THANKSgiving

We had many things to be thankful for this year. First and foremost being family. We were lucky enough to be able to spend the holiday with all my family from Denver, my sister and her two kids (from San Diego), my aunt and uncle, their 5 kids and son-in-law and my grandpa. 22 in all! The cabin was quite full as you can imagine but we wouldn't have had it any other way! We baked, vegged, went sledding, ate ourselves silly (I even won myself $20 for finishing my entire plate!), napped, played games, watched movies, and had fun just hanging out. It was a great start to the holiday season and I'm super excited for Christmas to be here. Only 4 more weeks!!

My Lolie-baby. It's impossible to put into words how thankful I am for my two girls. They are both beautiful and smart, have amazing personalities and are healthy, happy little kids. They mean the world to me and I am so lucky to have them in my life.

Brooklyn was super excited to join us for Thanksgiving this year. Mostly because we were spending it at the cabin (which she informed us is one of her favorite places) but also because it meant she got to spend time with one of her favorite people Uncle Taylor!!
How it must be to be so admired and adored?!

After dinner, Uncle-cousin Rick was swinging Lola around in a blanket. Of course she loved it and was laughing like crazy which was too cute! She would get all mad if they tried to stop and take a break. We're lucky she didn't throw up all over :)

Daddy with his girls. I am incredibly thankful for such a handsome husband and wonderful father to my children. He has (and continues to) do and provide so much for us. He's incredibly giving. For him, everything is about the girls and I being happy and having what we need (and more). I dont think you could find a more selfless person and I am so grateful and in love with him for that :)

Our nephew Landon and his cute faces... I love the last one of him because I have no idea what it means. Is he super happy, hamming it up, or just making that face because he can?! What a cutie- pie!!

What Thanksgiving weekend is complete without a college-rival football game?! Its too bad we lost this year. Maybe next year, they'll decide they want it bad enough to actually play like it.



I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and you enjoy planing for and celebrating the Holiday season. It IS the most wonderful time of year :)

Photo Friday

Lolie trying sponge-curlers for the first time

Happy with her new curls. She's laughing here but you can't really tell because she's doing it while trying to keep her binki in :)

Brooklyn and Lola enjoying movie night. It was Lola's first time having popcorn and she LOVED it! She insisted on holding the bowl and poor Brooklyn kept having to ask her to share :)

Lola- Eighteen Months!

Lola's 18 Months Stats:
Weight 19.07 Lbs.- 1%, Height 30.87 In.- 27%, Head Circumference 18.4 In.- 55%

Lola had her well check appointment today which was well timed as she has been sick for the last 9 days and needed to be reexamined by her doctor. At today's visit we found out that she has Pneumonia (due to a bad cold that triggered another episode of asthma which has now become Pneumonia). Poor little Lola :( On top of sitting in the Doctor's office for 2 1/2 hours, having to sit through a breathing treatment so her Doctor could see it's results, and another chest x-ray to determine if infection was in her lungs, she also had to get 3 immunizations and a flu shot!! She's had a pretty rough day to say the least. As always, she's been a great sport and has continued to stay fairly happy and active throughout it all.
As far as her progresses development wise, she is right on track with everything except talking (and weight still). Since she has only spoken one new word (phrase-"What's this?") since her 15 month check and has a fairly small vocabulary for her age, our Doctor advised us to have Lola see a speech therapist to determine if its in fact her speech, hearing or just that she doesn't feel the need to talk yet. I'm really hoping its the later... and she actually understands everything being said to her so I'm sure its not her hearing/comprehension of speech, but we'll just have to wait and see when we go to the appointment. We also need to schedule to see an asthma specialist since this was Lola's 3rd bout of asthma in 5 months and it appears her preventative medication isn't working as well as it should. So well find out there what all exactly she needs to keep the asthma under better control.

Some new things Lola's been up to these last few months are:

She cut 2 more teeth. All she has left to get are her 2 year molars!

She's gone through a little growth spurt... going from clothes size 12 months (at 15 months old) to now wearing size 12-18 months (but only for length). Her waist still fits a 6-9 month size so we do our best with pants by rolling them at the waist a few times. And she is now a shoe size 4.

She had dropped her second nap several weeks ago, but since the time change, she's been waking up at 630 every morning (regardless of how late we put her down) so she's back to taking two naps. Luckily for me, Luke has gotten up with her nearly every day so I can sleep another hour until he goes to work. I am so NOT a morning person and anything earlier than 830 is absolute torture!

She loves to climb on EVERYTHING and can get up on the beds, couches, drawers and chairs all by herself. This means I have have to watch her that much closer now to make sure she's safe and out of trouble!

