Lois goes swimming!

Yesterday we took Lois to her first swim lesson. We missed the first two weeks after Lois was sick and then we were out of town. But Lois caught up just fine and had a blast. Some videos below:

 

 

Lois is taking a few steps

I'm not sure it's fair to call it full on walking, but Lois took her first unassisted steps on Sunday, March 16. And she's repeated the feat a few times since. We capture a hint of it in this video (which is also full of our regular color commentary on Lois's daily activities):

Catching Up On Lois!

Time just raced by us for a while. Here are some new updates!

Lois is now ten and a half months old. She was crawling but now she seems over crawling. She is desperately trying to walk. She can cruise along holding furniture. And yesterday she pulled off this impressive feat:

Lois is also a great eater. She will try just about anything, even though she doesn't always like it. (Not a huge fan of green olives.) Her favorite foods are string cheese, avocado, and anything in the berry family. Her constant demand? That she feed herself! She does not tolerate mom or dad trying to feed her with a spoon. No way.

Lois is quite a curious kiddo. She loves grabbing new things and then flipping them over and over and over and over in her hands. Everything gets a full inspection. She is getting more patient with books. She started off just trying to eat books. Then she loved flipping pages. But now she likes exploring the pages a bit more. She especially loves books with things you can touch on each page.

Lois knows peek-a-boo. If she's holding something big enough and you ask her to do peek-a-boo, she'll hide her face behind the object and then drop the object really fast and then laugh as soon as you say peek-a-boo. She loves it when her stuffed animals play peek-a-boo behind the couch cushions too.

Lois loves music. She had a maraca she basically shook to death after her hours and hours on end of continuous shaking. Now she has a couple new maracas/shaking toys. She loves shaking them along to music, and loves it even more if you shake along with your own instrument. She also has some adorable dance moves if she's in the right mood.

We can't believe we're just weeks away from Lois turning one year old!!

Holidays galore

The holiday season has come and gone in a flash, and we're very behind with our updates. It seems like Lois is changing every day. She remains adorable:

Thank you Aunt Kyle for the new hat!

Lois started crawling on Saturday, December 28, after some valiant efforts during the week of Christmas while we visited relatives. Her ultimate inspiration was a toy truck. It took a while to get a video, but this is one of her early successes.

Lois also ended 2013 with four teeth (that we know of). She's had her bottom two for a little while, but two top teeth popped out the last week of December. Thankfully without too much trauma.

Over Christmas, Lois got to meet her two oldest cousins. So now she has officially met all her cousins. Here is Lois with cousins Daniel and Lauren. They were very sweet to her:

 

 

 

Lois has had a bunch of visitors. Aunt Roxanna and Uncle Pavlos stopped by:

 

Cousin Leo was here for Thanksgiving:

 

 

Grandpa Pete was here just after Thanksgiving:

Uncle Mark came through Chicago in December:

 

 

So all in all, 2013 ended on a fantastic note. We'll post a couple more pics from New Year's soon. But here are a few last 2013 shots we love!

Ready for Thanksgiving with Dad:

Music class with Mom:



 

Snuggliness:



 

And lest you think it's all about Lois, here's a video of Rob and Taber's holiday tradition:

 

 

 

Happy 2014!

Karate chops of happiness

When Lois is happy, she will raise one or both arms in the air and bring them swiftly down to her sides in a karate-like chop. It's a karate chop of happiness that always means "More of that!"

This is not to be confused with the karate chop that says "I make my own decision!" or "I'll do it myself!" Sometimes Lois is hungry but she wants to put that bottle in her mouth by herself, so she will karate chop that bottle away from her mouth if you try to do it for her.

Here are a few recent pictures. I'll try to upload a karate chop of happiness video soon.

 

Perfect Lois grin.

 

 

Lois loves her new stackable cups.

 

 

Lois thinks her feet are amazing. She's constantly grabbing them.

 

 

I hear selfies are all the rage. So here's a family selfie. The black fur in the front is Dunkel.

 

Lois is figuring out how to turn pages in books. And then she shoves the pages into her mouth.

Little Miss Lois

On Friday morning, I noticed a tiny little tooth in Lois's mouth. No more toothless grins. Our little girl is teething, but so far hasn't been anything but her normal, happy self. Fingers crossed that the rest of her teeth come in so easily!

Here's quick shot of Little Miss Lois from this weekend. She's wearing a gray sweater and black pants -- definitely her mom's daughter.

A night out for the adults

This fall marks the 20th anniversary of my law firm. So Rob and I had a fancy night out at the firm party. Just because we're parents doesn't mean we can't still get a little posh every now and then!