Lola's 1st Birthday

It was a weekend full of birthdays! We went to Julia Olson's 1st birthday party on Saturday. It was the first birthday party Lola had been to (besides my dad's 60th birthday when she was 3 weeks old, I don't count that). For those of you who don't know, Julia and Lola were born on the same day - January 24th. I met Julia's mom, Elizabeth, at the gym when we were both pregnant. We had both been going to the same gym for a while, but we had never actually met. I'm not very social at the gym - I put on my headphones and tune everyone out. Elizabeth and I both happened to be in the locker room at the same time one day and I saw her little belly and asked her if she was pregnant (thank goodness she was!). She was due 3 weeks after me, on Feb 14th, but Julia came exactly 3 weeks early. Elizabeth and I still go to the gym together. She motivates me to do cardio because we chat the whole time. Otherwise, I'm lucky if I can get 10 minutes of cardio in before I get bored out of my mind and move on to the weight room to lift (which I absolutely love).

Sorry, back to birthdays... My mom came up Saturday morning and we spent the whole day baking/decorating the cake and cupcakes and cleaning the house. Then I took a break to go to Julia's birthday, then came back to keep decorating/cleaning. Ryan was in charge of the food and he got everything ready on Sunday morning while mom and I got things set up.

We had a good turnout, around 22 people. Lola did great. She did get grumpy when she was opening presents, because she wanted to hold/play with what was opened, but we had to take it from her so she could open the next present. I can't really blame her! We were trying to get through presents quickly so she could move on to cake before she got really hungry and tired. She didn't make as big of a mess with the cake as I anticipated. But then again she isn't a great eater and she pretty much takes one bite at a time and doesn't stuff a whole lot in her mouth at once. She did manage to eat an entire cupcake, which in turn prevented her from taking an afternoon nap! She always naps for at least 2 hours, but she was not interested at all. She screamed and screamed and finally I gave up. I think she wanted to come back downstairs and play with all of her presents, because when I got her up and brought her downstairs, she made a beeline for the gifts.


This is the only picture we got of her where you can see her entire shirt. And yes, she is holding a stack of baby food containers. She loves to play with them and wouldn't put them down!









It's my party and I'll scream if I want to! Ryan took away a gift she just opened and she wasn't too happy.



April got Lola a stuffed squirrel. Actually, this is April's squirrel from growing up. I have a stuffed squirrel that looks very similar, although it is much more worn out than this one. My stuffed squirrel, named 'squirrel', was not my favorite toy when I was little but became my 'lovey' as I got older for some reason. I even took squirrel to college with me, where some of my roomates and dorm friends (you know who you are), were very mean to squirrel. I found him hanging by his neck from the ceiling and I found him in the microwave when I would get home from class. Not nice!! :) So April decided that Lola needed a squirrel friend too.



Lola and Julia with their birthday hats on! Julia wasn't too happy, and we couldn't get them to look at the camera. At least we tried.



No she didn't blow the candle out herself, I did it for her. I don't think she even knew what to think about the flame in front of her face.

No more bottles!!

When we went for Lola's 9-month checkup back in October, Dr. Burgert said he would like to see her finished with bottles by the time she turned 1 year old. I remember thinking that there was no way, it seemed so difficult and daunting to think about. When she turned 10 months I thought it seemed more daunting, and at 11 months I was thinking there was no way! She isn't a great eater so the bottles were providing her with a good portion of her nutrition. Plus, we had gotten into a pretty steady routine. She would have a bottle before her morning nap, before her afternoon nap, and before bed. She would lay on the boppy pillow and drink it. It almost seemed like her 'lovey'. I will say that she is pretty good with a sippy cup and with a regular cup, so that made it seem like it might be possible.

So around a week ago, we cut out her morning bottle. It went fine - we just replaced it with a sippy cup and a snack. But I remember thinking that it seemed like it might be more difficult to just cut out one bottle since she would still get one in the afternoon and evening, and it might upset her more. So on Tuesday at daycare, she had no bottles all day! They just gave her a sippy cup and snack mid-morning and mid-afternoon. Her teacher, Elaine, said she got grumpy when they made bottles for the other babies so they just gave her a sippy cup each time she freaked out about not getting a bottle. Tuesday night I decided to cut the night bottle since she hadn't had one all day anyway. I fed her dinner a little later so she would be full and gave her a sippy cup before bed. All went well!

Let me step back a minute and say that Ryan is completely freaked out by the fact we are cutting out bottles. He originally said he was upset because she is fairly skinny, she isn't a great eater, and he was worried she wouldn't get enough nutrition. I explained that we weren't just taking the bottle away and starving her! we were replacing it with a snack and a sippy cup of milk. He then (kind of) admitted that he was upset because this meant she wasn't a 'baby' anymore. He went on a rant about how she wasn't a 'baby' for very long - she started crawling at 7 months, walking at 9.5 months, and now she was not drinking out of a bottle anymore. It was pretty cute actually!

Yesterday was his day to stay home with her and I thought for sure he was going to cave and give her a bottle. But he didn't! He did blame her foul mood on the fact she didn't have a bottle, and it was probably true. He also blamed her short afternoon nap on that too. I think he is going to blame a lot of things on the lack of a bottle for the next few weeks... It's going to take her a little while to get out of her old routine. Good lord, I am horrible about routine. When my routine gets messed up I freak out! I think she probably inherited that from me. :)

Last night I packed up all the bottles, nipples, lids, and the bottle drying rack (which took up a large portion of our countertop). I looked over at the counter and felt a twinge of sadness...my little girl is growing up! I am excited to get my countertop back, but still a bit sad at the same time.

Ryan sent me this picture yesterday when I told him that her grumpy mood was probably a coincidence and had nothing to do with the lack of bottle before her nap. When we used to mix up her bottle, she would freak out and run to the boppy pillow and lay down. I think it may be time to put the pillow away too!

Christmas 2009

What an interesting Christmas we had! I can't remember the last time we had snow on Christmas Eve. It was a little scary though, Ryan didn't come down to Fort Scott until Christmas Eve afternoon and it was sleeting pretty badly. Thankfully he was able to leave earlier than planned because the weather got very bad.

Lola's first Christmas was good, although I spent 5 days chasing her around my parents' house (which is not babyproofed). I was exhaused by the time we left. All she wanted to do was climb up the stairs and pull leaves off of the plants. We got to spend a couple of days before Christmas with my brother and his fiance. They went to her parents' in Salina for Christmas Eve/Christmas Day. That was the first time Matt had not been with us on Christmas and it was kind of sad. :( We hadn't seen them since the beginning of August so it was great to catch up. They are getting married in September of this year!


Lola got a 'Wheelie Bug' from Grandma and Grandad. She also just happened to have a ladybug sweater to match!



We had a heck of a time trying to get a good picture of her in her Christmas dress, she was not cooperating. Ryan had to hold her, and this is the best picture we got.



Lola and Daddy



Christmas morning, still in snowman pj's



Christmas morning, opening presents. She was more interested in wandering around and grabbing other people's presents than she was with her own presents.



I have no idea how many bows we stuck on her head...



New carseat! She kept crawling in it and wanting to sit in it. As you can see, she also drooled on it.



Grandma got her this bow onesie which was super cute! She also got her picture taken with santa while she was wearing it. She kept trying to remove the bow.



I decided it was time to try and knit her a sweater. I have been knitting for years but have never attemped a sweater. It turned out really cute, although I made the arms way too long and had to roll them up twice so she could wear it!

Well, it's official, I decided to start a blog! I use Facebook quite a bit but sometimes feel the need to say a lot more than I can on there. I wish I would have started this a while ago, and even if nobody reads this, I guess I'm just talking to myself which is okay by me. Ha. My little baby will be 1 year old in a few weeks. Man how time flies. I always used to hate it when 'old people' would tell me that when I was younger. They would say "just wait until you are older, time goes by so fast". Well I now see what they are talking about. Seriously, my kid will be a year old. Wow.