TEN MONTHS

Age: 10 months
 

Stats: Shes so tall and so chubby, and I love it, but I don't know her exact weight or height. Shes wearing mostly 12-18 and 18-24 month clothes, size 4 diapers, and she has 7 teeth!

 

Favorite Foods: This list could go on for days, she LOVES to eat. But I'd say her favorite foods are meatballs, watermelon, mac n cheese, and cheerios. She can shovel scrambled eggs and waffles in pretty fast too

 

Words: "Papa" her version of "hello" that we can tell its hello when she holds a phone up to her ear and says "eyo?" And lately she will hold anything up to her ear, like a stuffed monkey, comb, ball, or cup. So everything is a phone. "Baba" and "Book" and I only know its book when she sits in the rocker and reaches up for the books and says "boo?"
 

Favorite Activities: Her most favorite recent activity is CRAWLING. Girlfriend finally crawls after months of being on the verge of crawling. She loves loves loves opening and closing the door on the nightstand a couple hundred times a day. She will stand for an hour straight at the foot stool and do nothing. Shes way more interested in her ball pit now. And she still adores her daddy more then anyone and goes nuts when he gets home from work.

 

Favorite Things: Clapping, eating, waving "hi", jumping on the bed, chasing the chickens outside, Papa's dog Brady, taunting Louie by holding up his toys for him to see.

Least Favorite Things: Diaper changes, putting on clothes, taking off clothes, rocking when shes overly tired, and being told she can't stand in the tub.

Signature Moves: Trying to get her to clap with you  but she waits until the song is over and you're done clapping first. Waving after you're done waving, staring down judging strangers everywhere we go, and sticking her fingers in your mouth while you're trying to rock her to sleep. She's also been known to smack me in the face pretty hard on several occasions, and then laugh hysterically about it. We're working on that!

In the beginning, time was moving so slow. Those first six weeks, although filled with so much love, were brutal and exhausting. I couldn't wait for her to sleep longer, play with toys, sit up, crawl, talk, etc. We're all still tired even though Lola has been sleeping through the night for the last 5 months. And she plays and talks and crawls all day. I literally don't have a clue where the last 10 months went. I swear I feel like we just went in to the hospital last month and we're walking in the door with our brand new baby girl. I can't believe how much faster time moves once you have kids. I would go back to those first 6 weeks with the knowledge that I have now and snuggle her all day long. 

She is still by far the best baby, ever. She is happy 99% of the time. She eats great, sleeps great, plays with other kids, barely whines or cries about anything,  and gives the sloppiest,cutest, wet mouth kisses any mom would die over.

I thought I was living for 29 years before you Lola. But my life never started until the day you were born. You are the best thing to ever happen to us, and we have so many amazing adventures in store. Happy 10 months sweet girl.

 

FLAMINGO PARTY

Over the weekend, we had a flamingo party at my parents house. It was complete with some of my best girlfriends, and lots of family. I've mentioned before the curse my birthday has, and even though my actual birthday isn't until Thursday, so far so good this year. There was a tornado about 45 minutes south of my parents house on Sunday, but it only sprinkled a little rain on us and we went on with eating, water gun (hose) fighting, swimming, and laughing. A HUGE thank you to my mom and dad for hosting, and working their butts off in the heat. I have said it so many times before, but I could never say it enough. I am ridiculously blessed with family and friends. Life is so so good, and I just know my 30's are going to be the best decade ever!

 My mom and I love to have a theme!

 

 Girlfriends!!

 Luna and Lola. Besties born one day apart!

 We finally got a photo of all 14 of us. Our family keeps growing and I absolutely love it. These people are my whole life!

THANK YOU EVERYONE!

Jammie Obsession

Donut Love 4 Piece // Black & Pink Striped // Floral Short Sleeved

Zebra Long Sleeve // Hammock 4 Piece // Elephant Organic Cotton

Beautiful Short Sleeve Set

It's no surprise we're obsessed with jammies over here. If I was a stay at home mom all week, I'd never put jeans on again. When we found out we were having a girl, I was so excited to dress her in all the cute outfits I always saw all over every store. Fancy dresses and tights, and super cute little shoes and baby jeans. She's never worn a fancy dress, and I think worn shoes twice. Now that we're in the thick of life with an almost one year old, I couldn't be more obsessed with her pajamas. All along I thought zip up sleepers were the shit. Not fuss, easy diaper changes, etc. But she is SO cute in these 2 piece pajamas lately. We are obsessed with buying all the jammies. Old Navy is still killing it with wardobe selections for babies, and now that Lola can wear toddler sized clothes, the selection is even better. I rarely shop at Carters, but DANG are those donut jammies cute or what? I ordered them online and had them shipped to the store, because who the F pays $8 shipping? And those hammock jammies are so right up our alley. I love when they're clean and she gets to wear them IN the hammock. Two hundred heart eye emoji's!

Long live the weekend!

