Dad's gone...PARTY!

Josh left after work on Wednesday to go hang out with his dad in a cabin in Minnesota. So Grandma Buechler was so sweet and came down to hang out with Jolie and help me keep my sanity! (I was also having a horrible day on Wednesday so I'd just like to give a shout out to Lori for dealing with me and helping me with Jolie!) I can handle Jolie by myself on the weekends confidently, but apparently during the work week is still over my head to tackle on my own! haha!

Jolie and Grandma had so much fun as always! They did some finger painting and playing and even laundry! Sweet! And at my work, a few of the student groups host a Halloween party and they were so nice and came to my work party! Of course, everyone loved her costume and Jolie was so funny at the party. She just stared at all the kids playing the games and took it all in. It was just so sweet how she studied everything.

She helped me with my work

I love my little duckie!

She got a mini pumpkin too!



Showing off her sweet scooting skills for all my co-workers :)

Thank you so much Grandma B for helping me out and bringing Jolie to my work!

Who's 8 months old?

Jolie is! And she's a busy baby!

Here is what she's been up to lately
-Is tipping the scales at 16 1/2 lbs
-Wears 6-9 month and 6-12 month clothes.
-Started eating a lot more flavors of food but appears to not like 'tarty' tastes like apples
-Eats a few puffs each day but still gags on them every once in awhile
-Drinks 5 bottles a day but has started not to finish her bottles since her last ear infection
-Can scoot and army crawl
-Is getting a little better about stranger anxiety and guys
-Wears a size 2-3 diaper and size 3 at night (we're even just about out of the 'Swaddler' diapers and into the 'Cruisers'!)
-Even though she has tons of toys, she loves going after the remote, laptop (but just Josh's because I keep mine picked up! haha!) and any of Petey's toys
(This really confuses Petey because he thinks if she has his toy that she's going to play with him and throw it so he starts freaking out when she gets them!)
-Likes country music and music on Sesame Street and has even started bouncing to it
-Claps her hands-FINALLY! Previously she always kept her hands clinched in a fist
-Has two teeth on the bottom (she sometimes bites herself and then cries!)
-Is starting to get more and more hair and even has a few curls in the back!
-Can jump in her jumper without any padding underneath and really loves it! If you say 'Jump, jump, jump' she does it!
-Is starting to giggle and laugh more but what makes her laugh constantly changes! One day I was making animal noises and it was hilarious, the next day I got nothing!

It's amazing to see how much she's growing and learning every day! You can tell she really 'plays' now and discovers new things. It's just amazing and she's just so much fun!! Plus now Josh and I have a good excuse to watch Sesame Street!

Jolie wanted to say 'hi!' and get the camera!

the very serious painter

Jolie's teacher sent home a bunch of pictures from school and they were so cute! They had some of her painting and it looked like fun so I thought we needed to do some painting at home as well. She is very serious when she paints but seems to have a lot of fun with it. She couldn't wait to get more colors and we now have two beautiful paintings! That was quickly followed by a bath which she also very seriously enjoyed!




I swear she did seem like she was having fun! :)

Busy Day and Halloween Preview

After swimming, we watched the Iowa State/Texas game with our neighbors (Iowa State fans). Jolie got to play with Kynley and Addison again and had so much fun! Kynley and Jolie love being able to scoot to each other and laugh and smile so big at each other! Jolie also loves looking out the window to see if she can see them outside!

So then after that we had a little fashion show and tried on our Husker stuff and then our Halloween costume! Jolie's a little duckie this year. (Petey was not cooperating to take any pictures with Jolie in her duck costume-boo) She didn't mind her duck costume at all!


After that big day, Jolie just passed out! Good thing tomorrow will be a nice relaxing day for her!

Waterbabies

We had our second swim class today and Jolie loved it again and she got to show dad her skills! She even dunked herself on accident! We were practicing rolling from tummies to back and all of a sudden she jerked her head and dunked her face in the water! I felt horrible but she just sputtered a little and was cool with it! Phew! Then we did a dunk with all the babies (where you blow in their face first to make them hold their breath) and she did great with that. I think its much scarier for the parents! :)
She loves grabbing her toes


At the end of class we get a bunch of toys out and they 'chase' after the toys.

Look dad! I got my toy!

When she isn't grabbing her toes, she loves kicking! She's also one of the few who doesn't mind being held out front and floating. What a pro!

