to lola grey: 1st birthday.

my sweet lola bear:

you are one year old! i'm not quite sure how that even happened but i am pretty happy about it. you have been the sweetest light in my life this past year that i didn't know i was missing. you're our little rainbow baby - maybe that has something to do with it.

you are so brave. you are such a little dare devil. you want to climb on everything and get into everything and go wherever everyone else goes. you started walking just before your birthday, and now, almost two weeks later, you are perfecting it already.

you are so smart! i think you understand more than we even know. you say momma, dada, 'uh' for uh oh, and your own version of 'zo zo' for our pup, zoey. you shake your head no (you've been doing that one for a while now ;)), and you nod your head yes.

you think your sister is the funniest. she makes you laugh all the time. she also makes you cry a lot when she rips toys from you. we're working on that one. but you love her all the same and love to be around her and give her loves.

you have the sweetest little dimple in your left cheek, up next to your nose. i don't know where it came from, but i love seeing it when you smile big.

speaking of giving loves, you give some seriously sweet hugs! big neck squeezes that make anyone lucky enough to get one so happy. you also like to give open-mouthed kisses, but only when you're really feeling lovey dovey. they slobbery and awesome.

you gave us a beautiful 3 week streak of sleeping through the night when you were about 10 months old. before that and since then, you wake up during the night and are a little needy for mom or dad. but honestly, it's hard to be mad. i just want you to be happy and if you need some extra snuggles, i'll spare the sleep.

you are SUCH a binky girl. you've loved them from the start and learned very early on how to pick them up and put them in your mouth by yourself. you also know how to take them out and put them in my hand when you're ready to eat :) it's the funniest.

food! you are such a food lover. totally your dad's daughter. you will eat anything and everything we give you and you don't ever really seem to be 'done' eating. you'd probably just keep eating or snacking on whatever if we kept giving it to you, all day. you still don't even have any teeth!!! but you sure don't let that stop you. some of your favorites are fruits, pb&j sandwiches, waffles, puffs, and chocolate pudding. yes i let you eat chocolate pudding a couple times a week and you enjoy the heck out of that. you are a foodie for sure.

you are just a little thing still. you are currently about 17lbs, which puts you at about the 2%. and i love it. you are the sweetest littlest thing there was, and i wouldn't want you any other way!

since you were very little, you've been pretty hesitant with anyone but mom and dad. you used to cry even being with your grandmas. you've gotten a lot more comfortable with them and other people in our family, but you still would rather have mom or dad holding you or close by most all the time.

lola, since the day you came into this world, you have made our days so incredibly happy. it doesn't matter if we're having a bad day, if we spend time with you we are so so happy and forget about all the rest. i'm not sure i can put into words the impact you've had on our little family. you've brought this light into our home that i just can't really explain. you're the best thing, and i cannot imagine our lives without you.

love you to the moon baby girl.
mom.

life lately: may 2016

here's some snippets from our month of may. 99% are of the girls (ok, there's only one pic of jae and i and it's a terrible picture!), but our lives revolve around them so it makes sense, right?

a rainbow shaped line of shoes is gracie's favorite thing to be OCD about lately ;)

big girl bed!!!! this bed has been waiting for months now (i've been pushing it off and pushing it off..) and since lola hit 6 months and wasn't sleeping in her crib yet (i had a lot of anxiety about that) because gracie was still sleeping in the crib - well i finally told jae it was time and we were just going to jump right in! so we did. and she's done pretty dang good. this was her first night. she was pretty excited.

endless kisses between these sisters

she is a momma's girl and a snuggler and i cannot get enough of the sweetness

she wanted to have a picnic in the basket with her snacks and books. so she did!

gracie went to see cousin quinn in her ballet recital. i think she got a little bored with all the dancing, but loved the costumes and the flowers at the end! and dressed up in her 'twirl' skirt and pink sparkly ballet shoes for it

pantry door, painted and knobbed and installed! check.

tile floor is done!!!!! jae did amazing.

she cracks me up. insisted on the hat (which is so cute but too big so falls off constantly) and the purse, of course. she gets so mad when she can't get it on and off over her head by herself.

oh and all of that while reading some books in mom and dads closet.

i wish you could see him from the front view, but someone asked gracie 'what is dad doing?' and she looked at him like this and said, without missing a beat, 'feeding lola!'. that's exactly what it looked like, now that she mentions it! it was so so funny.

first nap in the crib. now she's in there for every nap and every sleep and it's been so great.

just a goofy gracie face. she's super into scrunching her nose lately and giving us this disgusted look.

she often asks to have some of my morning smoothie, and it always makes its way up to her nose somehow ;)

lola doesn't make very many silly faces like this! i was so glad i caught it on camera.

we had a nasty cold turned bronchiolitis run through our house a few weeks ago and the girls (and jae and i) were sad little sickies for two weeks. it was miserable.

greatest family photo you've seen, amiright?! (lola's face!)

visiting my sister susan's new house that's being built and playing peek-a-boo in their fun little windows under the stairs. perfect gracie size.

first ride in the stroller sans carseat. she did pretty good sitting up! until she fell asleep.

lots of park days and lola got to sit in the swing too! she literally just sat in the swing for 10 seconds - but it's a start! soon she'll be swinging right alongside sister. 

