Misc. Pics- January

Helping Momma do laundry

Showing off her cute angel jammies

Our lil' chubster. Her Uncle Taylor loves to call her Chubbers. He started calling her that when she was 6 weeks old and really was quite the chunker but now its more of a joke because of how thin she actually is :)

Momma's little helper. For a few more years anyway :)

She does not like her bangs in her face!

Much better :)Playing in her Jumperoo

Bathtime at Grammy's

We dressed Lola up in a build-a-bear Bronco's outfit that was sitting my parents house. Cruel? Maybe, but we've never laughed so hard :)Pants are a little tight...Just love this face

Eight Months!

Another month has flown by and now our baby girl is 8 months old! I seriously cant believe how fast it all has passed. It has been a crazy month for us as we had Christmas, New Years, and a new nephew born plus traveling to Denver twice in a 3 week period. Lola did great during our trips -even sleeping and napping the same as she does at home with no trouble or set backs after returning. We couldnt have asked for a more easy going, happy as can be, very sweet, lovable, beautiful, charming and completely adorable baby! We love her so much and enjoy watching her grow and learn everyday. This month has definitely been the biggest in terms of accomplishing and trying new things. So far this past month Lola:

• Learned to roll to her right finally. Yay!!
• Found her voice and is jabbering/babbling all the time now
• Is developing a very cute sense of humor- laughing, giggling, and smiling a ton
  
• FINALLY took an entire (3 oz) bottle for the first time (plus a few more times since then) Biggest yay ever!! (you have no idea the happiness this bring to a mother who has yet to go out on a date alone with her handsome husband since May 2009) Bring on the babysitters!
  
• Learned to go from laying down to sitting up on her own
• We noticed she has a cute (new?) circular dimple on the bottom right corner of her chin when she smiles/laughs really big. So Cute!
• She loves to pull her socks off ALL the time and especially right after she wakes up from her naps. She has also decided she loves having her back tickled and massaged as well as her legs and feet massaged while being lotion-ed up after her baths. She definitely gets both those from Mommy (for those who dont know me, I HATE socks- I think I own maybe 2 pair beacause I wear flip flops everywhere and heels where I cant wear sandals)
• Some of her favorite games are peekaboo, others pretending to 'get her', and fake coughing- cracks herself right up. She also cracks up at the words stinky and sneaky when we exaggerate saying them to her and loves when I play telephone with her feet and we call Daddy.
• At 8 and a half months Lola is finally outgrowing her 3-6 months clothes and is just at the starting weight for 6-9 month sizes! I bought many of her clothes before she was born so all the winter clothes I had bought are probably going to start fitting her about the spring time! I have to laugh because I should have known better (speaking of clothes shes never worn yet, this cutest dress that I took her 8 month picture in is one of my favorite dresses of hers (thanks Cindi!) but its a 3-6 month size and didnt fit her during the warmer months, and even still is slightly big, but I had to get a picture of her in it before it doesnt fit, so I cranked up the heat for our shoot and pretended it wasnt January outside)
  
• She sleeps 11-12 hours at night (still waking for a 4am feeding) and takes a 2 hour nap mid-morning, another 1-1 and 1/2 nap early-mid afternoon and occasionally another 1/2 hour nap if we need her to stay up later that night (all naps are still in her swing). She now goes down for bed around 7-730 pm.
  
• Her eating schedule is currently nursing 5 times a day, with cereal and fruit for breakfast, vegetables for lunch, and cereal and (buttered) vegetables with meat for dinner. She is eating stage 2 foods and will soon be ready for stage 3. She loves trying new finger foods and some of her favorites so far are: gerber puffs, biter biscuits, english muffin, french fries, bread/toast, bananas, avocado, and pretty much anything her Daddy feeds her that he shouldnt :) Dislikes are peaches, mangos, plums, jarred mac n cheese, and ketchup.

Cutest baby feet ever!

Mommy's beautiful baby doll

Cutest Video Clips

Lola LOVES her bathtime. Even if its late and shes ornery, once she gets in, shes the happiest baby girl. Her favorite thing to do is kick her legs and splash around (and try to eat her bath toy of course). Just recently shes caught on to us laughing at her when she splashes and thinks its funny that we think shes funny. She gets this proud look on her face like shes soooo hilarious. And she is! We (but really my mom is the only one you can hear) couldnt stop laughing. Lola has also recently found her voice and is starting to make a lot more noises and sounds. The bottom video is of her talking and giving Mommy some cheeser smiles. What a little ham our Lola is becoming!!

Landon James

My Brother Nathan and his fiance, Allyson just had their first baby. His name is Landon and he was born January 4th weighing 7 lbs, 14 oz. He is so the most handsomest little man ever! Luke had to go out of town on business this week, and Lola and I didnt want to just sit home alone, so it worked out for us to fly here to Denver (yes, for the 3rd time since Thanksgiving) so we could meet and play with Landon as well as hang with Grammy and Bonka for another week :) Below are pictures of Lola and Landon meeting for the first time. Lola wasnt quite sure what to think of him, I think she thought he was another baby doll because he was asleep and not really moving. She would check out his face then try to take his binkie and then want to get down. Really, she cant wait for him (and herself) to get a little bigger so they can play together and be the best of cousins!!

Handsome Boy!

