Lola turns 1

My little Lola is

ONE!

 

March 20, 2012

I can't believe how fast this year has gone by!

Lola is such a sweet little girl.  She is very laid back and calm, unless.... she gets annoyed by something.  And then you'd better watch out, because she's very strong!

 Lola wasn't super into getting her pictures taken.  But we managed to get a few after we gave her a lollipop.

I worked for months on the decorations and party favors.  Not that it took months, just that I could do little bits here and there.  I worked on the stuff for Noah's party as well since  his birthday comes shortly after.

Her Aunt Brandy doing her little girl hair.

Soooo much of our family was able to come since they happened to be in town and/or available that day.  It was a huge crowd and a whole lot of fun!  

Noah sure had fun with all of his cousins!

Lola is 100% a Daddy's girl.  She LOVES her Daddy.  And Abe loves being her first choice!  I love it too, it's so sweet.

Thanks everyone who came and helped us celebrate Lola's first birthday!

Here's a newborn picture and a one year picture.

My how she's grown up!

Happy Birthday Sweet Lola!

Thank you sooo much to my dear, sweet friend Mandy for taking these gorgeous pictures for me!

the potty

We started potty training Noah in January of this year.

yes, that's his underwear on his head

Nobody warns you how terrible potty training is.  

I can easily say that it is one of the most frustrating things I've ever done.  

It was soooo hard.  

He just didn't like it.

He took a good six months before he was ok with it.

He was tall enough that he could stand, so I figured out that he was much happier about it when he could stand to go potty.  "Just like daddy!", he said.

Now he does a really good job.

Yay, Noah!  You did it!

Daddy and I are so proud of you!

lola's blessing

We had Lola's blessing on May 1st at our church.

here's a little family photo afterward

Abe gave her the blessing and it was beautiful.

Her lovely little dress was made by my mom.

I really can't even put into words how much I love her dress!
It's a creamy eyelet fabric with white lace trim.
So beautiful!  Thank you, mama!

here is a picture of four generations of women

My cute grandma, Gayle Maxwell, on the left.  My sweet mom, Maurine Harris, on the right.
And of course baby Lola and me in the middle.
The women on my mom's side are very strong, smart and capable women.  I only hope Lola and I can inherit those traits.

While we were sitting in church, Abe and I were overwhelmed with gratitude and love for our families.  So much of my family was able to make it, which is rare due to the large number of us.  Five of my seven siblings made it along with my parents, grandma, and a whole bunch of my nieces and nephews.
Abe's younger sister, parents, grandparents, aunt and uncle were able to make it as well.

We are so thankful for our family and friends and all the love and support they give us.
We are especially thankful for the gospel and how blessed we are because of it.

Thanks to all our family for basically doing everything for us!  Cooking, serving, cleaning, entertaining, etc. so that we could relax and enjoy the day.

It was a beautiful day that we will always remember.

anniversary #4

Today is our wedding anniversary!

Abe and I have been married 4 years.

We think it's funny how short 4 years is because it feels like we've been married forEVER.  I mean that in a good way.

Abe is such a sweet man, he is so good to me. 

He loves me like crazy despite my MANY faults.  He always makes me feel capable, worthy, beautiful and happy. 

That's no small task when you're married to me.

He has such a laid back attitude

that compliments my high-strung attitude.

Whenever I'm feeling overwhelmed or upset or crazy, he can make me feel calm.

We find each other funny.  We have fun giggling together.

I find him quite handsome.

He's a wonderful husband, an amazing dad and I love him so very much.

I love you, dear!

Happy 4th Anniversary!

baby!

Wow!  Has it really been a month since I posted last?  Where did March go?  Well... I'll tell ya.

On March 12, this happened:

37 weeks pregnant

I know!  Scary.  But it had to be documented.

Then at 38 weeks pregnant, on March 19th... contractions started.

So we went to the hospital, where they abruptly stopped.

But when the nurse saw that I was 6 centimeters dilated and fully effaced, they decided to let me stay.

So after a full night of NO sleep... for me, this scary picture happened:

Then they were kind enough to break my water and

get things moving.

And things moved!

I was ready to push in no time and then three contractions later, this sweet little girl happened:

She is so pretty.

Lola Grace Carlsruh

Born March 20, 2011 @ 7:36 am

6 pounds 12 ounces

19.5 inches long

She has so much hair!  Every time the nurses would take her away for a test or something, she'd come back with a new bow in her hair.

But probably my most favorite moment at the hospital was this:

Noah sang Rock-a-Bye Lola to his new baby sister.

It was so cute, I wanted to cry.

And if I can figure out how to post videos on this thing, I will post it.  It is the sweetest thing to hear!

So March was uncomfortable and busy, as you can see.  The last two weeks have been quite an adjustment.  But I have a 3 year old's birthday party to post and 2 week baby pictures to post coming soon!

baby name!

What's in a name?
When Abe and I found out I was pregnant with Noah, we had a bit of a hard time agreeing on a name.  I, of course, pulled out my list I had been adding to since the third grade and we started going down the list.  We picked a girl name and a boy name.

