The Sweetest Things...

There are many nights that I find myself sneaking into mine and Lola's room just to take a peek at my sleepy little angel. She is so perfect it almost makes my heart hurt just to look at her. She lays there so peacefully, usually with her hands folded like a little princess or cuddling her blanket, and everything is right in my world. For those of you who know me well, peace is not something that I get in my day to day life. It is found in God and found in Lola, a precious gift that he has given me. Tonight was one of those nights where I had to sneak a peek. On a rare occasion, I will gently lift her out of her crib and cuddle with her or rock her. As weird as it may sound, smell makes up a great deal of emotion and I find myself smelling her hair and her little hands, because those are the things that are usually closest for me to get to without jostling her too much (I don't want to completely wake her up...that would take away all of the peace to the whole situation. Although it would allow for play time since she would think she was waking up from a nap that just happened to end at 12am). Tonight her hair smelled of Johnson and Johnson. This is such a sweet, clean smell to a mom. I think the thing that got me most tonight was that her hands smelled like banana. She is my little monkey, and would probably consume her weight in bananas if I'd let her. So it just made total sense that she was completely enveloped in the aroma of ripe bananas. It's definitely a good smell to have in my nose as I drift off to sleep tonight...

Sooooo sorry!!

So I definitely haven't been keeping up with my posting. Oopsy! A lot of things have happened since January 6th, when I last posted. Lola got her first hair cut. It went wonderfully. Now it's time for another one :( We had Lola's first birthday party. I can't believe all of our friends and family that were able to make it to celebrate with us. We celebrated Valentine's Day and St. Patrick's Day and now we're looking forward to Easter. I will upload my pictures to ShutterFly website. Check there in a few days to see all the silly things we've been up to over the past few months. I promise that I will start updating this more often.

What's the most amazing place in Indy for kids? THE CHILDREN'S MUSEUM!!

One of my friend's from high school, Erica, and her daughter Annabelle received a year family membership to the Children's Museum. She graciously invited Lola and I along for a play date this past Tuesday. It was great catching up with Erica because we've both been so busy that we haven't been able to spend much time together. Our girls enjoyed the museum but I think that the mom's enjoyed it the most.

In the main stairway of the Children's Museum is a Chihuly glass installation. His artwork is amazing. For the kids under the installation is a place that they can play with pieces of plastic and make their own smaller installations. Annabelle knew what she was doing. Lola just got ahold of the pieces and wouldn't let go. For more information on Chihuly go to this website. His artwork is AMAZING!

http://www.chihuly.com/home.aspx

Lola and Annabelle figuring out the little pieces.

After visiting the Barbie exhibit (that was probably more for us than the girls...actually it was definitely for us) we made our way to the playscape. The girls had a GREAT time! Here they are on the bulldozer.

Lola and I in the big bulldozer.

Luckily the playscape has areas that are age appropriate for our little ones. They had a great time playing with these little magnetic toys.

Erica and her little cutey, Annabelle!! LOVE love LOVE them!!

"Children at Play!!"

Of course Lola found the baby dolls. She loves carrying them around and rocking them like we rock her. A future babysitter-in-training :)

We tried the carousel. At first we were going to put the girls on the animals that we stationary. Lola definitely wasn't having it. This was at the end of our trip to the museum so both the girls were tired and probably a little scared of the animals. So we enjoyed the carousel on the bench.

Lola's First Christmas

I can't believe how quickly this year has gone by. It makes me sad in a way because it is almost time for Lola's first birthday, but it also brought the most amazing time of year. The Christmas season. It was wonderful sharing such a joyous time with all our friends and family. We celebrated Christmas this year by staying at my mom's house. On Christmas Eve, we read Lola a book about the real night before Christmas. This is a family tradition we are starting so we can teach her what Christmas is truly about. On Christmas Day, we woke up and let Lola open her presents, which she did pretty well. After that we got everything ready and made the drive to Terre Haute to spend time with my mom's side of the family. We spent most of our day there then made the trek back to Indy to spend time with my dad's side of the family. By the time we got done with all of that Lola was ready for bed!! Overall it was an amazing Christmas spending time with our families!

Our cute little family Christmas morning.

We decorated Lola with bows from her presents.

Because there were a TON of pictures from Christmas I figured I would just include the link to my Facebook album so everyone could look at it. Here it is:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=3006620&id=6843479&l=74fafcad9d

Chug-a-Chug-a-Chug-a-Chug-a-CHOO! CHOO!!

Before Christmas some of the ladies in my family went to the Eiteljorg Museum to see Jingle Rails. My cousin, Julia, her son Liam, my mom, my grandma, Lola and myself all made the trek downtown to see the miniature train sets. There was a miniature version of Indianapolis and other places across the United States. Trains were weaving in and out of displays. The kids are a little too young to really appreciate it but it was a fun place for us adults and the kids could at least look at the lights. It was great to spend time with the family.

The entire group of us all together at the entrance to the exhibit.

Mom carrying Lola around to look at all the trains and displays.

Four generations of ladies.

Lola trying to walk around the exhibit all by herself. Who knew that not a week later she would start walking all by herself.

Right now Liam is half Lola's age so he still gets to be papoosed to his mama. Lucky little guy. I wish I had someone to carry me around like that. :)

Lola and her Grandma Bean.

Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!

Lola was born when there was a TON of snow on the ground. Sadly, at that time she couldn't appreciate the beauty of it. It's wonderful to look at, but personally I hate the cold. It's been a long time since I played in the snow. As a parent you get to relive your childhood with your kids and playing in the snow is one of those things you get to do again. We bundled Lola up in her new snow pants and new jacket and off we went into our front yard. She was absolutely mesmerized by all of it, but was kind of upset because she couldn't really move her limbs. She kinda looked like the kid from "A Christmas Story".

We could not get her eyes off the snow!

The only movement we could get her to do was a vertical one. She would plop herself down on the ground and couldn't go anywhere else.

This would have been a great picture if Lola wouldn't have been looking at the snow, but I think it's still pretty good.

Lola loved eating the snow. No worries...I didn't give her any yellow snow!

Another vertical movement to the ground.

She didn't really like the idea of making a snow angel. Maybe next year :)

We'll have to photoshop Drew into this picture. I think he would fit perfectly to our left in front of my mom's car.

More snow for the little monkey.

Getting Lola undressed was a lot easier than getting it all on her. She had really silly hair from her hat.

No Walking Yet - Just Standing

Lola is trying her hardest to get mobile. You gotta crawl before you can walk and walk before you can run. In a baby's world, you have to lay on your stomach and roll over before you can crawl; you gotta crawl before you can walk; you gotta stand on your own before you can walk. Lola is practicing standing on her own. She pulls herself up on everything she can. This usually scares us to death because she isn't quite stable on her feet yet, but she sure tries. Here is some proof that our little monkey isn't to far from being mobile.

First real time standing alone. I look silly behind her but at least I'm showing everyone that I'm not holding on to her.

Now it was Drew's turn to get her up.

Then she just started to show off.

She got a little over confident and started trying to take steps on her own.

She got one step in before she tumbled into her daddy's open arms.