Proud Mommy and Daddy!

Little Miss Little

We recently took Lola to the doctor because we thought she had lost some weight (due to my milk supply dropping to an all time low) and because she is still not taking a bottle to compensate for the lost fluids/nutrients. At 6 1/2 months, Lola weighed 14 lbs, 4 oz and at her Dr visit one month later, she weighed 14 lbs, 6 oz. She measured 25 1/4 inches long putting her in the 5th percentile for weight and 8th percentile for height. At her 4 month check up she was measuring in the 20-30th percentile, so its quite a drop. She is however, in the 90th percentile for ideal weight for length, so our Dr wasnt overly concerned about it all. She said Lola is just small and that its not surprising based on my being small as well. Since I told her that Im already drinking 3 liters of water a day on top of eating more than Luke can at any given meal plus snacking every hour in between meals, she recommended an herb supplement to help boost my supply. For Lola, she wanted us to add jarred meats to her diet in addition to adding 1 tsp of liquid butter to each meal. I cant get over how disgusting that is and as soon as she starts gaining weight and taking a bottle I am for sure not giving her anymore! As for the bottle issue, after discussing which brands and bottles we've previously tried, she recommended that we switch to Nestle Formula as its actually sweeter than the others. She also suggested adding brown sugar to the formula if at first Lola still doesnt take to it. She said we need to substitute enough formula (about 12-15 oz) to have Lola drinking the normal 30 oz a day. Our Dr said to try a bottle at least once a day for a week and to call her with the results. We were also given a referral to visit the Cardiologist (in February) to have an Echo done, due to Lola's minor heart murmur, to rule out any current and/or future problems. So we headed home ready to fatten up and bottle train our baby girl. One week later and still no luck with the bottle! She took one once (as well as took it from her sippy once too) and has since screamed at me (and Daddy, and Grammy) every time since for even considering it as an acceptable method for feeding her. Beast! After speaking to our Dr who said to give it one more week and if still not, we are to schedule an appointment with the feeding therapist at Primary's. Ugh. So we have 2 days left to get Lola to take a bottle or were off to the therapist! Wish us luck...

Happy New Year!

How cool is it that my 100th post is also my first post of the new year?! I saw this idea in a magazine and thought it would be fun to make a yearly tradition in our family. Brooklyn played along because she was excited to use her new paints from Christmas to make the numbers. We could not get a picture of Lola looking up because she kept wanting to eat her paper and/or dress straps. There's always next year... Hope everyone had a great New Years holiday. Happy Twenty-Ten from the Beniks!

Christmas 2009

We celebrated Lola's first Christmas (my and Luke's 5th, and our 3rd as a family) at my parents house in Denver this year. We flew out a few days before, stayed for a few after, then flew back and went to our family cabin in Bear Lake to have our Christmas with Brooklyn. It wasnt as crazy as it sounds and we actually did a lot of relaxing and sitting around doing nothing. It was another great Christmas and one we enjoyed even more this time around, celebrating with our little Lola. She was so much fun! We bought her a few Christmas books and a Baby Einstein Christmas DVD a few weeks before to get her excited and used to the sights and sounds of Christmas which she LOVED. The DVD pack also came with a CD that we would play for her while she was napping in her swing and she loved that too. She's going to be the biggest fan of Christmas, like her mom, if she isnt already :) On Christmas Eve, we had family friends over for a Christmas feast and then before bed Lola opened her first present from Mom and Daddy. As tradition (from my side) it is always an Ornament and Jammies. And she really loved her jammies as you can see!

My parents house was on the full side this year as they were generous enough to host myself, Luke, Lola, my sister Breecia and her 2 kids- Alexis and Dylan, my sister Paige and my 2 brothers (who still live at home)- Nathan and Taylor. A total of 11 people. So Christmas morning took us almost 3 hours because my family insists on taking turns, opening gifts one by one. Its so ridiculous. We gave Lola a few presents for every turn and half way through she needed a nap before opening the rest. She was too cute and got so excited over each present. She didnt really get the tearing off of the wrapping paper but she loved the bows and ribbon and especially the tissue paper from bagged gifts. It was a lot of fun seeing Christmas through her eyes and I already cant wait until next December.

We had Brooklyn over New Years this year and we went to our family cabin for the holiday. Once there, Brooklyn opened her gifts that Santa had left for her at our house and from all the family on our side. We spent the next few days hanging out, snowmobiling and sledding, and playing with her new toys and games. Brooklyn was a bit harder to buy for this year because whenever we asked what she wanted for Christmas she would shrug and say she just wanted fun toys. One thing she did ask Luke for was a Diary with a lock, so she could write secrets in it! When she finally made a Christmas list it included a diary, $100 cash, a bunkbed, EZ Bake Oven and a kid computer. She cracks me up! So Santa did what he could and brought her the diary, a cupcake maker, and $20 cash, but you would have thought she got $100 with how excited she was over it! She got a lot of other great gifts but her favorite was a tin of Pet Shops from Grammy and Bonka. She wrote in her new diary that she got cash, lots of candy and toys, and that she made cupcakes with Daddy and they were 'yumy'. Too cute!! Brooklyn is at really fun age and I cant believe she is going to be 7 in February! It was a great Christmas and New Year holiday with our family.