Happy Birthday to my Sweet Baby Lola!

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

What was I waiting for??

Yes, leave it to me to wait until the last week before I head back to work to realize I have a ton of things on the list to get done. You know, the list I had in my head of all the things I would do when I had a year off of work. However, mothering two children tended to take up a lot of my time. Who knew?? So in between naps and bedtime I have been grocery shopping, browning 10 pounds of hamburger, roasting chicken and making and freezing meals like crazy. This time my making 14 meals is not because I am having a baby, but instead I am back to work. Add to that I am doing some painting in the kid's rooms and planning two first birthday parties for Lola - all before Monday! AHH!

I am not ready to go back. I don't think I would ever be ready to go back. I love, LOVE my time at home. There is nothing better than playing with my kids all day. But I suppose it is time to get back to the structure of life. I think the kids will fare better at the transition than I will. But man, I will miss them. A lot. And I think I will cry at going back to work this time. Sad, sad, sad..... But soon we will have MEA, Thanksgiving and Christmas break. And hopefully the winter won't be horrible (aka: bball season) and before we know it summer will be back.

So this weekend my baby turns 1! 1!!!! Can you even believe it? It's been a fast and fantastic year! She has definitely grown into a sassy little toddler with an attitude to boot. She doesn't say many words at all besides, "grrr" (when she plays with Teague's dinosaurs), "da da" and "ma ma". Mostly she just screams and screeches - see pictures below. Her favorite thing to do - climb up on the step stool in the bathroom and SCREAM for help because she doesn't know how to go down - only up.




This past Saturday Teague started kickball! I wish I could say that he loves it - but it's definitely a new experience for him. He didn't do very well participating, but was interested in playing in the dirt and passing the ball back and forth to Grandma. Lola loved laying in and eating the dirt. We'll see - hopefully he'll do better this Saturday! He already told us last night "I am NOT getting my picture taken at kickball". Ok then.

This past weekend my friend Beth and I ran in the Blubber Run in Mpls! It was SO fun! A lot of people dress up and at the 2 mile mark you can stop and have a beer. Of course you can wait and drink the beer afterwards (which is what we did - if I would have stopped for a beer I would have not been able to finish the race)!! A lot of people dress up for the race and being that it was 9/11 and Beth's brother is currently serving in Afganistan, we wore our military shirts and hats.


Other news, Ryan's mom was diagnosed with breast cancer and today had a double mastectomy. This is all on the heels of my dad's own recovery. From the sounds of it the surgery went well and the results of the mastectomy (stage of cancer and follow up treatment) will be available on Friday. I will keep you posted.

Some of (Lola's) Favorite Things!

Good-bye August, hello September. Don't like that AT. ALL. Last year it was so exciting because I was about to have a baby and take a year off of work, this year it means returning to work! As much as I feel somewhat ready for that - and knowing my kids are probably ready for that structure as well - I still feel sad about this year going so fast.

Lola has 4 teeth now! She essentially runs everywhere she goes - the only way I slow her down is by putting shoes on her - which she is getting good at as well.


Here are a few pictures of the last few weeks.

Lola's most favorite thing - eating. She takes after me.

Yep, playin' some hopscotch...a FAV pastime around here!

Practicing his pedaling skills....they're coming along.....slowly (he does really well when he can just pedal downhill from the garage out the driveway!)

Dirty face - what else is new when we are outside near the flower garden?!

Mini-Golfing, a last hurrah excursion as a family before Daddy went back to work!

Showing off his mad golf skillz...

How cute is this? All 3 looking into the hole!

Mom and Teague on the bumper boats!

Lola checking out all of the rocks while Daddy and Teague were on the go karts!

Hey guys!

One of Lola's favs - playing and pushing Teague's cars up and down the hallway...I think she likes them more than Teague ever has!

Lola's other fav - carrying her baby doll around! It's super sweet!

Just trying on Lola's sunglasses!


Hangin' out in her sunglasses!

My two babies just watchin' some Nick Jr. together!

Summer Fun!

