Apple Picking!

Kacie, Nicki, Joli and I decided to head up to Julian to do some traditional fall apple picking. We've never been before but we've heard a lot about it and thought it would be a lot of fun. So here was our fun little experience.

Joli insisted on holding the bag until we got it about halfway filled and then she agreed that maybe I should I hold it.

She was so cute when we first got there. She took a bite out of every other apple she picked! Eventually I talked her into only picking ones that were big and red.
This is the point when she decided that maybe I should hold the bag.
Apparently apple orchards are a lot of walking for little legs and Joli talked Nicki into giving her a ride. Unfortunately Nicki was picking leaves and pieces of apple out of her hair all the way home.

I was so excited that I decided that I needed to have two bags that each held 7 lbs. of apples. It didn't take long before I had completely filled my bags and then I came across these HUGE green apples. So what else should I do but begin stuffing them down my shirt! Fortunately this was after the black fuzzy spider fell down my shirt and I totally freaked out and pulled off my shirt and my bra leaving Kacie and Nicki in hysterics from not only seeing me freak out but also getting a nice shot of my boobs. Lucky for me we were the only ones that decided to go apple picking today.
Here are my two bags with as many apples as I could fit in them. Kacie was very nice and let me put some apples in her bag.
Joli was absolutely thrilled by all the wonderful opportunities to eat apples!

Once we had finally finished picking and were all ready to go we decided to try and take a picture, but it was almost 2:00 and we were all hungry and as you can see some of us did not think picture taking was a good plan.
So we came home and I unloaded all my booty only to discover that I truely had picked a ton of apples and they wouldn't even fit in the basket I had intended them to!!
Now it's time for apple pie!!

The Birthday Bonanza Begins

Joli is finally to the age where she has little friends and they are having birthdays! So today was the first of what I see being many cake-filled afternoons. There were only two other children when we arrived so the three of them pretty much had the run of the place. Immediately Joli and the birthday girl went down the wet slide. Good thing Autumn's mom had just headed off for more clothes!
Here's my little future sports star. I think she's only seen a basketball hoop maybe twice, but she picked up the ball and knew just what to do with it.
The funnest part for the kids was the miniature bouncer. Everything was fine as long as there were only a few two-year-olds in at one time, but once we got past four there were a lot of knocked heads, squished hands, and crying kids.

Here's Joli and her, uh, first boyfriend? This little house was just so cute. The kids kept ringing the doorbell and then opening the door for each other and then sitting down for some juice.
Joli and birthday girl Autumn had a great time riding around in the wagon that Autumn's auntie was brave enough to pull around the yard for a while. She didn't seem to mind until there were four kids in the wagon.
What is a birthday without cake!?! Joli was very happy until she put too much ice cream in her mouth, and then started saying "Oww, hurt". Poor thing.

She recovered fairly well and was soon off to steal some of sweet Charlotte's cake.
Autumn is by far the cleanest birthday girl I've ever seen! She ate and entire piece of cake and ice cream and that was the dirtiest her face ever got! Isn't she so cute!
Joli decided to make the most of her last few minutes with the bouncy. Apparently it's much funner to go head first.

Autumn's mom, Donna, had the brilliant idea of sending the kids home with fun toys that they will actually play with and no candy! We love her! Joli loved her little glasses!
Is she a future rock star or what?!? Too bad we don't have my guitar to complete the outfit! All evening she's been saying "my-o-phone".

Joli's Little Personality

Well I guess Joe's tattoo had quite an effect on Joli. Today she found a decal that I got from the faerie festival and put it on her stomach. She spent part of the morning walking around the house saying "Tattoo hurts, tattoo hurts".
My mom was in town so we headed over to Coronado to have some lunch with her and some of my friends. Afterwards we all walked over to Petco and my mom found Joli this adorable cart! Future shoppers watch out!

Playhouse Disney!

