Target Shopper

We had a leisurely trip to Target the other day so I thought we could give Jolie a chance to walk around since she LOVES her new independence. In hindsight, this was a HUGE mistake! You should have them ride in the cart as long as possible! Because with this new independence, it also means she doesn't always want to go where you want her to!

Jolie took a special liking to some shiny ceramic piggy banks and every chance she got, she would head over to them. It was actually pretty amazing because we would go to a completely different section of Target, and yet somehow she knew exactly where to go to find them! Then she would just point at them and smile really big!

Then she took a seat on the shelf and was so excited to sit next to a piggy bank. :) Of course, when we tried to leave this lead to a few meltdowns which was a little embarrassing, but luckily Target is FULL of distractions! :)

Future dentist or high-maintenance temper-tantrum thrower?

A few random things I forgot to mention earlier...

Last Wednesday was Josh's birthday and Jolie had me pick up Josh and Xbox that he's been begging for for quite some time. He was super surprised, which is always awesome! That Jolie--she's one good shopper! :)

In other random news, Jolie is such a little goof ball! I've brushed her teeth for quite awhile, using some training toothpaste and a little toothbrush. Well Jolie decided she wanted to do it herself, and she NEVER wants to STOP! Any chance she gets, she wobbles over the bathroom, opens the drawer and pulls out her toothpaste and toothbrush. We've been letting her sit and brush her teeth, but we run into problems when she tries walking while brushing! So we either make her sit back down or take away the toothbrush which results in the biggest meltdown that we've yet seen from Jolie. I mean, she literally screamed the entire ride to school today because I took away her toothbrush so we could leave! I know this is probably a good problem to have, but the meltdowns are a little ridiculous!

While searching through the drawers for her toothbrush and toothpaste (yes, she always must carry the toothpaste around too) she found my headbands and is always trying to put them on. So I help her out and she is just as happy as can be, sitting there brushing her teeth, holding her toothpaste, with a headband on.

Here are a couple of shots of her in all her glory. :)


(Ha! Notice my sweet shelves in the background? We recently got them in our living room and I'm taking forever picking out baskets to use. Check out all those baskets I'm 'trying out' I am such a nerd! Hopefully I can make a decision soon and start making the shelves functional and controlling this room that resembles a Fischer-Price factory!) holy rambling...

Easter Extravaganza!

I'm sure you've all been holding your breath waiting to know what Jolie did for Easter. Well breathe easy, because here's a play by play! :)

After work/school on Friday, we left for South Dakota. We tried taking the route that MapQuest instructed to. Through northern Nebraska, it was okay. There were a few oddities, but we were making good time. Then we came to the border and there was a really cool bridge we got to drive over...and then things starting going silly. I was extremely disappointed in MapQuest's knowledge of rural South Dakota! So after several turn-arounds, the road turning to gravel, then being washed out by a river, and the animals we nearly hit--two skunks, a LOT of deer, a chicken, a dog, and some brown animal that kind of looked like a beaver or badger or something...we finally made it to Scotland, SD in 5 hours! Jolie did so great (considerably better than me!)

We stayed at Josh's Grandma and Grandpa Buechler's on Friday night and on Saturday she prepared several amazing meals! The guys also did some housework and I'm not sure what happened exactly, but somehow a hole was drilled through the kitchen floor. :) Josh's Aunt Cindy and Uncle Kevin and Tyrel also stopped by which was super great, except that Jolie was super crabby because sleep was not on her priority list this weekend...at all.

Saturday evening we headed into the bustling town of Scotland and stayed with Josh's Grandma and Grandpa Pedersen. Apparently Josh's grandma was trying to fly and fell while working at the church that afternoon and we convinced her to get it checked out. So while Lori and Bernice headed to the ER, Jolie thought it would be best if she stayed up (and screamed) to support Great-Grandma until she got home...

Grandma Pedersen did return without any broken bones, but we were on watch to make sure she took it easy the rest of the time. This was no easy task because she also thought she needed to prepare a feast! Although we considered tying her down, we were able to convince her to do some resting as well, no tying required. :) Since we were all up so late, we didn't even end up going to church for Easter services, although you can bet we were all saying our prayers, thankful that Grandma Pedersen was ok!

So I still put Jolie in her Easter dress because I thought it was adorable! :) Of course I might be slightly biased...

The weather finally cleared up and we were able to head outside to do a little egg hunting. Although I think Jolie thought dumping the eggs out was way more fun than trying to find them!

We decided to try another route on the way back and it was much better (although the bridge between the border was not nearly as cool!). It took us only 4 hours to get back and we even picked up Mr. Petey who had been at Grandma and Grandpa Dibbern's house over the weekend. Although he had an awesome time, he was pretty excited to see us!

We are so thankful we got to see so much family over the weekend! Jolie was also very happy to show off all of her walking skills and I had help chasing her! Bonus!

Happy Easter!

We did a few quick pictures (or as Brett called them--Quictures) earlier this month for Easter and we LOVE them! Brooke (the photographer) had gotten some chicks and bunnies. The chicks ended up being a little too fast and a little too messy for pictures, but the bunny was a saint! I was super nervous that Jolie would be too rough with it but she did okay. She wasn't game for holding it, but she would allow the bunny to sit near her. What a goof!

4 medicines, 3 allergies, 2 infections and a partridge in a pear tree

Okay, she doesn't really have 3 allergies, but I wanted to make it go with the song. :)

I recently noticed that when we were playing outside or opened the windows, Jolie was showing some signs of seasonal allergies. The last couple of weeks, she'd wake up multiple times through the night with a dry cough and we'd sit up with her until it cleared up. Sometimes we'd get a runny nose in there too.

Then over the weekend, Josh noticed some blood in her ear. He got a Q-tip and a large (well, large to come out of your ear anyway) clot of blood came out. We continued to notice a little blood draining through the weekend, but she was acting fine and she had been messing with her ear so we think she just scratched it.

On Monday she started getting really gross snot and had a much different sounding cough and you could just tell she was not feeling well. So we headed to the doctor and he confirmed that she definitely has some seasonal allergies. While they do have several OTC allergy medicines, they are for children 2 years and up. And while I do believe Jolie is advanced (and clearly, I'm not biased at all!) she is not ready for those. So we are trying a couple prescription allergy medicines to get those under control. She also developed a sinus infection so we are on an antibiotic for that (this explains the different sounding cough and green snot recently). Then with her ear that she scratched, the tube in her ear managed to clog and an infection grew around that! The doctor said 'oh, I haven't seen this before!' Super!

But the good news is, it's all very treatable and Jolie's already doing much better. We have been doing a few drops of peroxide in her ear to break up the blood 'scab' and then doing her antibiotic ear drops to clear up the infection. This is how we get to 4 medicines! Good grief! But Jolie's doing awesome taking all of her medicine and doesn't mind the ear drops too much. Mom and Dad are also hoping for a full nights sleep, which we hope is right around the corner...

Doesn't she look sick? Hehe!

We are doing a LOT of chasing!

However, she's a little more 'sensitive' and crabby since she's sick which results in several meltdown like this

Good times, huh? :)

Magnet Crazy!

Jolie has been obsessed with magnets lately which means she's always trying to hang by the fridge and playing with our magnets. Unfortunately we didn't have many kid-friendly magnets and most magnets are pretty much perfect size for a little one to stick in their mouth!

So we got a few magnet toys for Jolie for Easter. We got a Fridge Farm toy that play music and makes farm sounds so she thinks that is pretty funny. We also got some magnet letters and numbers and a travel magnet board so maybe we can take it in the car or at least in the living room for now! :)



She's so advanced! (with a little help from dad)

Sippy Cup Search

Did you know there is a difference between leak-proof and spill-proof? And apparently when looking for the perfect sippy cup, we need to find one that is both leak-proof AND spill-proof. We recently got off of formula and are on 100% whole milk now-yay!

We have been trying sippy cups with soft tops and hard tops and handles and no handles and straws and on and on and on. It's also really hard to teach someone to drink out of a straw! We haven't mastered that yet, but we're working on it. And after all these different cups, we are still on a bottle! She does use a cup a little bit during meals and if it's around, but if we want her to have a good drink or before a nap or bedtime, she hits the bottle!

Walking...it's no big deal

You may not believe your eyes so I posted two separate videos to prove it! After only 10 days of walking, Jolie's already walking all over like a pro! She loves carrying things and taking things from one person to another...we will need to figure out how to use this productively, but so far I haven't thought of any items I really NEED that I keep on the floor. Now when she can reach into the fridge, we have a different story. :)

Here's the kiddo carrying and throwing a ball while walking. She's pretty much more coordinated than me already!




Oh yeah, I forgot some stuff from last week. Jolie had croup and it was one of the worst sounds we've ever heard! She went to bed Wednesday night just fine and about an hour later just started with this horrible, barking cough! We were up most of the night with her trying a variety of remedies including breathing treatments. I took her to see her doctor on Thursday morning and he gave her a steroid shot which worked wonders!! After we got home, she slept for 4 hours and continued to get better and better! And I didn't notice any 'roid rage'! Haha! We laid low this weekend to make sure she got plenty of rest and was geared up and ready for another week.

So we are down to just a runny nose but combine that with her recent excessive drooling (I think due to sprouting a new tooth) and she's kind of a messy goober right now! :) She also went all vampire on me this evening and bit my shoulder so we quickly gave her an icy ring to gnaw on! She's leaving her little 'drool stamp' on us whenever she gives us a hug (which is just the cutest, sweetest, bestest feeling EVER!) but it's totally worth it! :)

Picnic Season

Grandma and Grandpa Dee Dee went to the HLHS auction the other night and decided that Jolie needed this cute picnic table, complete with umbrella shade!

Well as you can see below, she LOVES it!

The little present--hope it gets nice soon because its taking up the whole living room! :)

Checking it out

FUN!

Complete with cheesy smile!

She is so excited! She's been practicing getting on and off of it and putting lots of on the table. Yeah, you can imagine how excited she was to go to bed, change her diaper and get her pajamas on... :)

No Fooling! We have a walker!

It finally happened! After lots and lots of practicing (and by practicing, I mean using mom, dad or anything else as a walker) Jolie took off walking on April Fools Day! She was so excited! And each time she would fall down, she'd get right back up and go again! She walked inside, outside in the wind, on the grass and even on our bed! No terrain is too rough or scary for this little lady! I'm still working on gathering video evidence (I keep forgetting to grab the camcorder!)

We also just finished up some eye drops for a supposed case of pink eye, although I think we decided it was a cold that settled in her eye. So she had to spend a little time out of school and hung out at Grandma and Grandpa D's and had lots of fun. They even called me and said 'are you sure she's sick, because she's the happiest sick baby I've ever seen!' On Tuesday her eye was all goobery so school called me and I took her to the clinic. I think they treated it as pink eye just to be on the safe side, but either way, Jolie did pretty good with her drops. Or maybe Jolie just wanted some time off from school? Haha!

School is starting to get better too. She's starting to warm up to everyone there and make new friends. It also means that she isn't crying every time I drop her off and making me feel like the worst mom ever! Yay!

She also started shaking her head 'no' and 'yes' kind of randomly or when she's decided she's done eating, but it's pretty funny. Josh and I will just be talking about something like eating spaghetti for supper and she'll just start shaking her head 'no' Oh geez, are we getting close the age where she's going to actually listen to our conversations because I'm not sure I'm ready for that! haha! I better start practicing!

Here's a little video of her in the bath. She LOVES the bath and splashing and being splashed...it's an event that usually leaves me needing to change my shirt and clean my glasses and sometimes blow dry my hair!! I think she's going to love the splash park here in town and going swimming this summer!