Lil' Punkin'

Here is our punkin' on Halloween! (I warned you that we use the word punkin' a lot when referring to Lola:))

Getting posed pictures is A LOT harder these days! Sister is BUSY!

And here is a pic of me and my cousins Brian & Brenda with their punkin's before trick or treating. It was a popular costume choice!

Hope everyone had a fun Halloween!

::7 Months::

Um, what? Are you kidding me? I know I sound like a broken record, but I SWEAR this time that this month serrrrriously flew by. Like, barely even blinked, maybe half of a blink, and Lola is 7 months old. UN. REAL!

I don't know if we are just getting more in the swing of things, or if Lola truly is just getting more amazing by the day, but I L-O-V-E-D this month. And I have a hunch that this next month will be even better. Lola is a true gem-- just so happy, giggly, cuddly, smiley, and wonderful. Her personality comes out more and more everyday, and it gives this mama sooooo much joy. Like whoah. Am I getting too cheesey? Probably. Sorry. I can't help myself.

So anyways, Lola has still been sleeping a mind-blowingly amazing 12 hours at night. Usually from 8pm-8am, but sweet little girl is so flexible that she'll pretty much sleep 12 hours from whatever time we put her down. We happened to have an excess of events this week (like one every night), and I have to say that she did exceptionally well. We obviously had later bed times this week due to all the partying, but she handled the change very well and gave us very little fuss and slept the same amount at night. For example, she didn't get down until 10pm on Saturday night b/c of my cousin's wedding shower, and she woke up at 10:15 am the next morning!! Thank you punkin'!

Speaking of nicknames, mine for her are getting OUT OF CONTROL. And they usually include the word "punkin' " in them. Here are some, but not even all, of my recent nicknames for her: punkin' bottom, punkin' brains, punkin' booty, punkin' pie, punkin' pants, precious poo poo, doodle bug, love buggy, sugar butt, need I go on or are you sufficiently embarrassed for me yet? Yeah, I thought so...

She has gotten MUCH better with her baby foods this month. She eats solids 2 x's a day now, and it is so much easier and less stressful than last month. And, thank goodness, she will now eat pretty much anything. We added a few new things this month like chicken, turkey, corn, mixed berries, and more. She still eats 4x's a day, and will take 6-7oz of formula at each feeding as well.

At Lola's 6 month doc appointment, we found out that she is in the 90th percentile for weight and 92nd for height!! That is a BIG change from her one month appointment when she was in the 5th percentile. It is crazy how everything really does work itself out, because I was pretty emotional when we had a slow start at the beginning. But I think it's safe to say she's growing now!

Her other tooth popped through this month, so she has 2 teeth on the bottom! It seems like we may have some others working their way through right now, but I guess we'll see!

Lola still only says "da da", but I have been hearing some "b" syllables occasionaly, and rarely, but still sometimes, an "m". Still waiting for that mama word...

And crawling does seem to be right around the corner! She now gets up on her knees and rocks when I lay her on her stomach, which I know happens just before they start crawling. We better get to baby-proofing, eeek!

Lola has now been consistently taking 2 naps a day, usually 2 hours each which pretty much makes her schedule as follows:

8am-wake up and eat

8:15-9:45--play

10am-noon- nap

12pm--wake up and eat

12:15-1:45pm- play

2:00-4:00pm- nap

4:00-7:00pm--play

7:15-7:45pm--eat some solids and bath time

8:00pm- bottle and bed time

It's pretty great! No complaints here! I can only imagine all the new things I'll blog about next month--I have a feeling they'll involve crawling and more talking.

I cannot begin to express my gratitude to the Lord for giving us this most precious gift. I never imagined how our lives would be blessed through her, but she is the sweetest thing to us. Words cannot express.

"See ya mom! I'm wayyy too busy for this!"

::6 Months::

I have a 6 month old?!?! No way that is possible. Time continues to fly by and Lola continues to grow and change so much!

This month was probably our biggest month as far as changes go. It seems that so many things finally started clicking this month making life a little bit "easier". One of the biggest changes this month was that I am done with breastfeeding! Woo hoo! I never thought (before I had Lola) that I would be so excited for this day to come, but I so am. Of course, I didn't get to have the "magical" experience that most moms get to have since I had to basically have a relationship with my pump instead of my daughter, so maybe that has something to do with it. But I couldn't be happier that I made it 6 months--that was my goal!

