Bumble Bees and Halloween

Our Little Bumble Bee

We weren't going to do much for Halloween, we hadn't planned on doing anything, so we weren't planning on dressing her up. But we had tickets on the 30th to see BFF Katie at her performance in "42nd Street" at Arizona Broadway Theater. (Which was FANTASTIC) so thankfully, other Katie said she would watch Lola. Katie has a son just a couple of months younger than Lola, so we were happy to let Lola meet a new playmate.

See My Wings?

 They were going to a Trunk or Treat at their church, so that afternoon, we found a little bumble bee costume for Pants for $3.50! It wasn't a stellar costume, but at the last minute, it was great! She LOVED that costume, she knew it was something different, and she was pretty darn cute, biased as I may be! Gamma also bought Lola some Uggs, that she spotted and took a liking to. They are a size 6 and way too big, but she LOVES them.
The next morning, she brought me the bumble bee vest and the boots and ran around for a while in the bumble bee vest and Uggs and diaper.
Halloween night, we got dressed up and walked over to visit "Auntie" Marcia and "Uncle" Bo. That was a treat, Bo was dressed up for the trick or treaters as a very strange old lady. I wish we had gotten a picture because Lola just wasn't sure about that...nor was their dog, Daisy, who barked and barked at him!

Such a Big Girl!

We took another trip to Gamma and Honey's to see the Mayfield/Cruces football game. Since they are looking at moving to Phoenix, I thought this might be my last chance to see that game, so we went. I really miss that level of high school spirit! I read two esitmations regarding attendance...anywhere between 22k and 25k people were estimated to attend. That is amazing! And we were there. It was a good game--with the exception of the outcome!

What a Ham!

This is to say, "It wasn't me!"

California and BIG Waves

Lola on her new slide

We have been quite busy the past two months. Lola is changing and learning new things and amazing (and entertaining) us daily! October was filled with travel experiences!  Our neighbor brought us their slide/fort that their kids have outgrown. Lola is big on the slide! She loves going down the slide, her only challenge is getting to the top! I can see we will be growing with this toy! Lola got a "big girl" car seat and she absolutely loves being able to look forward rather than always laying down.

holding on to Momma for dear life

OK, maybe this isn't so bad

Her first big experience in the new car seat was a trip to California with Gamma and Honey.  We took a weekend and drove down to Escondido to see the sights. The big adventure on that trip was our trip to the beach. Back in June we took Lola to the beach and she wasn't very fond of it, so we were expecting some resistance. She wouldn't let go of me for the first few minutes, but slowly warmed up to the idea of the sand and cautiously wandered to where Daddy was standing. She was focused on something that held her attention and Rodney was making sure she didn't take off over the edge of the sand "cliff" (there was an eroded edge of the sand with about a foot drop to where the waves were splashing up.) We were all focused on her and enjoying the new experience, when out of nowhere a wave came up over the "cliff."  It happened really quickly. Rodney's back was to the wave, but Lola got it full in the face. The wave took her out. Down. Flattened her. And her bad mother saw it coming! Unfortunately, my first thought when I saw the wave coming in further than any other had come, was, "ohh, I don't want to get my feet wet, that water's cold!" And I jumped back a few steps. My SECOND thought was, "OH! Lola's right in the path of destruction!" But by the time that thought hit, Rodney was soaked from the knees down and Lola was soaked

and covered in sand from head to toe! And hysterical.                   

You will NEVER get me here again!

She HATES water in her face. And it LITERALLY scared the poop out of her! A nice family was right there and handed us a towel and offered that every kid on that beach had been similarly taken out by a wave at some point that day. We headed to the car to get a diaper and something warm and headed to the bathroom. Note: beach bathrooms aren't equipped with changing facilities. So I changed her on the wall outside the bathroom. Honey came to the rescue. Another comment on my mother hood...I don't travel with a change of clothes. So we had NOTHING to change her into. I was wearing two T-shirts, so had planned on putting one of them on her. But before I could do anything, Honey had taken his shirt off and was giving it to Lola. Which was so sweet, but here was my dad with NO shirt on at the beach. He fit right in! She got a kick out of it (once she had slept a bit and we were back in the condo!) It took 3 baths to get all the sand out of her hair!

It's not so bad in Honey's shirt

15 Months and New Car Seats

Lola had her 15 month check up. It's the first time that we've had to wait at all for the doctor, she's usually in and out. Because of the wait, our very busy little girl got a little antsy. So, she had quite a ball running circles around the office, as you can see by the video.
Her size is catching up to her age, which is good, so far, we've still be in 6-9 month outfits (with the exception of her feet). What shocked us was we are only 1/2 inch away from needing a new car seat! We thought we had loads of time. Wrong! What caused me the most stress when preparing for her, was shopping for the car seat. I probably spent hours online, and at least 6 trips to Babies R Us to look at them. So when we found that out, I panicked a little. I mean, what's the difference between the $99 car seat vs. the $450 car seat? And because the car seat will not go in and out of the car, we will need two. ACK!
One of the things that the pediatrician said was we need to get her using crayons. She had said this at the 12 month, however we were in a restaurant with crayons and all she wanted to do was eat them, so we didn't push it. On our way home, we stopped by Walmart and got some paper and crayons. All she wanted to do was crumple the paper and eat the crayon. Next diaper change should be fun.

What she has really enjoyed is our trips to the mall when she can play at the play place. She hasn't quite figured out that she has to crawl up the steps to get down the slide, rather than climb back up the slide. Otherwise, her favorite thing to do there is RUN in the big open area. Nada was horrified that we would take Lola  there, her nickname for the play place is "Infestation Island."