to summarize...

So you get busy and such and next thing you know, almost a month has gone by!!! Here is a quick little rundown of the last month.

Jolie's very obsessive about things. She likes to have something to hold in each hand. Life if she brushes her teeth, she must hold the tube of toothpaste in the other hand. If she was one animal, she must have another one in the other hand. And if she's playing in the bathtub, she has to line up all the animals just so...

We took a trip to Omaha one weekend and got to see so many people! Here is Josh's college roommate Jason who was visiting from Ohio.

The next day we met Grandma and Grandpa Buechler, Uncle Matt, Aunt Ali and Uncle Brett and went to the Omaha zoo! Grandma has more pictures, but I haven't had time to get them yet, so here's just a few.
Walking with dad in the jungle

Watching the crazy penguins at feeding time

Watching the fishes

It was so awesome, Jolie had to take a little snooze to take it all in.

This monkey knows how it feels...

At the petting area with a little goat

Trying to get a nice picture with Uncle Matt. This was the best I got...

Such a big day for the little lady! She LOVED the zoo! She liked making all the animal sounds and was so good there!

UNK had quite the Homecoming parade downtown. At first it was a little scary, especially all those loud fire trucks!

But then she got a little braver and discovered some were throwing Smarties!

Jolie also got her first haircut! It was more of a slight trim, but was much needed. She did great although I think it was because she was just so confused about what they heck was happening

Hold very still!

She's also discovered the wonderfulness of Sonic drinks--this is an Oreo shake and she loved it so much she barely let me have any! And it was after bathtime so we had crazy hair!!! When those curls get 'uncurled' it gets wild!!!

So this catches us up for the last few weeks and just leaves a few more to go! But unfortunately its this mama's bedtime! :)

We LOVE Bathtime!

Here's a little video of Jolie being a goof in the bath.

And don't worry, at the end of the video she just slipped onto her bottom, not into the water or anything! :)

Jolie, Version 1.5

Miss Jolie is already 18 months old! So I think we have officially past the point of saying she is "x months old" and moving on to "one and half" and done with the 'month-count' Whoa!

It also meant another check up at the doctor, but the good news is that this will be her last shots until kindergarten shots (well, except for the annual flu shot). The shots didn't go too well, but she got over it quickly.

Here is what Jolie is up to:
-Weighs 22 1/2 lbs (in the 25%)
-Is 2' 8 1/2" tall, or 32 1/4 inches (in the 70%) She's on the tall side of the chart!!
-Grew 2 1/2" in the last three months
-Takes one 2-hour nap daily...or else she gets to be a crabby paddy!
-Goes to be at 8pm and wakes up around 7am
-Loves Sesame Street and all of the Toy Story movies
-Likes riding on Dad's shoulders
-Can point to lots of body parts like mouth, nose, eyes, feet, tummy, etc
-Makes lots of animals sounds like a cow, horse, lion, monkey, dog, snake, etc
-Takes naps on the cots and nap mats now at school (like the big kids)
-Likes eating yogurt, string cheese, cereal and crackers, but is still a very picky eater and can be quite the stinker at meal time
-Loves having books read to her
-Likes to empty drawers, climb anything and everything
-Likes playing outside and go down slides
-Can be very stubborn at times and gets frustrated that we don't understand her! (being a toddler is very hard!) :)

Speaking of the stubborn-ness, I've recently taken her to school with handfuls of my headbands, piles of refrigerator magnets and armfulls of stuffed animals! When she decides she likes something, she will NOT let go of it! It's been pretty funny to see what the 'Items of the Day' are. She's also been big into running into the bathroom and pulling herself up to the counter by climbing on the toilet--and she is FAST! Obviously since this is not a safe activity, it has caused quite a few outbursts from Jolie as we try to stop her. It's a pretty good time as you can imagine!

This also means a great excuse to do some family pictures!!! Here are some from Jolie, Version 1.5 :)

Miss Attitude!

We headed to the Nebraska State Fair this weekend and checked it all out. This is Jolie's 10th fair or something like that, so she's kind of an expert. And this fair won her seal of approval! They had a big kids tent, petting zoo, and a birthing center plus all the other fair stuff! Nana was taking pictures so hopefully I can get more later. In the meantime, I just have this one of her running through a hay maze with Dad.

Seriously, she loved everything there! She even fell asleep in her stroller (which never happens!) and woke up in a GREAT mood.

Jolie has been attached to some of her toys lately, but they seem to change. For about a month now, it's been these little Toy Story figurines. She has to have them on the table when she eats, must have them in her car seat, takes them to school. We started out with 5 figurines and the number keeps changing. Sometimes we'll have 3 and I'll think we must have lost a couple, but then I'll see them later. I think she hides them in places around here that just she knows about.

Every once in awhile she goes back to these Snoopy stuffed animals. I originally had them on a top shelf thinking I'd keep them nice as they are from Hallmark and might be kind of like a collectible and she does have some Snoopy decorations in her room, but Jolie thought otherwise. And she can't hold just one of them, she has to hold ALL of them--all 4. Which is no easy task and we ARE NOT ALLOWED to help her at ALL! I have offered her a bag to carry them all, tried to help her rearrange them to carry it easier, etc., and have only received a MAJOR meltdown for my 'horrible, terrible, worst-thing-ever' ideas. And tonight, she decided they needed to go with us to eat. Awesome. So here she is sitting in the booth, trying to manage to hold all of them. Just look at that face...I think she knows she's in charge...YIKES! :)

Treehouse Adventures

We took a little walk to other day and finally checked out the big treehouse the nearby elementary school build last spring. They built it so they could take classrooms out there and have a nice outdoor place to read or learn or whatever but its open to everyone as well. So it's basically just a big open air room type thing and Jolie thought it was AWESOME! What?!?! A big room to just run all over in? How could it not be awesome?!?!

Here are some pictures of her running off some energy.




Lovin' on her dad. Awww! :)

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!