And although we didn't catch a lot of smiles in these pictures, she really smiles so much during class! She gets so excited when we sing the songs and do lifts in and out of the water. I'm so pumped that she's getting so comfortable with the water this early!

GBR! (Go Big Red for those who may not know)

Jolie has just about outgrown her Husker cheerleading outfit so I thought we better get a few pictures before it was too late. However, it was after a very long day and near bedtime when I thought to do this, so she was very sleepy! Thanks Jolie for being such a good sport!



Petey wanted to show off his Husker stuff too!

The closet I got to taking a decent photo of both of them in their Husker stuff.

The Army Crawl

Although Jolie isn't traditionally 'crawling' quite yet, she is becoming quite efficient at the army crawl. Sometimes we'll glance away for a bit and turn around and she's across the living room! Of course her favorite things to go after seem to be non-baby items including Petey's chew bones, Josh's laptop and the tv remote. We better get those baby gates ready!

Eat the Puff

After a little while of playing with the puffs, we thought she maybe needed an actual demonstration that puffs were for eating. So here's the first taste of puffs--funny faces! We are starting out with sweet potato puffs--they have many varieties to choose from and they turn to mush very easily. I see a lot of messes in the near future...

Meet the Puff

Jolie's teacher at school gently suggested that she's probably ready to start trying out some puffs and crackers and putting those toothers to work. So we picked up some puffs to try at home first. Not really thinking it through, I put a whole handful of puffs in front of Jolie, when she could have just used one or two! And for the most part, she just picked them up and found them fascinating. Petey is also finding this fascinating and is quickly learning to watch for any dropped food!

Jolie loves to make that noise when you put your hand in front of your mouth...um, I don't really know what it's called, but hopefully you know what I mean. In fact, she loves it so much, she's kind of figured out how to do it on her own! Every once in awhile she kind of smacks herself too hard and will cry, but she's getting better and better! :) I can't remember why she doesn't have a shirt on though...maybe we were changing clothes or something...

All Better...I think!

After another long night, I stayed home with Jolie and her medicine finally started working around noon! She took a huge nap this morning and then had a pretty good bottle so I was super excited! She's still not quite drinking as much as usual and she's pretty stuffy still, but no fevers and more smiles!

Here's a demonstration! And if you look closely you can see her two little toothers!


And these long nights are especially hard on Petey. He'll probably remain in this position for the next few days! :)

Ear Infection #2

I don't have any pictures from this weekend-Boo! But I can give an update anyway. Friday night Jolie started running a fever and didn't sleep very well. Saturday morning she seemed okay so we thought maybe it was just a fluke thing. She was smiley and such and we had her first swimming lesson so we decided to try it out. Josh decided to catch up on some of his sleep since we had tag-teamed rocking Jolie all night, so we were down a photographer! :)

She loved swimming lessons! It's pretty much just the parents splashing around and singing songs (that's right, I had to sing! It was NOT pretty!) while the babies splash and kick. We are very excited to show dad next weekend!

Pretty much as soon as she got out of the pool things started going downhill. She was very mad and wouldn't drink much and started running a fever again--saddest thing! It's so hard because you want to make them all better, but there's nothing you can do! After a rough night last night which included a fever of 103 we decided we needed to go to the doctor. She has another ear infection so we got medicine for that, but waiting for it to start working is making me crazy! She's still not drinking much and needs to be upright all the time or else she cries. Poor pumpkin! It looks like we'll be spending tomorrow snuggling and hopefully being on the mend or else I'm going to have to pull the 'crazy, over-reacting mom' card and go back to the doctor! :)

Play Day

Thursday Grandma and Grandpa Buechler stayed with Jolie for a play day! They went for walks and took some naps and played, played, played! Then when I got home we went to the park as fast as we could to play with leaves. We got a little smarter since our last attempt at the park and just had dad meet us there, picked a park closer to our house, and ate supper after the park--how smart are we?

Jolie had played with leaves earlier in the week at school and they said she loved it so naturally, we wanted to see too! And she did love them--although I had to pull a couple out of her mouth, she had a great time crunch and throwing them.



She also got to swing, but as you can see, the swing was HUGE for her! But she did a great job of hanging on and she loved it!

