Lola’s World

My bitty baby is now 14 months. Ack!!!

She started walking about a month ago, and now she is all over the place. Everywhere. Quickly. And trying out her new climbing skills. Eek!

She doesn’t like to be held a bunch. Too much to see and do. Heaven help the person who comes between her and what she wants to touch or where she wants to go. In this house, there isn’t a lot of space for her to go and touch and climb without someone needing to interfere, so she spends a fair amount of time frustrated with us. She doesn’t sit in one place to play with toys. She prefers hightailing it to open doors, opening cabinets, playing with outlets, or climbing on chairs or beds. She likes to play with phones. Or pull all the clothes out of a dresser drawer.

 

I’m pretty sure her first sentence will be “Lola do it.”

She enjoys attention from other people as long as they don’t get in her personal space. She has no problem being put down in the nursery to play with toys, but does. not. like to be handed off to a person. During gym time at CC, she has no intention of staying on our blanket to eat lunch (we eat picnic-style in the gym). She boldly goes straight into the chaos of 30 rough-housing kids. (I have to work really hard at not being an over-protective mother…)

She loves yogurt, pizza, roasted cauliflower, chicken noodle soup, chocolate, and Costco samples (you should hear her let us know if we don’t share with her quickly enough!!). She drinks water out of a cup with a straw. (She doesn’t like milk, so I feed her lots of full-fat yogurt.) She’s not too big on fruit other than gnawing on apples. (We stopped breastfeeding only a couple weeks ago.) She likes to stand up in her highchair.

She couldn’t care less about stuffed animals. She’ll tolerate dolls. But she really likes books. (Wahooo!!) When we snuggle up at nap time she’ll throw a stuffed animal on the floor, but she’ll smile really big if I get out a board book and she’ll start giggling when I read. It’s getting more difficult now that she is determined to hold the book (not necessarily right side up) and turn the pages on her own schedule.

She just cut teeth #7 and 8. I am really ready to be through with this teething business. It doesn’t make her cranky during the day, but it’s brutal at night and they take for.ever. to come through.

Lola usually takes two 1.5-hour naps during the day, but if our schedule is messed up she’ll sometimes take just one. She goes to bed around 9, wakes up a couple times at night for attention (more or less, depending on teeth and what-not), and wakes around 7 or 8 in the morning. We usually snuggle until she’s asleep (partly because I enjoy it), but she does fall asleep on her own occasionally. Her going to sleep routine is MUCH better than it was a couple months ago!

She ADORES Daddy. She gives him the sweetest, happiest smiles! And she says Dadada.

Her eyes are dark blue. I have no idea how much she weighs. (I’ve been procrastinating on her 1 year Dr. visit.) She wears mostly 24 months/2T clothes and size 6 shoes. Her hair is beginning to grow a little in back--enough to be curly after a bath and look scary after a nap. We are still a LONG ways from ponytails. Sob.

The boys think she is the most entertaining play-thing EVER. Levi would rather play with her all day long than do just about anything else. There is a lot of rough-housing going on between the four of my crazy kids. I’m pretty sure that Lola will be able to take care of herself in any situation as she gets older.

She doesn’t like to smile for the camera, but she’ll smile for her brothers. This smile was for Leif:

She growls. A lot. She loves to play patty-cake. She waves and says hi and bye (they both sound like a breathy long ‘eye’). She says ‘uh-oh,’ which the boys think is the funniest thing ever. She blows kisses.

She is finally (barely) tolerating hats or jacket hoods (thank goodness!), but still no headbands. And she takes shoes off immediately (except for her soft Robeez).

She hates sand and other suspicious surfaces or textures. She doesn’t like her hands to be dirty. She loves playing in the water at bath time.

We call her Lolo. Lo-Bug. Lala. Lowes. And pretty much anything else that rolls off our tongues at the moment. Lots of terms of endearment for this girl.

I’ve decided I’m just going to wrap Lola up and put her under our tree for Christmas. And everyone will be happy.

The Liptac Family

This is my third year in a row taking family pictures for Cheris! Her family is just gorgeous, and I’m glad to count them among our friends.

Green Friday ~ The Long Version

Thanksgiving was a quiet, dark and rainy day. The morning after, our house was dark and disastrous. (We didn’t host Thanksgiving dinner, but just getting OUT of the house seems to produce a disaster…) I felt like I had three million things on the to-do list at home (including cleaning up the disaster), and getting out of the house with all the kids is a huge undertaking in itself. But I saw the sun peeking out and I KNEW that we needed to get some fresh air.