Last night Joli and I went and saw Playhouse Disney Live! Joli loved it! We went with about twenty other people, most of which were kids her age. The kids were so cute playing together. Here they are before the show.
This was the introduction that had a little video. The kids were mesmerized!
Here is Donald Duck, Goofy, Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse. They were quite a way away and it was dark, but you can tell who they are. Every time Mickey would go back stage Joli would say "Mitey?". Tigger and Pooh were also there and she LOVED that!
Here is Joli watching the end of the show with her new Mickey Mouse. I only brought $20 for a souvenir and this was all I could get for under $20. There were Mickey, Minnie, Pooh, and Tigger stuffed animals that she would have loved to have but they were all $25. Ridiculous I know, but what are you going to do?!?!

Here we are at home with Mickey. She held him all the way out of the show, through Target, and all the way home.
Now she has figured out how to move the head, arms, and legs around.
After our Doodlebops experience I was curious how Joli was going to do, but she loved! She had such a great time and is still saying "Miska Mitey Mouse!".

The Spray Grounds

Well finally rolled our booties out of bed early enough to participate in a playgroup, and today was the spray grounds! I was a little nervous because Joli is mostly terrified of things that spray. But I was pleasantly surprised to discover that she seems to have mostly overcome her fear!

Well I did say mostly. There still seems to be a mild amount of apprehension.
Someone was amazing and thought to bring buckets which the kids just loved! Filling buckets and dumping them is such an amazingly fun activity!
A moment of pause
Finally there was bravery as Joli risked the massive amounts of water to chase a ball.
And it looks like water snuck in anyway.
The ball wasn't wet enough.

Oh we found a new bucket!
Now this is a bucket!!! Once Joli was in, there were a few other kids that thought it was hilarious and took turns joining her in the bucket.
One of very few pictures that I'm ever in. I swear I need to hire a photographer to follow us around so I have some to send to Joe. Oh hey, four more weeks and I get to go visit my personal photographer!!

Here we are back at the BIG bucket!
Last but not least there was some fun showing off tongues.
We actually hung out for a couple hours, then Joli started going around to the various parents (some of which were not with our group), and taking snacks from whoever wasn't looking. I made a mommy choice and decided it was time for lunch.

Bugs

If I have not mentioned it before I will say now that our have family has been in a horrible battle of the fleas for the last month. Yesterday I treated Sampson and Kota, and then proceeded to treat the rest of our house. Joli and Sampson are happy because the kitty can now lay with us, Kota is happy because I will cuddle him now, and I am thrilled not to be bit anymore!! Of course Joli brought some bugs into the bed.

I had to wait until Joli went to sleep to treat her room. I was so worried that the spray was going to get on her toys that I took them all out of her room. I never realized how many toys she has.Speaking of cleaning up. Bath anyone?

Washy Washing

Today Joli and I took on the enormous task of washing all her toys. I brought her plastic tubs outside for her and filled them with warm soapy water, and then just rotated every 5-10 minutes with new toys. Joli loved it!
I gave her her own little wash clothes. I don't know how much she used them, but she just loved dunking her toys in and out of the water and then pouring the water out of the toys.

She was very excited once we got to the stacking cups. This was the point that I was very glad I decided to do this activity on the porch because the water was everywhere! Apparently it was pretty cool to see how the water flowed out of the bottom of each cup and onto the ground. In this picture Joli is washing "Daddy". It's just a little miniature figure of a guy that was in the rainforest animals but she has decided that he is daddy. I know it's not simply because he is a man, because she has named another figures "papa". Just any figure dressed in any kind of green and brown that wears boots!

Here she is with that last of the toys. She is explaining to me now that she has washed baby cow.

Once all the toys were clean it was time to get dressed and wait for them to dry. Joli was not pleased.

As it got closer to nap time she decided to try and hide the fact that she was very tired. "I see you".
This picture was taken moments before "punkin bear" said something very offense and he and the clothes basket were thrown across the kitchen followed by very angry screams.
That was the moment that made up my mind about whether or not she truely was ready for a nap.