Every last drop

The weather has been so nice lately and we are trying to enjoy every minute before we'll be stuck inside for winter. So after work and school on Wednesday we wanted to play outside. They had done a lawn treatment recently at our place so we really didn't want to play in that so we thought we'd go grab some supper and go to a park. Well we didn't really consider how long it would take for Josh to shower, get Petey and Jolie ready to go, us to order supper, drive to pick it up, then drive to the park, so by the time we got there it was almost dark! We hurried up and ate as fast as we could and thought we'd try to play with some leaves but apparently this park had just cleaned up the leaves because there was none to be found!

Needless to say we didn't stay long because it was starting to get chilly. So we quickly snapped a few pictures and went back home. And Josh and I learned plenty of lessons for next time, especially about the shorter days!

Pedersen's Visit!

Great grandpa and grandma Pedersen came with Grandma and Grandpa Buechler to visit Jolie! They came all the way from Scotland (South Dakota) :) on Saturday afternoon and stayed until Sunday. Uncle Matt came from Omaha on Saturday too! Jolie was very excited to show them how big she was and show off her two teeth! She was still a little scared of guys (sorry!) at times and had a few tears but we'll just keep pushing through it and hopefully she'll be over it soon, that silly girl! Oh, they also brought pumpkin pie and it was awesome!!!

While we were waiting for our table at Perkins, Jolie wore her stylin' shades!


Thank you everyone for coming to visit!

Pancake Feed

Saturday morning we went with some of our neighbors to the Waukee Fire Department's Pancake Feed. They had so many things to do! Addison got to shoot a fire hose and put out a fire with a fire extinguisher. Jolie and Kynley just took in the sights but they seemed very interested in everything!

Flu Shot--no biggie

I had to take Jolie in for her flu shot and I was so nervous. Apparently I'm known for sending Josh to get Jolie's shots because I get too sad! The nurse at the clinic even noticed and said she was surprised to see me bringing Jolie--dang it--they are on to me!! So after getting all worked up about Jolie having to get a shot, she did not even cry, flinch or ANYTHING! What a stud!!! And who would have guessed that I'd get myself all worked up over nothing? Me??? NEVER! Geez, sometimes I'm amazed at what a 'crazy mom' I've turned in to! I always swore I'd be all laid back and smooth, but I am not even close!

Well now that I've talked about myself enough...Jolie and I made it home and were able to catch a great nap! Then once Dad got home, we went to play outside! Yay! Jolie has been having lots of fun playing with our neighbor Kynley. Kynley is 3 weeks older than Jolie so they have so much fun together. Petey also enjoys playing with them and giving kisses. Lovely. Kynley also has an older sister, Addison, who is 3 years old and is so much fun! She enjoys coloring our driveway with chalk and keeping it pretty. We have lots of fun with them--hopefully I'll actually get some pictures of all of them some time!

Day Off With Dad

Since Josh worked all weekend he got some days off during the week. On Tuesday, he played with Jolie all day and even visited me at work for lunch! We had Jimmy Johns and Jolie loved the paper wrapper that covered our sandwiches. She showed everyone at work how exciting paper can be and they were quite impressed!

When I got home, we got to play outside a lot since the weather has been amazing! Check out her funny shirt too!

Party in Omaha!

Josh was working all weekend so Jolie and I decided to head to Omaha and meet Grandma DeDe and Uncle Brett. (Uncle Michael and Grandpa are in the field picking that corn!) So after prying Petey out of the vehicle and explaining to him that we would come back soon, Jolie and I left for Omaha Saturday morning. I planned it perfectly because she slept the entire way! Score!

We checked out some fun stores and ate some delicious food! Then we spent the evening at the hotel and we were so wore out, we didn't even check out the pool! But you know who wasn't worn out--Jolie! We kept trying and trying to get her sleep and her head would just pop right up and she'd laugh and smile. So after about an hour and a half, we thought we'd try a walk outside so we took the stroller and walked to Target that was right next door. She still stayed awake, but we were finally successful on our walk home!

Sunday we did a little more shopping (gotta stock up on that Husker stuff!) and Jolie loved it! She is quite the experienced shopper! I tried to schedule our drive back so that it would be during a nap time and it worked again--she slept the whole way back! She was very excited to Petey when we got home and 3/4 as excited to her dad. Geez--Jolie just thinks Petey is so cool and we are chopped liver!

Thanks Grandma DeDe and Uncle Brett for meeting us and everything else! We had a great time!!

Teeth are popping up like weeds!

So we definitely have a tooth in and it looks like many more are starting to follow. So that means we have are keeping those icy rings fresh at all times. Jolie even likes to have two at a time!