She loves to tease still and will laugh all proud of herself when she's teasing or tricking us.

She loves to hid anything and everything- especially small things and her binkis. Luckily, she has a few favorite hiding places that I'll usually find stuff in first. But it can be slightly maddening to see something one minute, have it gone the next and then spend 10 minutes or longer looking for it!!

She can point out her belly button, eyes and nose-which she knows as her Honk-Honk.

She still loves her baby dolls- hugging and kissing them, pushing them in the stroller or feeding them a bottle. And lately, she's been obsessed with bringing them to me to have me wrap them up in one of her silkys.

She knows after a diaper change to take the dirty diaper to the garbage and she gets so excited about doing this task and all proud of herself when she puts it in- even clapping Yay for herself :)

Her latest 'trick' is walking on her tippey-toes. She thinks this is really cool!

She enjoys reading books a lot more now and will bring me books to read to her all day long. Reading before bed now takes 3 times as long because she wants to read 9 books instead of 3. But I cant complain because I love the extra snuggle time with her :) Also, she really likes these toddler shows from our cable's On-Demand that have kids singing and playing to nursery rhymes/songs. She will sit and watch those for up to 20 minutes sometimes which is a lot for our little ADD child who never sat through Baby Einstein videos (or any show for that matter) once she could crawl!!

She is still very friendly and out going with most people and will usually go to anyone who wants to pay attention to her (or give her what she wants), but she now has a favorite person that she prefers even over me and that's Daddy! She loves him to hold her and she will gladly cuddle up next to him on the couch or in a chair while he reads, plays or just sits with her. And if Daddy is home, she will usually go to him first for most things. I try not to be too sad about it because she does spend 100% of the time with me after all and it is kind of nice to have the little breaks so I can catch up on the days chores or go run errands on my own. Here are some pics I snapped of Lolie and Daddy cuddling because they're just too cute together :)

Photo Friday

Happy Friday from the cute little beast who was up at 6:15 this morning!!

Watching (and being mesmerized by) the season's first snow

And look how long her hair is getting! She's looking more like a toddler these days and not my tiny baby girl. Bittersweet times for Mommy.

Princess Brooklyn And The Pea

The other day Brooklyn was piling pillows and blankets at the bottom of the stairs and then jumping off the stairs onto them. A few minutes of that and she was done, but then she comes up stairs asking me for a pea so she can do the 'Princess Test'. "You know, like Princess and the Pea", she says. So we find her a pea, she places it under all of the cushions and then lies on top... Results: Brooklyn is in fact a princess (because she absolutely could feel the pea!). Ha! The things she comes up with. It's never a dull moment with Brooklyn around :)

Here is her 'Princess bed' all set up.

Here she's trying it out with the pea underneath...

and this is her announcing she can feel the pea and she is indeed a princess!!

* If you're wondering why she is topless it's because she said it would help her to better feel the pea under her ;)

Photo Friday

...a few days late.

One of Lola's current favorites- Pushing her babies in the stroller around the house. Its the first thing she wants to do when she wakes up in the morning. She runs straight to the stroller and if her babies aren't already in it, she sets them up like so (including her silky on their laps to keep them warm and her 2 purses on each handle) and then she pushes them all around the kitchen and hallway (while saying 'Bye' to me one-hundred times) until she decides to move onto something else. Its pretty cute.

Baby Brooklyn being cute. I used to always call her Baby Brooklyn but she got bigger so then I didn't as much, but now that she's really getting bigger (and older), I've found myself saying it more lately. Probably because I don't like that she's growing up so fast!

While pushing dolls in the stroller makes Lola happy, you should have seen her delight in pushing cousin Lincoln around in it!! It was too cute and super funny! She kept trying to go too fast so that his little body would almost fall out. I'm pretty sure his mom wasn't around to witness our shenanigans but he didn't seem to mind and we got some good laughs out of it!

Cute, cute boy! LOVE those baby browns!!

Smiles for Auntie! They don't get much cuter than this :)

Lola rockin' some sweet shades

Our neighbor, Grant, and his 'transportation invention'. This kid cracks us up with the crazy-funny things he says and all of his projects! He and Brooklyn have so much fun together drawing up and designing their latest inventions and creating magic potions and spells. They can play like this for hours and never get tired of each other. Although sometimes Brooklyn wants to do girl things so its Grant for himself with the tools and magic... but he's a good sport about it.

All the neighbor kids getting a ride- Grant (as the driver), Libby and Brooklyn, Caroline, Katherine and Sophia. Good times.