Baby thinks Florida is totally awesome!

Along with a ton of old people Lola thinks Florida is the greatest! She has so much fun in the pool! She swims for 15 minutes and sleeps for 2.5 hours. Ian and Ethan are also having fun spending quality cousin time together. They just get back from a night swim. We let them go to the pool alone at night since all the olds are in bed. Just kidding... Aaron went with them. They spend the majority of the time playing Star Wars guys or Army guys. Last night they slept at Pam's and tonight they are staying at Peggy's. Our road trip went so well. Lola fell asleep at 7pm and woke up at 6:45am. She would wake up when we would stop for gas but had no trouble falling back to sleep. After breakfast in the car she took her morning nap. We arrived at Peggy & Chuck's at noon and Ian immediately went to the pool!

Lola's BFFs

Lola is so excited to announce the arrival of her BFF's Bronx & Anora! The girls arrived on Lola's 11 month birthday! She can't wait to get matching outfits and play triplets with them!!!!
Congratulations Debbie & Narayn - we love you guys!

1st pedicure

Now that my toes are done I can leave for Florida!

Happy Easter!

Lola has had a very nice first Easter. Her day started off pretty good when she realized that the Easter Bunny brought her a stroller & baby doll. She has had some fun tooling around the house with her new baby!


It was an Easter miracle when Lola kept her bonnet on during the entire church service this morning! She got to see her cousin Emma but unfortunately getting the girls "on the same page" for a photo shoot wasn't happening.

After church we had a nice family dinner. It's been a great day!

Baby keeping it real... real tidy!

Lola and I were working on our Easter dinner dessert this afternoon. I made the dessert (eclair cake, thanks Maureen for the recipe) and Lola licked the spatula. (no worries, there are no raw eggs in this batter) She managed to get the batter off of the spatula but got it all over herself. Good thing we have our Easter guest Lily here to help keep Lola & the floor clean!

Lily will eat things off the floor that Bruce won't touch, for instance, peas, corn, carrots, cat hair & paper. Pretty nice for me, I won't have to get the sweeper out tonight! Lola must have picked up on this since she decided to toss all of her veggies on the floor.
Dad: this is what I was dealing with while we were on the phone today!

Lola meets the Easter Bunny

I found out yesterday that I would be getting today, Good Fridy, off of work, paid! Jackpot! We met Jenny, Joe & Vincent for a day at Faketown. (aka The Greene) Upon entering the Easter Bunny's house Vincent had a mild panic attack and had to leave. Lola stuck around to see what this Easter Bunny was all about. She kept pointing to him and calling him DaDa (understandable since her Daddy looks exactly like the Easter Bunny, NOT!) She didn't have any problems hanging out for a while for her photo shoot. She clearly doesn't have a career in modeling since this seems to be her only pose for the camera (see her photo with Santa).

We met back up for lunch at the Cheesecake Factory and then off to Books & Co. for some Thomas the Train fun! It was during this time Lola went potty in her pants. We took off as to not cause a stinky scene. We are home now and Lola is napping. I assume after all of the Easter Bunny excitement she'll nap for the next 3 hours. Uh Oh! I better go change that stinky diaper! just kidding, it's been changed.

Rainy Sick Day

I'm home today with Lola and her pink eye that's not pink. She's doing just fine and acting totally normal (as you will see in the video below). Since she's had two doses of her antibiotic she'll be clear to go back to school tomorrow.
I'm also home with a flooded basement. It's been raining for 2 days now and I'm not talking about a drizzle, it's non stop rain! Aaron's got a pump down there now. Unfortunately our furnace & hot water heater have been sitting in over a foot of water so hopefully once dry they will work again. I'm not totally freaking out about the basement yet, I feel pretty good that things will be back to normal soon, I hope!!! I could complain about it and let it bring me down but I feel pretty fortunate that I have this perfect baby girl to spend all of my time with! She quickly helps me snap out of any down mood I'm in.


UPDATE (8:41pm): Aaron has the basement under control & everything is working! Yay Aaron!

It's pink eye

Lola's school called me today to tell me I needed to remove her from the classroom, "she may have pink eye!" the director said. Apparently this is a big deal! I called the doctor immediately and made an appointment for her. The doctor confirmed that she does have pink eye and needs to be treated with azithromycin for 5 days and can't go back to school until Thursday. Aside from the gnarly green goo coming from the corner of her eye there's nothing pink about it. I'm thankful we got her to the doctor before the infection got worse and Aaron is thankful for this awesome new sweatshirt of Tigger playing golf! Let me express how much Aaron loves Disney characters on his clothes! This is the perfect addition to his wardrobe! His next tattoo is going to be Winnie the Pooh on his back! It will be so cool!