We are having a good summer! We stay busy - but mostly stay home. We have lots of fun playing outside (Teague's favorite thing to do is play hopscotch....he is so proud that he can hop around on one foot - not that he couldn't do it earlier this summer, he has just perfected it. So cute!). So we play a lot of hopscotch and we swim a lot. It's been awesome.

I got a new camera last week so I am enjoying playing with it. It takes really nice pictures - so now I have my nice compact camera and a larger one.

The countdown is on. Ryan is back to work a week from Monday and I will start one month from Friday I will be back. I have been mentally prepping myself for awhile now. The kids will go to daycare two days a week once school starts so hopefully it won't be such a "shock" for them. There are honestly days when Teague takes his afternoon nap still in his pj's. So the idea of getting both kids ready every morning and out the door could prove really daunting. Ok, really Teague will be hard. Lola is still easy to hold down and throw into her carseat!

Lola is sleeping well still (with the exception of sleeping at my parent's this past weekend - OMG.) She got her 3rd tooth in now and has two on the bottom and one on the top! She is so fun and (speed) walks everywhere. I am trying to get her used to wearing shoes (not fun) as she has not wore shoes at all in her baby life. She loves her bottle finally and is just all around a total joy!

Teague is just as hilarious as ever. He now wants us to sit on the couch so he can "put on a show for you". Then he stomps around like a dinosaur and sings "When you're Big" (from the Land Before Time). He plays with an imaginary friend (no name at this point) and totally entertains us with his little sayings. Soooooo fun.

This past weekend we went to Morris for the good old county fair. We had some good food and good fun. Teague still loved seeing the animals - so I am glad that still holds some excitement for him over the rides. I am seeing that will not be possible in the years to come!

This weekend we have our "town days" which we have been planning to attend for some time with the kids and pictures with our favorite photographer, Amy, on Friday for the kids' 1st and 3rd year pictures. So excited!!

Have a good week!

Lola the Lizard - typical for her to walk around with her tongue hanging out!

Cutie pie trying to climb down the pool ladder!

....and trying to climb up!

Pretty normal response from Teague when I try to take his picture.

....but he can still look sweet once in a while.

....and then kinda naughty looking too (notice Lola taking it allllllll in?!)

Hello there little Ms. Blue Eyes!

This is a rarity (Teague smiling and me in the picture)!

Almost perfect picture.

Me with both of the kids! (well sort of - Lola just got in there accidentally)!

Teague on a ride at the fair.

Lola showing off her walking skills at the fair!

Teague checking out the motorcycle ride.

She's Walking!

Lola's an official walker now! While she actually started taking steps 2 1/2 weeks ago (10 months old!) she's now preferring to walk over crawling. It's so cute and so cute when Teague gets so excited and says "LOLA'S WALKING! LOOK AT HER MAMA!" Here's a little video clip.

We had Teague in for his 3 year well child check and he continues to grow like a weed! Off the charts for height and "hugging the line" for weight (which is good - we like tall and lean!) and he's still incredibly adorable! He's now getting to the stage where he embarrasses us in public (not on purpose of course), but just with the things he is observing. The other night we went to Space Alien's (kids eat free on Tuesdays you know!) and the mascot Alien was walking around. If you have ever seen him you know he is a little scary looking - kind of looks like the character from the Scream movies. Anyway Teague would stand there and stomp his feet and point and shout "Oooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhh I AM SCARED OF THAT"! So next we went to Target and as we are walking down the main aisle past pharmacy, two Somolian women in their headresses are walking towards us and when they are literally less than 4 feet away from us (and in TOTAL ear shot) Teague freezes in his tracks and stomps his feet in place, points and SHOUTS "Oooooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhh I AM SCARED OF THAT!" We moved on away as fast as we could. Perfect educational opportunity if he were like 5, but we sort of doubted he would understand a talk about ethnicity at this age!

Teague being silly before bed with two paci's in his mouth!

Lola practicing her cruising skills!

The summer is winding down and of course I am SUPER sad about it. I love my time at home and have made the decision to return to work on Sept. 20th. It was a hard decision as I love staying home with my kids but I knew I would want to be in my job when my kids start preschool as we will all be in the same building together, which means our kids can ride with us to work and I can walk them to class and pick them up everyday (as long as they want that of course)!