and enjoy some nice weather this last week. Brian, Lola and I took our first walk of the year. She still loves her stroller and loves being outside walking. She points out airplanes, clouds, dogs and likes to wave at people in cars as they drive by. So cute!

Grandma Paula also took her kids outside this week too. She said Lola loves swinging on the swing! Some of these pictures are from her.

I'm Calling It...

I laugh using that title, because I remember my best friend using the same heading when her baby Cara starting talking and that was a solid 6 months ago (and furthermore, Cara is a month younger than Lola). Oh well, I'm still proud of her!

It seemed like all at once we're starting to hear lots of action.

She definitely says mama and dada and just started with a few other words.

Bird: "Brr"
Truck: "Tuk"
Snack: "Nak" (I haven't heard this one, so it doesn't really count yet)
"Papa" is her Grandpa Dana
Juice: "Ju" or "Joos"

Maybe we're finally turning the corner!

Lola...

...is going to be a big sister! :)


I'm fresh out of my first trimester and all is well, so I'm happy to share my news! I'm due August 30th, so it will be a very long and hot summer. I'm not fond of heat and humidity anyway, but being 8-9 months pregnant during the summer really doesn't make me happy.


One of the first things I thought of was being as big as a house for my cousin's wedding in July. Not real happy about having to wear a maternity dress to the wedding, but oh well. Still wouldn't miss it for the world!


Paige - If you could just make sure the air conditioner works and keep the food keep coming (I could put down a lot of food while pregnant with Lola)! :)


I'm so excited to see what a great big sister Lola is going to be!

My Little Dancer

My co-worker bought Lola these cute little leg warmers so I had to play dress up with her tonight. At first, she wasn't so fond of the tutu, but once I put her in front of the mirror and ooh'd and ahh'd over her, she thought it was okay.

She wasn't really into having her picture taken tonight, so these aren't the greatest.

I tried to get some with just her onesie and leg warmers, but she wasn't having it. I did, however, finally get one of her hugging Alina. Lola is quite a hugger and Alina, not so much. Every time Alina comes over, Lola hugs her and hugs her and hugs her until Alina finally has had enough. This was the first one of the night, so Alina is still okay with it.

This was the 4th or 5th, so the frustration was starting to be evident.

Not sure what heading to give this...

Okay... I have to admit something rather embarrassing about myself in order to tell this story. I have a weird obsession with getting all of the fuzzies out of my toes after I take my socks off. When Logan was a baby and lived with us, I had to make sure his toes were fuzz free. And now, as you can imagine, Lola always has to have the cleanest toes on the block. I think I've officially passed the obsession on to her!

Curls like Mama

Since Lola was born, we generally have heard she resembles Brian. There are a few things she got from me though: blond hair, a chin dimple, long eyelashes... and my curls! Check out these locks after her bath the other day!

15 Months and Lots of Lola Funnies

First, I know it's been a few weeks since I last wrote, but our home computer has been broken. It's getting fixed, but in the mean time, I'm using my work laptop (shhh!).

Lola had her 15 month well-child appointment yesterday and she is 22 pounds, 4 ounces (55th percentile) and 31 inches long (85 percentile). If you didn't already know, Lola hasn't started talking yet so her doctor highly recommended we see a speech therapist to make sure there are no abnormal causes for the delay. The therapists came 2 weeks ago for the evaluation and found no findings. In fact, she didn't even quality for additional therapy. They were pleased with all that she can do and told us to expect her vocabulary to explode one of these days. So... she doesn't have a large speaking vocabulary, but the words she knows amaze me everyday (remember this is our first child, so we have nothing to compare it to, but I'm pretty darn impressed).

Here is a recap of our day:

This morning Brian was getting out the waffles from the freezer, Lola went over to the pantry and started knocking on the door. When Brian opened it, she knelt down to pick up the toaster (because that is how we fix our waffles)

Brian and Lola were upstairs and she was carrying her shoes around. He said "We need to go put your shoes in your closet" so she walked out of our room and into her room and stood at her closet waiting for him to help her get them on the shelf.

I said "Lola, do you need a new diaper"? She runs over to her basket of diapers and brings me a diaper and her changing pad(sometimes she'll lay down too). After we're done, she stands up, grabs the diaper and walks over to the trash can and throws the diaper away.

Lola and I have both been sick this week so there has been a lot of nose blowing and wiping around our house. I was blowing my nose and Lola lifted up the lid to the trash can and waited for me to throw my Kleenex away.

After dinner, I told Brian that we needed to give Lola a bath. She apparently heard me, because she went to the hallway pointing up the stairs at the bathroom. I - almost to myself - said "we need to put your milk in the refrigerator first" and started to stand up. She ran over, got her milk cup and ran to the refrigerator. She needed a little help getting the door open, but when I pulled it open, she put her milk on the shelf and headed back to the hallway.

When we were in the bathroom, I bent down to get her water ready. When I turned around, she had gotten her towel and washcloth out of the drawer and laid in on the toilet. When we got in the bathtub, I thought I would try my luck at body parts. Without any hesitation, she nailed: head, eyes, nose, ears, mouth, tongue, fingers, belly, knees, legs and toes.

