Driving the completed car

Getting Ready to Build a Car

Drawing

Jolee loves to color and frequently requests that I draw a picture for her. She firsts requests a hippo, so I draw a hippo. She had to give the hippo a kiss, then she wants me to draw a doggy. I draw the doggy and she says "doggy poo poo." I have her repeat, just in case I didn't hear right. Yep, she repeats "doggy poo poo." I ask her where she wants me to draw the poo poo and she points behind the dog. I drew it and she yelled "yea, doggy poo poo." Then she decided to try to draw some poo poo too.

Swimming!

Birthday Cake

Waiting to open presents

Jolee Opening Presents

Jolee's Birthday Party

Jolee had a little birthday party today and she had a blast! We had a few kids over and they played with bubbles, balloons, jumped in a jumping castle, colored and played with stickers, ate cupcakes, and toys. We took videos that we will try to get posted soon.

A jungle birthday

Helping get ready for the party

Playing in the balloons

Cupcakes: monkeys, tigers, zebras, and lions

"Happy 2nd Birthday"

Giant monkey cupcake

Cupcakes, yum!

In Jolee's room

Working on pictures

Rolling in the jumper

Streamers on the fan (very mesmerizing)

Jolee's picture (she actually matched the animals to their pictures by herself)

Another Park Day

Jolee and I went to the park a week ago with Randy and his class. Jolee is very loved by his students and they always are excited to see us. It was an end of year party for his class. They had a barbeque and pinata and a soccer game and park time. It was tons of fun.



I can kinda play soccer still

Jolee with the big kids

Randy at the grill

Jolee's Day at the Park

Getting ready

Jolee with her friends

After an hour

Discovering a new "slide"

Sliding

Look dirt!

Messy messy

Rehydrate



Boogers and Dirt after 3 hours



Fell asleep shopping after the park

Potty Trained

Last week Jolee decided that underwear were cool and diapers were awful. She has been successfully using the toilet for 8 days now and it is wonderful! She loves her panties and wants to put them on herself (inside out, backwards, oh well at least they are on). She talks constantly about the potty and is very proud to tell everyone she meets that she uses the "poo poo potty." I rarely have to remind her to go now, she is pretty good about telling us when she needs to go. I just make her go before we get in the car. I can't even explain how excited I am that she is potty trained. It is so wonderful!!! She even can take naps and stay dry as long as she goes right before she naps. The only time she wears a diaper is overnight. I am not even going to try to get her overnight trained for a while. Hip hip horray for Jolee!

Doing Swell

We are all doing great. Randy went on the father and sons campout trip this past weekend and had a great time, he said the only thing that would make it better would be if he had his own son to take with him. Maybe this baby will be a boy and they will be able to go together in a few years. Boy or girl, I just want a healthy baby. Only 3 more months to go and I my belly is swelling up already. I tried to give a sister at church a hug today and it was pretty funny to see, everyone around us got a good giggle because we were unable to reach each other around our pregnant bellies. Jolee now thinks that there are babies inside of every stomach and will say "hi baby" and pat just about any belly, including her own belly. We have a bunch of books on a new sibling that we have been reading to her. I doubt she really understands, but I am hoping it will help to prep her for her new sibling in August. I only have 3 more night shifts, then I will be switching over to day shift for a while (not sure how long). I am excited to sleep on a normal schedule soon. This switching back and forth while pregnant and being a mommy to a toddler is a bit taxing. Somedays I just sit around and read books with Jolee and do about nothing around the house. Which means that other days I get to clean clean clean. Oh, I hated having Randy gone overnight while he was camping. Now I know how he feels, with every creak of the house sounding threatening. I woke up in the middle of the night and had the hardest time falling asleep. I am so glad that he is home, although neither of us slept much last night as Jolee's molars are getting closer and closer to breaking through meaning no sleep. Still going crazy without having a fence. Most of our projects are on hold until we can get a fence up, so our spare room is still a bit packed with random boxes. I still haven't found everything we need, so I end up just doing without so random things, like the web cam. (sorry Mom I still haven't found it, but I know it is somewhere.) Jolee's potty training is starting to go a bit better. She has fallen in love with panties and hates having to put a diaper or pull ups on. I also started to reward dryness more than using the potty, so she is a bit quicker to get to the bathroom. One jelly bean if she uses the toilet and had a little accident in the panties and three jelly beans if she uses the toilet and is dry. She really doesn't like getting just one jelly bean, so we went almost the entire day without any accidents. She actually went to church in panties and was accident free (horray!). She didn't have any accidents until she got home and she only had one because she was playing a little too much and put it off too long. I make her clean up her messes ("no, mommy do it" is her usual comment) so I think that is helping to encourage her to be accident free. I feel like I think about potty time all the time. I would love her to be completely potty trained soon so that we can be diaper free for a least a few months before baby is born. I am so excited to meet our little cygnet and have just a little bit bigger of a family.

Happy Mother's Day

I am so grateful for my mother and my mother-in-law. They are both such wonderful women and I am grateful to have them in my life. I love you both! I got to enjoy my second Mother's Day today and it was great. I got to speak in church. I was a little nervous as always, but I spoke directly after the primary children sang songs for the mothers and it really calmed me down. I am so thankful for the sweet spirit that comes when children sing. I am so glad that I am a mother. It has blessed my life more than words can describe. I can't even describe how much Jolee has changed me for the better. I will always be amazed at how wonderful motherhood is.