Lola's First Sleepover

Saturday was Chuck's birthday, and we planned our third date night since Lola was born, and decided to go big. THREE dates in 9 months is not enough. Lola had her first sleep over at my parents house. I wasn't nervous, because I knew she was in great hands. But I did miss her very much. We dropped her off after her afternoon nap (or lack thereof) and went back home to get ready. It was so strange having a couple hours not worrying about when she might wake up. A couple hours meant plenty of time for me to choose an outfit. Or send a couple pics to friends and ask their opinion. Sidenote: I changed into both of these outfits 3 times each. I felt like a teenager going on my first date. 

 We decided to steer clear of downtown with the convention in town. So we went to Jekyll's Kitchen in Chagrin Falls. This is one of our favorite restaurants, not only because of the food, but because of the location. Beautiful to sit next to the falls during dinner! And, this is where we went the night we were induced with Lola. So it was rather fitting.

We were such party animals getting home at 10:30pm and going to bed at 11! Either way it was  nice to go out with my handsome 31 year old husband! Happy Birthday, babe. You're more then I ever could have hoped for in a husband and a father to our baby.

Meanwhile, someone was having a fun sleepover with Nana and Papa. One of my favorite things Lola does lately is love her Papa. It is the cutest thing to see her interact with him and say his name. I'm not even mad she said "Papa" before "Mama"

And someone slept all night, without her noise machine, until 7:15am! I see a few more (100) sleepovers in our future. Thank you Nana and Papa for always being such amazing parents and grandparents. Lola is a lucky lady.

 

Summer Family Photo's

We had family photos done a couple weeks ago. I originally wanted some spring family photos when Lola was about 6-7 months, but our first scheduled date, it snowed IN MAY. The second date was a down pour. So we settled for 
90 degree heat at 6pm on a Sunday night at almost 9 months old. 
But I couldn't be happier with how these turned out. I'm thrilled we 
found such a sweet photographer, who somehow managed to make it 
look like we weren't melting, swatting bugs away, and 
Lola wasn't unhappy with anything but eating cheerios. 

Thank you so much Ashley.

Me Time // Birthday Wish List

As a mom, sometimes you forget, or just don't have the time, to take care of yourself. Especially if you work full time, your days probably look a little something like this. Wake up, get ready, get baby ready, feed baby, drop baby off at day care. Get to work, forgot to feed yourself. Grab a bag of Doritos from the lunch room. Work all day. Run errands on way home. Pick up baby. Get home, unpack baby from day care, unpack work bag from work. Cook dinner (or if you're lucky, hubby cooks dinner) Eat as fast as you can. Clean up from dinner. Get baby in tub, get baby into pajamas, rock baby to sleep. Pack work bag for next morning, pack baby for day care. Put on your OWN pajamas. Sit down to watch a show and/or do more work from home. Fall asleep before doing anything for yourself. Including brushing your teeth. (gross!) 

 REPEAT for 5 days. 

This happens too much in our day-to-day life that us mom's just don't realize how important it is to take care of ourselves. Lately I've been trying to do at least one thing for myself after Lola goes to bed, or when she naps. I of course try to get my daily tasks of laundry and cleaning done first, but usually have enough time to paint my nails, or write a blog post, or even something as simple as cleaning out my purse or putting on a face mask. Sometimes I get really adventurous and go on a run outside! We don't realize how good it will make us feel to have those 15 minutes of doing something for ourselves.

And lately, sometimes even just buying something for yourself is enough.

 

I told you all I make lists all day every day. Well, of course I have a birthday list. Here's a few things I've been crushing on, and wouldn't normally buy for myself. Ok, who am I kidding? If all of these items were on Amazon, my cart would be loaded.

I'm ready for a new pair of Ray-Bans and these originals are what I've wanted for a while. But how awesome is this metallic purple polarized pair? Love them.

This Pajamas All Day tee has been on my list for a long time. Cause lets face it, mom's of babies under one year, don't wear real clothes. 

I am finally getting back into working out and running and in the market for new running shoes. I love my Brooks and Asics, but these Nike Pegasus are what I'd like to try for light running.

I kinda revamped my make-up recently. I started using a lot of Tarte brand items to get away from parabens. But there is no better lipstick than MAC. And I've been wanting this one in Velvet Teddy, with the matching lip pencil in Spice.

Speaking of make-up, how awesome are these colors in this eye shadow pallet? It's every color I would need. Lastly, I'm a sucker for colored pencils, and all my Prisma Color pencils are broken, tiny, and gross from college, so I'm in need of a new set, and how many of you are "adult coloring" in these cool new books that seem to be everywhere now? Is it terrible that I can't wait for Lola to be old enough to color?

So maybe this is just a list, or maybe these items will find a way into my house, but either way I'm glad I'm finally giving myself those 15 minutes a day to myself to just be me. And I hope all you mamas out there do too.

CHEERS!