A few weeks ago, when we were getting out of the bath, I pulled the plug and randomly said "the water is going bye bye" and now every time she gets out of the tub, she waves bye bye to the water.

She was sitting on top of the bathroom sink with her back to the mirror. She turned around, saw herself in the mirror, leaned in and gave her self a huge kiss!

We were looking at a photo album and saw her picture with Santa and she points to him and says "ho ho ho".

Grandma Paula has taught Lola to do the Hokie Pokie and Ring Around the Rosie. Hokie Pokie is fairly new, but Ring Around the Rosie has been a regular for awhile. If she wants to play by herself, she will twirl in a circle and then fall down. If she wants to play with you, she'll grab your hands, pull you up and walk in a circle holding your hands. When you start singing Hokie Pokie, she'll stick out her leg, turn in a circle and clap her hands right on cue!

Now... who is going to tell me that our daughter is delayed?! :)

Here are some pictures from our big snow storm.

Candids

I just read the latest blog entry from my best friend, Amanda, and I'm glad I'm not the only one who is having a slow 'blog month'. It seems like we're staying busy, but just nothing that I'm taking a lot of pictures of. So... I just called this entry "Candids" and it includes some random pictures.

My dad sent me this one, which was taken at their house. She has always been quite obsessed with computers and pushing the buttons, but this picture was quite impressive. She looks so natural! Even with her little hand on the mouse! :)

This was also taken at my parents and I just had to laugh when I saw it! I believe my mom told me that Lola has taken a liking to the bike helmet that belongs to one of the twins she watches (he uses it as his football helmet). So, looks like Lola may need a princess bike helmet sometime in the future.

One of the most adorable things I have seen Lola do and something I never get tired of watching is when she takes care of her little baby. She will hold her, sway with her, pat her on the back, give her a drink from her cup and this weekend, she climbed up in her rocking chair and rocked her. Adorable!!!

The Blue Snowsuit

The BLUE SNOWSUIT (and boots) have been in our family for about 18 years. It was bought for Logan when he was a baby and has been passed down to several of my nieces and nephews. And now it's Miss Lola's turn! My mom came up to our house last week and took her outside to play in the snow. My mom said that she was pretty excited to put it on and enjoyed herself outside, but we learned on Christmas Day that she doesn't like to eat snow! :)

Merry Christmas!

Lola was very happy to see all of her gifts from Santa! She got a piano, a pink corn popper, clothes for her baby doll, a tool box, a stacking block thing and in her stocking she got a Disney Princess plate, fork / spoon and cup; coloring book and crayons and Animal Crackers.

Grandma Paula showing Lola our very white Christmas!

Lola and her cousins

Lola's new princess ride-on toy.

Her new rocking chair.

Christmas Eve

We started the Christmas Eve festivities at Brian's parents where Lola got all kinds of fun stuff!

Brian and Lola (he is holding her mixing bowl from the baking set she got).

This wasn't a new toy, but just something random she found and really seemed to enjoy!

Back to my parents to stay all night. Here is Lola and Brian with their Christmas Eve gifts - new ornaments!

Leaving her treats for Santa
























She couldn't quite figure out why these treats were on a plate in front of her, yet she wasn't allowed to eat them! Poor girl!

Showing me her empty stocking.

Christmas Candids

Brian and I are like giddy little kids when it comes to Christmas, so we always do ours a little early. This year we actually managed to wait until 12/23, which is really late for us. The three of us had dinner at Chili's and then home for presents while listening to Christmas music and eating Christmas cookies.

Lola was in such a good mood so we were trying to get some pictures by the tree.

I love this one!

Getting ready to help her daddy open his presents.

She loved her new mittens and purple and silver Nike's!

Grandpa Larry's Little Girl

Yes, friends... that is a John Deer hat on my little girl's head. She found it in a sack of presents I still needed to wrap and put it on her head.

Wyatt's Birthday

My family's little Christmas baby - my nephew, Wyatt - turned 7 years old last week! So we started our Christmas week by going to his Star Wars party. For as long as I could remember, Wyatt has always had the best smiles!!

It's no secret that Lola is pretty shy around some of my family. Angie, Janell and Denise have tried their hardest and poor Logan... he's tried almost everything to get her to come to him. So far, only one thing works...

Lola's First Christmas Present

Lola's first Christmas present was this cute little table from her Grandma Donna and Grandpa Larry. We were planning to have it go in her room, but she really likes sitting at her table so we have it in the kitchen for now. She sits there to have her afternoon snack of pretzels or Teddy Grahams.

One evening when Brian and I were being bad parents (too engaged in the TV), we were surprised to look back and find Lola hanging out ON TOP of her new table.

Christmas Tree

This weekend we braved the cold to pick out our Christmas Tree. So far, Lola has done pretty well with it, she definitely likes to point at the ornaments and she's pulled a few off, but overall - not as bad as I was expecting.

These pictures are very candid and hopefully I'll have some nicer pictures soon.

Lola... just playing around with the Christmas decorations...

Picking out our tree

Lola and her daddy putting the star on

Checking the tree out