Fingerpainting and Faces

Jolie was doing a little finger painting the other day and thought it would be way more fun to do it with her toes!

She LOVES it when I paint her toenails so I think she's going to be big into the spa stuff. Maybe she was trying a little foot 'mask'?

Luckily it was bath night so I didn't have a total panic attack about the mess!

The other day after the bath, Jolie and I had fun making faces in the mirror--hehe!

She's so coooool! Check out this attitude! :)

Summer Squeeze

We recently hit that point in the summer when we say 'HOLY COW! SUMMER IS ALMOST OVER!!' And have tried to squeeze everything in to these last bits of summer while it lasts!

Jolie's been digging her strider bike. Although if she could just grow like one more inch, I think she'll really dig it. Of course by the time this happens it will probably be too cold out! Well, at least we'll be ready for next spring!

I wish this picture wasn't blurry because her face was awesome--sooo excited!

Jolie showed Grandma and Grandpa the lake and cabin at Summer Haven and fished with Grandpa.

Tanning! Just kidding, but we did check out one of the pools and it was great! Jolie really liked it! Josh got a nice little sunburn even though I suggested sunscreen, but he declined. Haha!

We also went to Kansas City with the Wulf Pack, Grandpa and Nana, Uncle Brett and met the Culley's--Brad, Kim and Syndey. It happens to coincide with Hannah and Sydney's birthdays so for some it's been an annual trip. Josh and I have had to miss a few years but we were super excited to take Jolie this year.

Due to the flooding and road closures our usual route to KC was closed so we had to take some other roads, plus stopping for Jolie...it ended up taking us almost 7 hours!!!! Yuck-this is usually a 4 hour trip. But Jolie did great thanks to the Toy Story movies and our trusty DVD player! :)

We stayed at Great Wolf Lodge, which is an awesome indoor water park. They had SO MUCH to do there! We sent Jolie down the little slide a couple of times and she kind of laughed and cried at the same time--like that was scary but fun! She enjoyed watching everyone probably a little more than swimming! And one of her favorite things was playing in this drawer in our hotel room. Sure glad we drove all that way and spent all that money to stay here--good grief! :)

Trying to get a picture with the Candy Bear. He was a little scary.

Cruising in the lazy river with dad.

Catching up on current events with Brett. (again, NOT in the water!) hehe

We also went to Dave and Buster's one evening and the guys played some video games. Great parenting here as Jolie was fascinated with the shooting game! :)

I also probably jumped the gun and purchased some potty training items. Quite a few mornings, Jolie wakes up dry so we've been tossing the idea of potty training around. I think we'll wait awhile but I thought we could at least have the little potty out so she could see it and get used to it. She was quite excited to have a new 'toy' in the bathroom and wasted no time 'getting used to it.' :)

Colorado, the Sunshine State :)

Josh's cousin, Scott, had a beautiful wedding in Golden, Colorado so we decided to make a little vacation out of it. I am so bummed because not only did we forget our camera, but my backup plan of using my phone's camera was foiled when my phone died suddenly! (I LOVE my iPhone but the iPhone3 was WAY better than the iPhone4--I'm already on my 3rd phone in 6 months!!) Luckily Grandma B had hers and let us take some photos so these are stolen from her.

The wedding was Friday evening, so Friday morning/afternoon we checked out downtown Golden. Super cold river water!

Josh's cousin Jack from Ohio, Grandpa Jeff, Jolie, Josh and I trying to take a nice picture.

Josh's uncle Dave and Bobbi and Great Grandma and Grandpa Buechler taking in the scenery.

So I've been reading a little about these Strider bikes and thought they were super cool and had been thinking about it. Then I saw Jolie's cousin Henry had one and he LOVES it--so we might have gotten a little excited when we saw this in the bike shop. It may have come home with us along with a new helmet too! Jack showed Jolie how to do it!

Some pictures from the wedding

I got rocks in my shoes!

We did lots of running around and checking everything out!

We loved the dancing! And we got to meet two of Jolie's cousins, Jacob and Benjamin who live in Texas. Benjamin (pictured) and Jolie share a birthday!
Is this a Jersey fist pump?

The next day we checked out the Denver Zoo. I didn't get many pictures there; it was a wee bit toasty and mommy may have been a little crabby...But don't Josh and Jolie look so cute!