It was our traditional Green Friday. Lola took her morning nap. I got a few things together. We left the house just after noon. The drive was beautiful. The sun was shining. Christmas music was playing. The boys and I had some deep conversations about land zoning (and the difference between commercial, industrial, professional, residential, and farm zoning), euthanasia, the Deity of Christ, and inertia. (Yep, really.)

It was a bit overcast when we first arrived at our favorite nature hike spot.

Leif wasn’t sure a nature hike was on his agenda for the day, but it helped that his favorite Ivy was along to keep him company.

Lola was excited to participate for the first time.

And so we set out.

The little kids played. Ilex helped. Holly gathered. I took pictures, including a kajillion of Lola. (More of those later.)

Halfway through our walk, the sun came back out to play. It was glorious.

Then we meandered back to the truck. Levi observed that ‘excessive use of legs results in pain.’ Yeah, that’s my boy.

We ended our afternoon with snacks and hot chocolate at Aunt Holly’s house.

Living. Lovely.

Drowning in Real Life

…. Or at least the laundry. But these moments are the moments that all together make a good life. And a good life it is.

Maybe she can teach me how to text.

I have a bunch of pictures to post, including two family sessions, but my computer is hating me and all my photos right now. My hubby has to work some magic on the memory situation (if only he could do that with my actual memory…).

Breathe.

Green Friday~Take Three

Three years ago, my sister and I began our Green Friday tradition: a nature hike on the day after Thanksgiving (instead of shopping). Last year, the weather was nasty and I had a bitty baby.

This year: the weather was GORGEOUS.

I have a multitude of pictures to post, but this is all I’m getting to right at the moment.

Quiet Moments

We had a very quiet sort of Thanksgiving. Well, as quiet as it gets with three little boys. We missed my grandparents, who were unable to travel up from California (love you Grandma and Grandpa!!); we missed my sister, Holly, and her family, who were spending time with the other side of their family. My dad just had open-heart surgery two weeks ago. So, we kept things simple.

My brother-in-law, Casey, made the turkey and delivered it to us before heading to his parents’ house. My sister, Shannon, made twice-baked potatoes and roasted green beans. Mom made bread dressing and candied yams. I brought hot rolls and our traditional jello salad. We set the table with my grandmother’s dishes.

I didn’t snap very many pictures.

It was dark and rainy. Not the best weather for our traditional walk after dinner. It’s a good thing Aunt Shan and Uncle Ben were such great sports and played games with the boys. Mastermind is the current favorite. When there is only one game board and only two people can play, a Mastermind iphone app comes in handy…

I am blessed. Yes, I certainly am.

The View From Our Kitchen Window

Do they not know what day it is?!!!

Happy Turkey Day! {grin}

A Song in My Heart

More Than a Holiday

Because Thanksgiving is More than a Holiday by Ann Voskamp @ {In} Courage

Then the stress roils and I’m heavily under the influence of speed, then is the time for the stress intervention, and I’d breathe deep and I’d say it out loud:

“Thank You for crazy towhead kids. Thank You for ridiculous legos. Thank You for socks even if they mismatch. And thank You that we’re here together, breathing together right now…that there’s now.”

And I’d be doing that, breathing deeper.

Giving thanks is profoundly life giving.

Happy Thanksgiving Week!

Another Day

Uploading photos without any editing, and without feeling obligated to share a bunch of commentary, was liberating (and fast!) yesterday. I think I'll try it again today.

Only the beginning, people. Only the beginning.

Luke’s breakfast creation:

Snack time in the studio:

(This is a boy who hates to write. But he loves All About Spelling, his writing has improved by leaps and bounds this past year, and he is so proud of himself!!)

Just Because

Life unedited and without commentary. Grin.

ETA: I’ve started attempting to diagram our weekly CC history sentences. It gives me a chance to stretch myself in the grammar department. Not only that, but I’ve found that, because I am a visual learner, I memorize the sentences much more quickly when I have a concrete, organized picture of them. This week’s sentence is rather awkward (like most of my own). Often, after I take a picture, of course, I realize I’ve misdiagrammed. (Is that a word? Maybe it’s mis-diagrammed. See, I’m always second-guessing myself…)  Anyway, I was thinking that ‘realized’ was a subject complement, a past participle being used as an adjective with a linking verb predicate, but it is part of a verb phrase. Yes? No? It is really frustrating being on a 4th grade level in grammar. Sigh.