Chinese Food, A Long Walk and a New Santa Fan

Around 2:00pm our little clan decided that since half of us hadn't even eaten breakfast maybe we should head over to the local chinese restaurant for the lunch specials. It's been a while since Joli has had the opportunity to experience and chinese meal so she was thrilled. I think the thing she enjoyed the most was the tea.
She thought this was a fabulous little tradition and wanted me to continue to fill her cup so she could toast with me and then warm herself with the hot tea.
I didn't realize it until now that maybe this wasn't the best plan as she completely skipped a nap and didn't finally nod off until around 8:30pm.
After we were done with our food we walked over to the French store and Joli enjoyed trying to ride this adorable little tricycle.
We finally made it out to the giant park area to let Kota get out some energy and it was a great time. Joli even walked most of the way, although we made Papa. stay extremely close to her for we were all in a fear of Mountain Lions mistaking her for a snack.
Although we all had a lovely time I'm fairly positive that Kota was the happiest of us all.
Joli was a little worried about him though and every time he would get out of her line of site she would yell "Ko-ah!". Sometimes he would stop and look, sometimes he would flat out ignore her, and sometimes he would come back to check out what she needed.
Here is one of the moments at which Joli decided that her legs were far too short for such an extended walk.
While walking with Joli she noticed the leash and wanted to use it, so here we are testing it out. She walked about ten feet, realized what we were really doing to her, and then decided her freedom outweighed her curiosity.
Here we are at the point when we decided that we had gone far enough and maybe we should walk back.
Here I am looking beautiful and not at all dusty standing in the leaves.
Kota had finally calmed down enough on the way back to pay attention to me throwing the ball for him. He has gotten a little better about bringing the ball back, but after a few throws I got the impression that if he could speak, the words "Leave me alone, I'm tired!" would be spilling from his mouth.
Here is the puppy (and I use the term loosely) strolling back to the car.
Joli of course got to take little breaks and be carried so she still had plenty of energy.
Once we got close to the entrance I put Kota's leash back on as there were other dogs around and he's a little overbearing with smaller dogs. Notice the look Joli is giving to her Grammi for taking yet another picture.
When we got back to the car there was a nice man with an actual puppy and I briefly lost control of my mind and began to think that maybe I needed one!
Once we got all our walking out and got back in the car we dropped Papa and Kota off at the house and headed out to run some errands. It didn't take Joli long to decide what her favorite holiday is!

Pumpkins and Pumpkins!

We had a nice family outing today and took a trip out to the pumpkin patch. Uncle Sam was a trooper and was the designated wagon puller.
Joli enjoyed searching for perfect little pumpkins. She was very smart about making sure to only pick little the ones.
Here she goes making sure this was just the right one for her.
There were quite a few small pretty pumpkins and Joli was determined to gather as many as she could.
I decided to trek through the patch and tried to find a few big ones. Joli did not think this was such a good idea and she made Papa help her out to find me. Sam trailed behind complaining about how having kids was not worth this.
Joli loved having her Uncle Sam around though. He was great at pulling her around and was even more awesome when my stupidity of wearing sandals caused me to get poked over and over and Sam insisted on pulling me out of the pumpkin patch.
Here we had a perfect Kodak moment with Grammi and Joli. Joli refused to take her sucker out of her mouth, but we took a bunch of pictures anyway.
We got Papa to get in on it to, but by that point Joli had decided that she was done.
It was an exhausting trip since most of us did not get much sleep the night before. So Uncle Sam and Joli got caught up on their sleep once we got back to the house.
I was so excited I finally bought myself a birthday present from the money I got for my birthday. I bought this purse at the pumpkin patch. It was handmade and so cute I just had to have it.
For more great pictures of the pumpkin patch and other our great adventures go visit my Mother in-law and http://beachtreasure.blogspot.com.

Grammi and Papa's... and Uncle Sam!

Grammi and Papa may have thought they would get to continue sleeping in now that Joli is here, but Joli straightened them out.
We waited until about mid afternoon and finally her "Uncy Fwam" showed up! He was hungry so we went out to eat. Joli was so happy.
She had her Papa and her Uncle Sam but she was not happy that Daddy was not there too. She asked where he was a lot today.
Well you've heard the term "daddy's girl", well this is one little girl that has taken it a few steps farther. She has the knack of wrapping men around her tiny little finger.
She thought she was very thrilled with how very funny she could be.
Uncle Sam didn't feel like going back to the house so he made his niece happy and we went to the park. Sam started out and then it was Grammi and then Papa. About an hour later Joli was still climbing up to the slide and all the adult were sprawled out in the grass. It's an amazing phenomenon watching a two-year-old wear out three adults!
I told Sam how impressive Joli is about holding onto monkey bars so he just had to try it out. She lasted quite some time before she sneezed in Uncle Sam's face and he decided that was enough.
It's always fun to have someone to ride with.
Equally as fun to have someone to ride next to.
Joli continued to wrap Sam around her finger even in her unconscience state.
We also got the wonderful opportunity to watch Williams football game tonight! Joli loved playing football with her Uncle William and Papa.
Look how Papa just keeps bringing it back!
Although it certainly was a fun game and Williams team totally kicked the other teams butt, it wasn't quite as magical as it was in high school. You can still see a bit of the twinkle from the game though.

Our Incredible Journey

We finally made it to the in-laws!! I woke up at butt-crack early (the technical term for 3:30am) and we drove the full fourteen hours it took to get here. I thought I looked rather sexy considering that Kota thought it was necessary to jump on me every time he got mud on his paws!
Joli didn't sleep the entire time, but she slept a good portion of the morning and then a little nap in the afternoon.
After out last stop Joli was wide awake so I figured it was a good time to break out the "you've never seen this before therefore you will be thoroughly entertained for hours" toys. First I gave her the Mrs. Potato Head that I bought her the other day to go with Mr. Potato Head. She played with that for awhile, but kept wanted me to help her which is not easy to do when you are trying to steer a car on a mountain road. So finally I got mad and took it and gave her the cool new Halloween Play-doh that I bought for her. Check out the black and white!
She mixes it together pretty good, but I still think it looks so cool!

Once we were finally here I didn't even bother bringing in her toys because her Grammi has so many cool things to play with. She really liked the football binaculars.
One of her favorite and most entertaining things was the foam puzzle pieces that she insisted on wearing on her head. I feel like I should give her a torch and a book and set her up in New York!
All these toys were excited but nothing compared to her most favorite and exciting thing. Giant Pooh!
She did let Papa hold him for her though so she could try and talk him into giving up some of his monkeys!
At the end of the night Joli was getting tired but kept telling Grammi that she wanted to watch what sounded like "mimi". It took us about ten minutes to figure out that she wanted to watch The Little Mermaid. So her is everyone trying to act like they're watching a great movie while we wait for Joli to sleep!

Catching Up

I haven't posted in a few days so here are a few photos from what we've been up to. Joli went through the trash of a little shopping trip we had the other day and decided to color on it.
Today we walked around the mall with Kacie after we had lunch and I tried to take Joli's picture on this beautiful little facade outside one of the stores.
I'm also so excited to show off the new "man" in my life! With a little imagination he could be Joe, right?
Here is Joli showing off her new "West Coast Strollers" shirt that GG bought her.

I'm also very excited to have finally put up more shelves in Joli's room to display some of the fairies we collected over the summer.
Since I was rearranging the shelves I thought I would take a picture of what the old shelf now looks like. Joli is a very well protected little girl. She's got a gaurdian angel and a G.I. Joe watching over her!