Catching Up

I must admit that I am getting much worse at keeping up with the blog. Once I let it go for a while without posting, I have a hard time convincing myself that I need to start writing on it again. Then with soccer still going, it was difficult to actually find enough time to sit down and catch up since most of JoAnn's nap time was spent on the soccer field and doing it while she is awake just doesn't seem to work out the greatest. Well, now that soccer finished this past weekend, I am trying to get caught up on the things I just didn't want to bother with before and I have finally made it to this. I will say I was shocked that I had let it go for almost a month, though. Oops. Well, I will write what I have pictures/videos for. I am sure I have forgotten a million cute little stories of Jo, but that is what I get for waiting so long.

Lets start with this.

I know its a little blurry, but this is from the weigh in for the Manny Pacquiao fight that was on May 2 (US time, it was Sunday morning on May 3 for us). This was the first time I have heard Daniel actually consider skipping church in a long time, but we ended up going and Daniel didn't even miss the fight. Daniel was so excited during this whole week leading up to the fight. It is pretty funny to me how much Daniel has come to be a fan of Pacquiao, but that is the way he tends to do sports...all or nothing. This jacket is from one of our friends that is on furlough. He helped get them to the Las Vegas for one of the guys here who made the jackets for Pacquiao in exchange to keep a few of them and Daniel ended up with one. At first Daniel was quite skeptical of whether it was actually legit, but while he was watching the weigh in he saw that Manny actually was wearing the jacket. So of course, Daniel wouldn't take it off all day even though it was like 90 degrees.

I know you really can't see much in this picture, but it was the best I could do. I really wanted to remember it because it was so cute. This is from a Sunday morning at church when JoAnn was sort of acting up, so I took her outside where there were two little boys that had decided they didn't want to sit with their parents during the service. JoAnn usually is pretty shy around other people she doesn't know, but within just a few minutes the three of them were having a great time together. They would chase each other around and take turns climbing on things and share whatever "toy" they found. (I use the term "toy" loosely, it was more like a stick or bug that they found.) It was so cute. I can't believe that she is getting old enough to truly play with other kids and not just stand there watching them.

This video is probably my favorite thing on this post though. I woke up on Mother's Day to have Daniel bring JoAnn in and do this. It was so cute, I made Daniel help me get it on video later that day so we could send it to our moms. I know it is probably one of those things that is super cute to me and cute but nothing amazing to others. It is just there is nothing like having your daughter come up to you and say this for the first time.




This picture is probably my second favorite thing on this post. First, she just looks so stinking cute with her bookbag on. Second, I don't have to be the one carrying all of her toys in my purse anymore. I was going to meet with one of the women here and JoAnn wanted to bring some of her toys, but I wasn't going to bring my purse since we were just going a few doors down the hallway when I saw her bookbag in the middle of a stack of toys. Perfect solution. We now take this everywhere.


I love JoAnn's face in this picture. It was actually meant to be a picture of her hair, but turned more into a long photo shoot of trying to get her to look at the camera in a way so we could see her hair. It didn't work. Daniel and some of the men had a men's night so one of the other wives and I went out to eat with her daughter and JoAnn. Her daughter is in 5th grade and loves to play with Jo, so when I got to their place a little early she had a beauty salon moment and put JoAnn's hair in a ponytail. I called her Pebbles the rest of the night since it stood straight up, but it was cute.


Now for the last picture. Yeah, I am almost caught up! Anyway, I have decided with us going back to the US for a wedding in about a month, it is time to get a tan. So, JoAnn and I have been spending a lot of time out at the pool lately in the mornings and this is one of the new toys I have pulled out for her to play with. It is actually one that I have had for a while now, but forgot it was in the closet. She loves it so much. I have never been able to put her in any sort of floatation device and not have her cry. So, I really wasn't expecting much different with this, but for some reason she will sit and float around forever in this thing. It is great. As if that isn't enough, it has also become one of her favorite toys inside the house too. She loves to just sit in it. She doesn't do anything, just sits in it. Pretty funny and cute.


Okay, one last story and then I am done...On Monday nights lately Daniel has been running a basketball tournament at the Arthur Center and is gone the whole night. This past Monday, JoAnn was playing with her crayons and coloring book when she all the sudden decided that she wanted to know what a green crayon tastes like. So she took a big bite out of the one she was holding. It didn't take long for me to jump up and run over to her, dig whatever was in her mouth out and then take her to the bathroom to try to get the rest of it off her teeth by brushing them. While we were in the bathroom she managed to get her hands on the shampoo and while I was washing my hands and putting the toothbrush away, she tried to eat the shampoo. I managed to keep her from getting any in her mouth but in the process spilt it all over the floor. (Which reminds me of another story, I will tell that in a minute.) As soon as I got the shampoo away from her, she took off running, which gave me a few minutes to clean up the mess. As I was finishing she came walking back to where I was with her bowl from dinner in her hands and was eating what she didn't eat for dinner. It took her three trys, but she finally got it right.

The other story and I really promise this is the last one. I forget what day it was, but I had just gone grocery shopping and bought a new bottle of oil since we had run out. Later that night (right before bed time) JoAnn was playing in the kitchen and a couple minutes later I heard a thump and then her screaming. Of course I took off running to find out what happened and thank goodness I stopped running before I actually got to her, because she had managed to get the bottle of oil, which stupid me had bought one with a lid that flips open instead of one that had a screw on lid. She had dumped almost 2 cups of oil all over the kitchen floor and since our entire place is ceramic tile flooring it created one of the most slippery floors I had ever walked on. I immediately picked her up and handed her to Daniel to throw in the shower so I wouldn't get oil all over the rest of the house and then just stared at the oil for a few minutes. My thoughts went something like this...

What do I do now, I can't just leave it until Ate comes to help me clean it up. I am not going to ruin a perfectly good towel to clean this up, paper towels? I know, flour!

I had seen a clip from Martha Stewart just a day or so before where she mentioned using corn starch to get oil stains out of clothes. I knew I didn't have enough corn starch for that much oil, but when I looked in the pantry the flour was right next to the corn starch, so I decided that was the next best thing. I dumped all the flour I had left on the oil and within minutes all the oil was off the tile and I had quite a large ball of dough. Now getting all the flour off the floor was a little more tricky, but that I was okay with leaving it until our Ate came the next day and she helped me clean it up off the floor, which took a little more scrubbing.

Alright I think this post is long enough.