Here and There

I don't really have a theme here. These are just some random pictures that I thought were funny and I think really show you all of the dynamics of the Boss (Jolie). hehe

Lately she's been big into her stuffed animals. Not necessarily the same ones, she kind of will pick a few that she's attached to for a few days or week or so and then change to something else. Or I think she just enjoys throwing us curve balls any time we think we have her figured out...
Last week it was her Snoopy dolls...all of them! She had to eat with them, take them everywhere and watch TV with them.

Trying on my hat

One day she LOVED eating grapes...

This is what happens if you do not cut up grapes fast enough for the Boss

The Boss is once again pleased with our grapes.

And now we gave her some tonight and she just smashed them up and tried to give them to Petey (but dogs aren't supposed to eat grapes so that was a fun game!)

Thanks Jolie for always keeping us on our toes! :)

Ribbon FUN

I found some cute ribbon curtains on super, duper clearance at Hobby Lobby that I thought I'd try in Jolie's room. Then I found a small curtain rod on clearance at Target--win, win WIN! So I really figured I had nothing to lose by trying it out. While I was getting ready to hang the curtains, I set them above Jolie's closet doors to get them to lay nice and not tangle while I put the hanger things above the windows...and this is where Jolie spotted them.

Who's in there???

Peek!




Jolie LOVED playing in them and seriously sat in her closet for over an hour! I kind of felt bad hanging them up on the windows afterwards, but I think she already forgot about them. :)

Farm Animals!

We stopped by the Hall County Fair Friday evening to check out the livestock. As a former Reserve Champion Junior Showmanship in the Swine division myself, I thought we should get Jolie started early in her love of farm animals.--Ha! Yes, I was in 4H, but it was typically a terrifying event for me and I just did it for the socializing :) --So after we got past the large cattle (which terrify me!) we finally found some animals I was a little less nervous about. Luckily for Jolie, Nana was there to protect her.

Jolie wasn't sure what to think at first and started out pretty shy...but it's still a cow, so I don't blame her...

She wasn't sure about the bunnies either

The birds looked a little suspicious too!

But then, a duck quacked at her! And Jolie quacked back!

She thought the chicks weren't too scary.

Dad helped her to get a closer view.

Soooo gentle

Jolie loved riding around on Dad like this...however, afterwards, Josh had a wet head. Haha!

Words for July

Check out all the words she's added in just a month! She loves reading books and she was going over her Old MacDonald book with Daddy. She's so funny with her animal sounds. She's also points at some body parts like her tummy, nose, eyes, ears, mouth and tongue (although she would only allow me to film her animal sounds here--she doesn't do well with 'performing' on the spot yet--haha!)

Now if only I could get her eat regular food...

The Words of June

Here's a video we took in June. This is usually how things go when we all get home in the afternoon...we'll be getting something ready in the kitchen (well, Josh sort of handles that and I'm in charge of Jolie-wrangling) and Jolie tells us about her day.

Deep Conversation

We recently got a new laptop, changed internet providers and blah blah blah, so I'm finally getting around to getting our new laptop all set up, including adding our videos!

I caught Jolie having this deep conversation with herself in May. It just cracks me up! She loves talking to herself in the mirror and even plays peek-a-boo!

My First Cruise Night

Every year Kearney has a big Cruise Nite. I think it started out as a classic car thing but now vehicles of all sorts go. If really want to know more, they have a website here. So on Saturday evening, everyone lines the street and all the cool cars cruise up and down. My parents brought down their restored '71 Chevy pickup and we went to a big tailgating party at my aunt's work along the strip.

Even though it was crazy hot out, it was a lot of fun! They had cleared their parking lot and had lots of stuff for kids like water guns, sprinklers, toys to ride and of course lots of FOOD!

Jolie had lots of fun and we ended up staying super late since she was having so much fun! I'm totally embarrassed though because I didn't take any pictures of any vehicles...just Jolie! So just imagine lots of cool vehicles cruising by...

Jolie tried out the police cruiser (mommy is hoping this is the only ride she'll ever take in a police car! hehe)

She needed to carry as many water guns as she could.

Doesn't she look so grown up here?!?!?!

Turning up the tunes to jam out!

Riding with Sam and Hannah--they actually made it move around, Jolie couldn't reach the pedals yet.

Jolie and Nana watching the cars car by after dark.