A Year in Review

This year has come and gone so fast, and what a wonderful year it has been! I really can’t believe my little girl is 1 year old!!!! She has her daddy wrapped around her little finger and she is my best little friend in the whole world. Our home is just that much happier and we feel so blessed to be her parents.
Our hard drive was completely ruined with tons of pictures of Lola’s first year so I got as many together for this blog so you could see how much she has changed. We are just so in love with her and so proud of all that she has accomplished and grateful for all she has taught us in her first year of life here on this earth.

Day 1: She is finally here! After almost 2 months of contractions and 27 hours of labor, our sweet little Lola Sue decides to join us at 5:58 p.m. weighing in at 8 lbs even and 20 inches long with TONS of dark curly hair.

Month 1: She is learning all about this new world around her and her little neck is getting so strong. She doesn’t give mom and dad much time to sleep, and although they are VERY tired, they couldn’t be happier!

Month 2: She is sleeping through the night and eating like a champ! Mom and Dad love taking time to get to know her and love listening to the sweet cooing noises that she makes.

Month 3: She is really learning to find her voice and make sounds. She loves her hands and watches them move and has found her mouth. She is becoming much more alert and looks in the direction of sounds when she hears something.
Month 4: Such an exciting month! She is rolling over and started eating rice cereal this month. She is getting good at sitting up with help and is making some really fun facial expressions.
Month 5: Lola is rolling all over the place. She can go from front to back and back to front and is figuring out that she can get to things she wants when she does it!

Month 6: Sitting up is easy now. She can do it all by herself and can even reach around her to grab things that are close to her that she can play with. Lola is even standing up pretty good, with help of course. She has really found her voice and is quite a little chatter box.

Month 7: Loey is scooting herself pretty good and has even pulled her little legs underneath her several times in preparation for the burst into independency. She wants to crawl so bad and gets frustrated sometimes that she can’t move faster. She is a determined little thing and will be at it soon enough.

Month 8: She is officially crawling! You can tell she is so proud of herself because she grins from ear to ear and is loving her new found freedom. She is making some fun sounds and is mommy’s little vacuum. Needless to say vacuuming is sometimes a twice a day chore, just to make sure!

Month 9: Big accomplishment, she has been pulling herself up on anything she can get her hands on. She met mom’s mission president and showed off her skills at the mission reunion. Her little personality is starting to shine and she is such a joy to be around. As you can see, she got herself a couple of teeth this last month.

Month 10: Found a new favorite toy this month…a laundry basket. She loves pushing it around the entire house and has figured out how to get herself out of corners or tough spots to push the basket through. She is really an intelligent little girl and already shows some really good problem solving skills. She can say “mama” “dada” and “tyty” (my little brother)

Month 11: Lola is walking on her own! She has made leaps and bounds in her development this month. She has learned quite a few words in sign language and knows several body parts in Spanish. Another favorite is reading books. She will literally sit for up to about 45 min and read her books, turning pages, switching books when she gets bored…its impressive really.
Month 12: I am pretty sure she never stops talking. She sings herself to sleep and reads mom and dad stories all day. My favorite thing this month is when she finds her “Brown Bear, Brown Bear” (favorite book, thanks Jason and Liz) she brings it to one of us, and then says “up, up” so we pick her up, put her on our lap and she proceeds to open and read the entire book to us. She doesn’t like to skip pages either.
Josh is such a wonderful father and has grown into his role so well. I love watching him and Lola interact. One of his favorite things to do is turn on Lola’s favorite songs and dance around the house with her. It makes me love him just that much more. We knew that she would teach us a higher level of happiness and joy, but we didn’t anticipate how great it would really be. Not a day has gone by this year that we haven’t smiled a little bigger, laughed a little more, and learned to love this precious little spirit more than we could ever have imagined. She is our pride and joy!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY LOLA SUE!!!!!!!!!!!!