(and it was too bright for little baby eyes)

gracie's first dentist appointment!! they took xrays and brushed her teeth and counted them and she got to pick out a new toothbrush and two prizes. she did awesome! and no cavities! 

(score one for the parents ;))

the zoo!

i had been really wanting to take gracie to the zoo. we hadn't been since last fall and the weather this week has been awesome. we wanted to go last week, but the cold plague hit us all and it just wasn't happening. so we talked grandma and auntie kennedy into going with us, and we made a day of it. it was so fun! PERFECT weather. mid 70's and sunny and just awesome. didn't get too many pictures of actual animals, but there were a few babies we got to see and that makes it even better. definitely going back a few more times this summer. it's so fun to have a toddler to do these fun things with.

obligatory lion drinking fountain picture. i mean, how old is that thing by now?

this is the best pic i got of the girls together ha! gracie chomping on her cookie & refusing to smile. and lola just needed a good nap.

not the greatest pictures, but the two bears were just rough-housing with each other in the water, putting on a show. it was awesome.

click on this one to see it bigger. she was smiling, which is great! but she was also looking over at her aunt kennedy rather than the camera haha. typical!

and now looking in the right direction, but still not at the camera. this girl!

turns out she's a popcorn fiend. who knew?! once grandma bought her the popcorn, she honestly couldn't have cared less about the animals and just wanted to sit in the stroller and eat popcorn.

these are too funny, i had to post all of them. gracie!! this is how it is trying to get any sort of decent picture with them ;) (also, grandma bought her a bubble gun and she traded the bag of popcorn in for that and wouldn't put it down. still won't.)

the train!

colorado: uncle jim's funeral.

my uncle jim passed away a few weeks ago.

technically, we're not even blood related to uncle jim. he was adopted by my dad's mom after his father passed away when he was a young boy (my grandma and his dad were married at the time). and uncle jim has always lived in a different state than us and honestly, we rarely got to see him. but uncle jim has never felt like anything but a very real uncle to me.

every birthday. every christmas. presents, gifts, cards. i always got something from him in the mail.
ALWAYS.
in fact, one of my most cherished gifts - a giant stuffed bear. maybe 3 feet tall or so? he sent it to me for christmas when i was 7. i still have that bear, and now gracie plays with it. i love that bear.

he had major heart surgery last year, after a very active and outdoorsy lifestyle. his love, my aunt hilda, passed away many years ago. it's just been him and my cousin shari for awhile. they've spent their time traveling in their monster motor home, fishing and camping and exploring their days away. since his heart surgery, he just didn't ever quite get back to normal.

this is one of those times in life when you wish you had done more. wish you had visited more, called or written or emailed more. made more of an effort. and for that reason, i am sad. i knew, for that reason alone, i had to make the trek to be at his funeral in colorado. sisters susan and jamie and my pop made the trek with me and lola. it was a long two days and 20+ hours of driving for only one full day there. but i am so glad we did it.

there was a small service at a presbyterian church, and it was really nice. simple. i stood in the back for most of it, rocking lola girl to sleep. at the end, we sang 'how great thou art' and it was just a perfect, teary moment.

i am happy he's reunited with his wife after so many years apart.
and i would bet he's fishing again right this very minute.

**i don't know how many times i said it on this trip, but the scenery was BEAUTIFUL. i am not a fan of snow or cold, but the snow on those evergreen covered mountains was just more than i could take. if it weren't so dang cold and snowy more than half the year, i'd probably pick up and move there. so so gorgeous.

setting out!

she had no idea what she was in for, poor thing.

found this bench at the cemetery. i'll be honest, i was a little creeped out.

the sunshine and those snowy, green mountains. i couldn't get enough.

had to try to have a little fun and take advantage of a swimming pool! except it was too cold for her to swim anyway. so she just looked cute in her suit :)

(second) cousin nate, cousin shari, susan, jamie, me & lola, dad, nate's wife sara
you can kind of tell in the picture, but shari has prosthetic arms. she has a prosthetic leg too. she is amazing. you can't find much nicer people than these. 

wish i could've gotten better pictures. these don't do it justice.

the cemetery had the coolest old barn building with stained glass windows in front. 

and then back to the red rock of utah.

total trip!