Noah was the first boy name on my list that we both agreed on.  And his middle name is Harris, which is fun because that's my maiden name as well as Abe's grandpa's name who lives next door.

As far as the girl name we had chosen, we loved it.  But as soon as we started trying for baby #2, for some reason we changed our minds and chose a totally different girl name and could not settle on a boy name at all.  Luckily this upcoming arrival is a girl... or so they tell me.  You can read about my doubts in this post.  We also decided that we liked the family name idea.

So for this baby girl that loves to jump on my bladder, we chose:

Lola Grace

We chose Lola after my great aunt on my dad's side. 

This is my Aunt Lola on the left:

She is the one pointing at the camera.  So cute!

(click on photo to enlarge)

I LOVE this picture!  Look at that fridge in the background!  And their clothes!  So fantastic!

With Lola is her husband, George Rapich, and my grandma Mildred Bosta, who is George's sister.

George and my grandma (my dad's mother) are Croatian or Slavic from what used to be Yugoslavia.  My sweet Aunt Lola hails from Rexburg, Idaho. 

She and George had such a fun relationship.  I have fond memories of them teasing each other, but always following up with a kiss or saying something sweet to each other.  My dad remembers her as always being so pleasant to be around and just a very good natured person.  She was witty with a great sense of humor.

I always loved to say her name as a kid and had a real fondness for her and George growing up.  She was such a lovely woman and I think it's a beautiful name.  Luckily Abe loves the name too!

We chose Grace after Abe's great grandmother:

She is Abe's dad's, dad's mother.  It's her bloodline that Abe gets his Jewish heritage from.

Yes, my quiet, blond haired, blue eyed husband is a quarter Jewish.  Clearly he does not take after his dad's side much.

Abe only met Grace a few times since she lived in Milwaukee.  She loved entertaining and was an accomplished artist, which was extra fun for me to learn!  She was very proper and loved to entertain.  She was also a very gracious woman and made sure everyone was well taken care of. 

Another beautiful lady and another beautiful name.

We are so excited to welcome our little Lola Grace into our home.

Now I've just got to get passed the nightmares I have that we did all this prep with girlie bedding and pink dresses and bows for a baby girl only to come home with a little boy!  And no little boy name to boot!

I guess it would make for a funny story... much later.

oh christmas tree

I realize this is a little bit late since we've had our tree for several weeks now, but it must be documented!

As I keep saying, the holidays are so much more fun with kids!  Whether they're your own kids, your nieces and nephews, grandkids, friend's kids, neighbor kids... WHATEVER!  They just make it wonderful!

We went to the tree lot that we use every year to pick our tree.  Noah loves to run through the rows of trees!

It was soooo bitter cold!

Then we brought it home, got it all set up and started decorating!

Noah helped this year which made it so much more fun!

Unlike most, we START with the star:

Abe's the only one tall enough to put it on top:

Noah had so much fun hanging the ornaments:

We had the movie "Elf" playing as we decorated.  One of our favorites!

And ta da....!!

This year was so fun because I started our collection of ornaments at some "After-Christmas" sales last year.  So it was a whole new tree this year!  So fun!  I'll have a post with a little more detail of the ornaments and my gift wrapping theme coming soon.



thanksgiving in st. george.... and a dirty Santa?

Every other year we go down south to St. George, UT to spend Thanksgiving with my side of the family.  We headed down the Tuesday before Turkey Day, one day early to beat the "record breaking" storm that was passing through that ended up not being that crazy.  That's ok, we were glad to avoid driving in any level of bad weather.

Here's Noah showing off his new hat and gloves that we purchased just before we left:

He loves wearing them!

We had such a great time in St. George!  Just hanging out, playing games until the wee hours of the morning, doing puzzles, shopping, eating and relaxing!

Here's Noah at Thanksgiving dinner:

You can tell he's thrilled.

The only stuff Noah is ever thrilled to eat are treats.

The night after Thanksgiving, we went to Tuahcahn to visit Santa and see the lights.

I'm not sure how Noah felt about Santa this year:

All I know is my two-year-old looks GIANT on Santa's knee. 

And then I noticed how nasty and ratty Santa's chair is!  Yuck!  Somebody give poor Santa a new chair!

Here we are right after Santa at the fire:

You can tell by my cherry bulb nose that it was pretty chilly!

And a shot with the Christmas tree:

Silliness...

And then my favorite kind of shot, the cousins:

It's so cute how all their personalities shine through!

Noah had so much fun with his cousins and they all play so well with him and take good care of him!  Such sweet kids, we love them so!

And just before we left, we decided to do a picture with Santa with just us girls:

  This is my mom, three of my sisters and me. 

The best part is this:

Right after the pictures were taken, Santa reached down, patted my boobs and asked me, "So what would you like for Christmas?" 

Yes, I just got felt up by Santa. 

I quickly got up and told Santa I'd like for this baby to come while showing him my big pregnant belly.  See, usually a big pregnant belly sends any man running... I'm sure that counts for dirty old Santas...??

Anyway, I'm 70% sure it was an accident, but it was so blatant that's it's hard to say. 

But it sure had us all in giggles and makes for a great story!

Hope all of your Thanksgivings were as memorable as mine!