So Lola is now on formula and is doing great! It has really been a blessing. Thanks to the switch, she now only eats 6oz. 4 times a day (8am, 12pm, 4pm, 8pm) and sleeps from 8pm-8am with NO dreamfeed! Yes, we were able to drop the 10:30pm dreamfeed, and that is A-mazing. It has really freed up our nights and allowed Jono and I to spend more time together, because once she is out, she is OUT...and doesn't wake up until around 8am! It makes such a HUGE difference in our lives and I am so pleased.

She also started eating some solids this month. We started with rice cereal and worked our way through different fruits and veggies. She is not really a fan of rice cereal or oatmeal, and the only way she'll eat SOME of it is if it's mixed with fruit. And even then, not so much. She eats best at night time right before bed. So far her fav is definitely the butternut squash, apple, and oat mixture! She has had sweet potatoes, pears, bananas, peaches, blueberries, apples, carrots, and peas. We are still trying to figure out what works best for her, so hopefully we have it figured out by next month. But at least no allergies so far!

Lola takes between 2-3 naps a day each lasting from 1.5 -2 hours. She is a good little sleeper and that is a good little blessing. I just lay her in her crib with her paci (she still LOVES her paci) and she puts herself to sleep. Good baby!

Lola has cut one tooth, and has another one about to pop through (although I'm pretty sure both of these appeared AFTER her 6 month bday, technically). They are both on the bottom middle. I, like most parents, would agree that the teething process is NOT fun and I wish it didn't exist. It definitely makes Lola fussy and uncomfortable, and it's a miracle how much better things get once that little guy pops through the gums.

All in all though, Lola is a very happy baby that smiles A LOT. Strangers are always so blown away that she smiles at them (all of them), and I have to pretend like that doesn't happen every single time! I don't want them to feel less special or anything:).

Lola is not quite sitting up all by herself yet, but she is getting close. And still no signs of crawling yet--which I am happy about!

Her new favorite word is "da da" and she says it almost all day long everyday. It is so adorable and I love it. The "b" and "m" syllables haven't come around yet, but I can't wait for the day she says mama!

She has figured out how to put her feet in her mouth and now does this ALL the time! She also knows how to put her paci back in her mouth on her own, which is amazing!! Makes nap times and sleeping much easier:).

She typically wears size 6-12 month clothes and size 3 diapers.

We count even our hardest days as truly joyful because of Lola. We are so in love!

5 Months

Let's just go ahead and say that if I ever DO get these month posts up on time, it will be the exception, not the rule, k?:)

On August 24th, Lola turned 5 months old! It seems like every time I complete one of these posts, it's time to do the next one! Time is really flying, and Lola is really growing and changing so much. One of the biggest things that happened this month was that my baby girl became a stomach sleeper! I couldn't believe it the first time I saw it, and it made me paranoid. I think I checked on her like 12 times the first night she did it. But the crazy thing is, she sleeps so much better on her stomach! She doesn't stay there all night long, but she spends the majority of the night on her stomach. So precious:).

We had a pretty good month of sleep, too. Generally, she would sleep 10-12 hours at night, and take 4 naps a day: 2 two hour naps, and 2 one hour naps. There were definitely days that were longer, and definitely days that were shorter, but you get the idea.

We had our first "sickness" this month, where Lola got a skin infection on her face. Not too pretty, but she is much better now. Poor baby:(

She still eats 5-6oz every 3-4 hours, and weighed in around 16 1/2 lbs. at 5 months. She is such a good eater and I can't believe that by my next monthly post, she will most likely be eating solids! Crazy!

We did a good amount of swimming this month at Fancy & Paco's, too. I wouldn't say Lola "loves" the water, but she more so tolerates it for our sake. She's sweet like that:). But what a cutie she is in her swimsuit!

All in all it has been another great month filled with lots of smiles, laughs, hugs, chats, and snuggles. We love this little girl so much it hurts. Happy 5 months baby girl! We love you!

Lola Talks

I took this video about a month ago, but it gives you an idea of the conversations we have around here. She can be very vocal and I love this sweet voice!