Lola & Runner

Lola and I colored Easter eggs yesterday afternoon. I thought I downloaded the photos in iPhoto but unfortunately I was distracted and deleted them from my camera. I'm pretty bummed about that.
Thank goodness this cute video of Lola & Runner wasn't deleted!

faker!

Lola appeared to be having her own pity party this afternoon. I said "Lola, what's the matter with the baby girl?" and she looked up at me as if to say:

"Psych Mommy, I was faking!"
What won't these babies do for attention?
I had to post these photo because she looks like such a big girl to me today! It's like she changed overnight!

In other recent developments she is cruising all over the place while holding on to furniture but today she surprised us all while using her baby walker, check it out...

1st class ride not too exciting

Lola received her big girl car seat today and apparently is less than thrilled. I'm not sure but it could be the color that is boring her.
She really wasn't freaking out here, she actually had fun sitting in the big girl seat until she realized that she was strapped in!




And in other news... the USAF has approved a new accessory to the uniform of the day and who better to model this than our very own Handsome Joe. Looks like someone forgot to spring ahead!
I can think of an engineer that should be wearing this new fashion. (Maybe if Rich had this we would have been on time to Barry's wedding)

a little bit of snow

Hats off to the weather man for getting it right this time, they were calling for snow and that's what we got!
Thanks to everyone who has called to check up on us, were fine. Now go back and enjoy the sunshine of sunny California & Florida!

give the dog a bone

It was a terrible day for Lola yesterday when I took a dog treat out of her mouth. What started out as a super fun daily routine has turned into a Mommy-Baby struggle. Lola used to be so good about giving the treat immediately to Bruce but lately it's like she figured out "if he loves these so much then they must be great, I'll try one" She was clearly ticked when I took it away.
What kind of Mother am I to let my baby cry like this? Maybe I should have let her gnaw on the bone for a while. This is a meltdown that lasted a good 15 minutes.

The below video shows the routine when it was good:

The Dude turns 8!

Ian celebrated his 8th Birthday this past weekend! He's half way to driving a car!
Happy Birthday Ian - we love you!

I will eat green eggs and ham I will eat them Lola I am

Lola’s classroom honored Dr. Seuss’s Birthday today by eating green eggs and ham for their 2pm snack. Of course I wouldn’t miss such an event and was there to take photos! Unlike her Mother, Lola loves eggs. I watched in complete disgust as my sweet, precious baby girl shoveled in two servings. She would have had more but thank goodness Miss Becky threw out the rest! I’m not sure what to expect in her diaper this evening, I can only imagine it will smell like eggs….. I hope she saves it for school tomorrow!

Grandpa eligible for Senior Discount!

Grandpa celebrated his 84th birthday with his Granddaughters & two Great-Granddaughters there by his side! He was thrilled to find out that he can now take advantage of the wonderful discounts offered to seniors!
Lola and I had a great weekend in Illinois! We traveled back to help Grandma & Grandpa move into their new condo. Pam, Julie & Celia also came back for the weekend. I wasn't much of a help with this little ball & chain clinging to only me but on Friday we took the girls to Ann & Morgan's for the afternoon! As you can see in the below photo they had so much fun!!! Actually Lola was copying her twin cousin with the fussy routine. The girls really did have fun with Ann & Morgan but once we arrived they only wanted us so taking a photo with the "babysitters" wasn't happening. Ann & Morgan - Thanks for watching the babies! We can't wait to see you in Florida soon! Yay!

We had a chance to visit with Dale & Vicky at Grandpa's birthday celebration. After about 3 hours of staring down Dale Lola finally let Vicky hold her, but only for a minute.

After a long day of birthday celebrating and moving boxes the twin cousins took a much needed break!

Lola was good with her Aunt Maureen, she spent quite a lot of time with her which was a nice break for me!


We also spent time with Dad & Joni this weekend. Lola got a lot of quality Grandma time while I slept in until after 10 each morning!!! Yeah!! 10:00 am! It was AWESOME! Thanks again Joni!
Lola and Grandma practiced playing all kinds of musical instruments. I can't be sure but I may have a little rock star on my hands! As long as she's not a "Courtney Love" rock star everything will be fine.

And finally a video of the rock star in action: