All Gone

Jolee loves fruit snacks, with a passion. To spoil Jolee, Sandy bought a huge box of fruit snacks. Every day, Jolee is always asking for "nacks." Yesterday, Sandy took Jolee to the zoo, shopping, and to lunch while I slept after working the previous night. When they got home, we were all lounging in the bedroom while Jolee was riffling through the diaper bag. To her great joy she found a package of fruit snacks and she ran over to me with a huge smile on her face and asked me to open it for her. I did and she sat on a foot stool to eat the spoils of her searching. I asked for one and with a very pained expression she handed one to me, only to drop her jaw when i actually ate it. I think she thought I was going to give it back. After that, she hopped off of the stool and turned around and emptied the bag of fruit snacks onto the stool and ran to throw away the bag. Sandy stopped her and told her that she would take her garbage and Jolee happily handed it over. Sandy then asked if she could have a fruit snack. Jolee got the biggest smile on her face and ran to the stool, popped all of the snacks in her mouth, quickly chewed and swallowed, turned back to Sandy and with her big smile said "All gone!"

Have a free weekend? Come to Susan's Run!

I am so excited to get to attend the Second Annual Susan's Run! We plan on doing the one mile family walk/run with Jolee and if she is up for it, Jolee will run in the Kid's Dash. Susan's Run supports the Susan Mortensen Turley Foundation, which is the foundation we did our half marathon for last summer. Anyone who can get to Tempe this weekend for the event is encouraged to come! I can't wait!!! 

More info:

Susan’s Run, 2011

Susan loved running from her earliest years, through grade school, high school and for 4 years at the University of Arizona, she continued running throughout her life.

Following the overwhelming success of the inaugural Susan’s Run, we’re pleased to announce the Second Annual Susan’s Run to be held onSaturday, February 19, 2011 at Kiwanis Park in Tempe, Arizona.  This event will feature 10K and 5K distance events, with a 1 mile family walk/run.  For very young participants, a Kid’s Dash is also scheduled.

online registration : Online Registration

Mail-in/walk up form: Mail-in/walk-up form

to visit the website, click Susan Mortensen Turley Foundation.

For more about Susan, go to Justin and Susan 

Big Helper!

 Jolee wanted to make popcorn so I told her the dishes had to be put away first. Here she is helping Daddy with the silverware. She loves to help.

 She also helps make the popcorn. She can scoop the kernels and pour them into the popcorn popper almost without help. I step in and turn on the popper and she will watch and let us know when it is done.

Today she got to help put spices on the popcorn, a first for her, and she had a blast. The popcorn ended up a little over spiced, but still tasty.

Jolee actually likes helping so much that she if she knows I am going to make popcorn she will come running while yelling "COMING, I COMING!" She then stands at the kitchen gate and says "elp?" She is so cute that I can't resist, and it is a good learning opportunity, right? I am such a softy.

Oh another thing. She was playing with her toys and she was trying to get a toy from the back of the entertainment center and she got her head stuck. It was so sad and funny at the same time. She was able to get her head out before we got to her, but she cried for a while and needed to snuggle after getting "stucky." Poor thing. She is fine now and back to playing like a crazy baby.

Happy Valentines Day

I usually have to say that this is a pretty pathetic excuse for a holiday, but this year it some how has been strangely better. Between Jolee coloring Valentine's pictures for Grandparents (hopefully they get there in time) and having our very own singing Valentine on Friday night (A song, a rose, a card and a pie, pretty awesome. We loved it!), I am actually afraid to admit that I am excited for Valentines. We love you all! Wishing you happiness, smiles, and a bit of charity (Definition of Charity from the Bible Dictionary: The highest, noblest, strongest kind of love, not merely affection; the pure love of Christ. It is never used to denote alms or deeds of benevolence, although it may be a prompting motive).

Putting On Sunglasses Can Be Tricky

Mess Maker

Jolee was sitting at the table, eating breakfast, so I took the free moment to run out to the mailbox to drop a letter off. I was outside for about one and a half minutes. In that time, Jolee pushed her chair away from the table as far as she could, but continued to eat her cereal, dripping cereal and milk all over the table, across the floor, and all over herself. I guess that's what I get for going to the mailbox. So I got a rag and made her get down and clean it up. She actually had so much fun cleaning that she didn't want to get back in her chair and eat. I had to convince her that she could clean again when she was done eating.

Last night, Randy and I were talking and Jolee was standing by the kitchen with a tissue blowing her nose. Well, we thought she just had a tissue. It turns out she had the whole box of tissue and decided that she needed all of it to make sure her nose was clean.

No Biting!

This morning when Jolee was in bed with me for our morning snuggle before we decide that we actually want to get up Jolee leaned over and grabbed my arm and bit me. I had to remind her not to bite (ouch!), but that kisses are okay. So instead of continuing to bite me, she gives me the biggest grin and attacks me with kisses all the while giggling hysterically. She will grab my face and kiss my nose, then my cheek, then my forehead, then my chin. She is just to silly. Right now she is sitting on the couch saying "shoe shoe shoe shoe shoe." She has one of my running shoes on and she is trying so hard to tie it. She had both of my shoes on last night, but just as I got the camera out, she pulled them off. I was a little quicker this morning and here she is in my shoe, messy hair and all.

Making Soup

Jolee and I have been sick the last week and we ate a lot of soup. I asked Jolee what she wanted for lunch and she went to the pantry and got out a can of tomato soup. I asked if she wanted to help cook it and she smiles, jumps up and down, and says "cooking." Here she is cooking. (And yes, she had lots of supervision and help)

 And just for fun, here she is playing in her discovery tunnel. She put the head band on herself.

Ballerina Jolee

I couldn't decide which picture I liked the most of Jolee in her ballerina skirt and bow from Aunt Emily, so here are a bunch. She is so silly.

On a completely unrelated note, when we were at the park watching the ducks, we saw an osprey catch a fish. It was so cool. I looked them up on the fish and game website and it turns out that osprey are extremely rare for this area and that they can pass by while migrating and will often eat out of lakes and ponds in the city as they are passing. It was a huge and beautiful bird.

Still Not Moved

I guess I should be keeping up with the blog, but I don't as Jolee doesn't like to let me type. Right now is is actually pulling on my arm and yelling Mommy and then she does a little dance and tries to pull me over. So as quick as I can I will try to get us updated. The sell of the second house fell through last week, major frustration! On Thursday we went and looked at more house and found one that would work, I don't love it, but it is in good condition and the only thing we will really need to do before we move everyone in is put up a fence so Chonkiri can move with us. With how quickly everything started off with this whole house hunting and moving process, it has certainly taken us a LONG time to move. We are waiting to hear from the seller to see if they will accept our offer. I really hope they do. We are frustrated and definitely tired of living in boxes and having Randy have to drive so much each week. We are a little stressed about the drama in Egypt right now as the cost of gas is again rising. We spend so much in gas to get Randy too and from work that it is painful. Besides the cost of gas, the loss of family time is also pretty painful. When we move Randy will get to sleep in an hour longer, have breakfast with the family, and be home in time to have family activities and not be exhausted all the time. We are starting to wonder if we will ever move.

Besides moving, we have had more frustrations. Jolee and I have been awfully sick the last week. The fevers are gone, but we are both left with runny noses and barking coughs. Last night was the best sleep Jolee has had in a week, she only woke up 3 times and went right back to sleep. Lately she has been waking up between 1-3am and staying up until 4-5am then getting up at 6am. We are all exhausted.

Okay, enough on the complaining. A few weeks ago Randy had a conference in Tempe and as he was the only male going from Nogales area, he got his own hotel room and they said Jolee and I could go too. So we had a family trip up to Tempe. While Randy was in conference, Jolee and I went to the Sea Life Aquarium at AZ Mills Mall. It was a blast. We played there for an entire day. We decided to stay on the wild animal theme and we went to the Rainforest Cafe. Bad choice, Jolee hated the thunder storms and the food was awful. The next day Jolee and I hit the Phoenix zoo and again played all day until she and I were both ready to collapse. We then picked up Randy and headed back home. Randy learned or I guess he would say relearned a lot of techniques that will help his teaching and Jolee and I had too much fun. So overall a great trip for us and a welcome escape from the boxes. Oh, and the king sized bed was great. Jolee wouldn't sleep in the crib, so she ended up sleeping with us and even with all of us in the bed, it felt like I was in the bed alone. Big difference between a king and a queen sized bed. I actually was able to sleep without being kicked by Jolee all night.

Last weekend we went to the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show. Such a weird and fun place. All of the rocks and gems and random stuff that you could ever hope to see. Got some good deals, but won't say what we got because it will probably be gifts over the year. Jolee had a blast looking at everything. My feet were so tired at the end of the day, what a lot of walking.

I am no longer running and I am missing it like crazy. I have had some issues with my hip, so for now it is just walking. Frown. I look forward to my hip feeling better and getting back in the swing of running. If we end up moving, Rio Rico has tons of hills for hill training :)

Overall life is good and thoroughly busy. Hopefully I will stay caught up with blogging and I can start telling some of Jolee's more hilarious stories.