Flashback

So I just realized that I never posted this picture. This pic was taken the NIGHT before my water broke. You can't get much more "pregnant" than this! We were about to head to dinner at Vapiano's with our good friends Abby & Logan Misegades. I had NO idea that this would be our last date night before baby, but needless to say, I'm so glad we went!! It was such a fun night, and now I am so sad that Abby & Logan are moving to FRANCE a week from tomorrow, EEEEEEK!! We will miss them terribly, but are so excited for their adventure together. We were talking last night about how crazy it is that the next time they see Lola, she will be walking and talking! So crazy!

Lola will miss Aunt Abby & Uncle Logan!

Oh, and just to make me a little depressed this morning, here is my first "showing" picture I took. I was about 12 weeks pregnant in this picture.

Please excuse the no makeup, nasty hair, and no shirt, but it cracks me up that this was my first "showing" picture. Pretty sure I am "showing" more than that now, BUMMER!!!

::4 Months::

On July 24th, Lola Kate turned 4 months old! Could time be flying any faster?? Absolutely not. Let me just go ahead and sum up this past month for you in 2 words: growth. spurt. Lola has been growing like a weed lately, and if you don't believe me, let me just prove it to you. We went to the doc on Monday for our 4 month appointment, and between 2 months (our last appointment) and 4 months, Lola went from 15% in weight to 75%!! Here are her newest stats:

Weight: 14 lbs, 10 oz-- 75%

Length: 24 1/2"-- 75%

Head: 16 1/4 -- 60%

Not the itty bitty peanut she once was! What has made the difference? Giving up nursing to pump and bottle feed exclusively, which I am still doing by the way. Not an easy task, but I just keep telling myself to go a little bit longer, and so I do. If I make it to 6 months I will give myself one large pat on the back. We shall see...

So as you can imagine, that big of a growth spurt has not made this past month so easy. Her hunger was almost insatiable at times, and that meant lots of getting up in the middle of the night, which I was not used to. She had been sleeping so well for so long that it was a big shock to me. But after seeing her growth progress in percentages on Monday, I totally get why she needed to eat in the middle of the night! But thankfully, she has started sleeping through the night again, and that makes for one happy and rested mama. She has been going down between 8-9pm and sleeping til 8-9am. A miracle for any mother to experience!

She eats 5-6oz every 2 1/2-3 hours, except in the middle of the night of course. I wake her up to dream feed her around 10pm, put her right back down and she is out!

This month Lola has begun to laugh BIG TIME! It is the absolute best noise in the world. She is still smiling like crazy, and is seriously one of the happiest babies. She makes life so much fun. I can't imagine life without her, now that I know life with her. Here is a video of her laughing. I have been trying to upload videos lately, but they never work. Hoping it does this time! (And if you have any pointers for me on how to do this, please pass them along:))

Rolling over has become a FREQUENT occurrence. She can roll over over both ways, but has a harder time remembering that she knows how to roll from stomach to back. So it usually goes down like this: lay her on her back, immediately roll to stomach, cry and fuss because she hates being on her stomach, roll her back onto her back, and repeat the whole process again. It cracks me up b/c she CAN roll the other way, but she just forgets to try! The other day she rolled to her tummy, had some tummy time, and then FELL ASLEEP and took a nap on her tummy!! That was a definite first and hasn't happened again since. Too cute!

Talking has also been a frequent occurrence lately. Hearing her talk to herself is such a precious sound and one of my favorite things she does. She is very vocal!

Lola started wearing size 1 diapers this month, but then QUICKLY moved on to size 2. What a bummer! I'll be saving all the extra size 1 diapers for the next one, I suppose. She is definitely out of all of her newborn clothes, and even the 0-3 month clothes are snug. She is mainly wearing 3-6 month clothes, and those are perfect because they have a little extra room for her.

Lola went swimming for the first time this month! My mom bought her a floaty with a cover on it to block out the sun. She definitely didn't complain about the water, but she didn't seem that into it either. I am sure next summer will be a BIG difference, and we will be using Fancy & Paco's (my parents') pool everyday.

So in summary, this month has been another exceptionally happy one with lots to be thankful for. Lola seems to be getting busier and busier by the day, so even though we got the one decent picture above, most of the pictures looked more like this:

Gotta love her!!