Winter wonderland ... if we had only stayed home!

Did anyone else notice the snow this weekend!? Wow. As a true MN girl there is nothing I love more in the winter than to enjoy a good snowfall/blizzard. What I wasn't expecting was to venture out in one of the strongest winter storms we've had in awhile, just to visit Santa!

Ryan's company has a huge holiday party every year for families with tons of fun activities for kids, costumed characters, entertainment and of course Santa and Mrs. Claus. After building up our visit all week, Ryan and I knew we had to follow through. What we didn't plan on were the massive amounts of snow. Being that Ryan's work is only 15 minutes away, we thought we could brave the blizzard conditions .... Um 45 minutes later we were only half way there and had already gotten stuck once. At this point though there was no turning back. Somehow Josilyn must have sensed the weather situation as it was the first time EVER that she was silent in the car.

We finally made it and were quite impressed by the number of other families willing to brave the snow. Josilyn had a blast making crafts, watching a magician, dancing, decorating a cookie - then quickly eating it and of course visiting with Santa. When asked what she wanted all she said was "A ball.". Hmm. Easy enough I guess. I'm thinking Santa shouldn't have any trouble granting that wish!

The only character she wouldn't go near was the Grinch. Smart girl I guess!

Hoping that the storm would have settled by the time we left was again wishful thinking. J and I waited inside for a half hour while Ryan dug our car out of the snowdrifts that had buried the car. Finally a good Samaritan came to our rescue and pulled him out. It took us close to 2hrs to get home and then we got stuck again just feet from our alley. I trucked through the snow with an exhausted daughter while Ryan and some way too nice neighbors dug us out again!

All in all it was a fun day for Josilyn, stressful day for Mom and exhausting day for Ry since he spent the rest of the evening digging out 6 of our neighbors. Oh how I really do love winter and MN nice!!!

Dancing, dancing and a trip to the doc

What a fun weekend we had; we were able to attend our first wedding as a family of 3! Well I guess I should say we were all able to attend the reception since the ceremony fell right in the middle of Josilyn's nap.

My brother's best friend, Darren, got married to his perfect girl, Mandy. The ceremony was beautiful. I love weddings. Cake aside it's always a nice reminder to reflect back to your own wedding and to be thankful you too found that perfect person :) Thankfully everything was pretty close to Apple Valley so I was able to pick up Josilyn and Ryan after the ceremony and head to the reception.

There is nothing cuter than little girls in fancy dresses. I could just melt. Ryan did a great job of getting Josilyn ready ... I just needed to do the finishing touch. The hair. Josilyn did great during dinner. She devoured her chicken nuggets, french fries and bucket of ketchup. I think this might have been one of the first meals we were able to all eat when it was still HOT. Oh and the cake ... was ... amazing. Thank goodness they put an extra piece on our table so that I could eat mine, part of Josilyn's and the spare. Yum.

True to Tooley fashion, our girl loved the dance floor. The lights. The music. The ten other little girls all movin' and grovin'. We finally had to peel her away at around 10:15. Oh and the tears came a running. We thought for sure she'd fall asleep before we left the parking lot, but she made it almost the whole way home. Then woke up and proceeded to talk to her "guys" in bed for another ten minutes. We're thinking she had an excellent time.

Sunday we all got to sleep in a little. Again thank you Darren and Mandy for all the dancing! Then we had a fun-filled playdate with cousin Finley where the girls danced to the Elmo slide multiple times. Adorable.

To wrap it all up, this morning Josilyn and I headed to see Dr. Allen for her 2-yr check-up. Being the increasingly independent girl she chose to wear her blue/white striped leggings with a navy blue frog t-shirt, pink sparkle princess shoes, her baseball cap and her purple tu-tu. What a sight we were walking in. She was so proud, how could I do anything but smile right along with her. The visit went great, 3 shots, a couple tears and a cookie waiting in the car with Ernie and we were on our way home.

Here are her stats:
Height: 34" Weight: 30 lbs. 8 oz. Head: 19 3/4" (off the charts ... that's a Tooley head for you)

Doc Allen said she is doing wonderfully and reminded me that the attitude of a toddler is similar to that of a teenager, oh boy, that sounds a little scary!

A family afair

Another busy weekend in the Tooley house. This year we ALL participated in the Twin Cities Marathon activities. So glad the weather was better than last year :)

Josilyn started us off Sat. morning with the Toddler Trot - a 50 yd. dash in front of the Capital. She loved it! She was all smiles during the run and even asked for "more running" once she was done. We debated letting her run it again with the older kids, but thought maybe we'd better pass this year. She was so proud of her medal and t-shirt.

Early this morning Ryan and I were up and ready for our respective races. I did the 10-mile and LOVED it. I think this is probably the right distance for me going forward. The scenery was gorgeous and the weather felt perfect. Maybe a little chilly for the spectators, but we really couldn't have asked for anything better.

Ryan competed in the full marathon for the 4th year in a row. He started out strong again this year with a group of guys he's been training with ... although I don't think he had quite as much fun as Josilyn and I. There's a little difference in our competitive natures. Needless to say Ry finished great in our eyes. I would give anything to run as fast as he does!

Now some much needed REST time. Then we start planning our next family adventure!!!

Happy happy birthday to my girl!

Happy birthday Josilyn! It's been a crazy few weeks, but we made it to 2!!!

Last week was a little chaotic to say the least, lots of activities, playdates, work, party prepping, a bad case of the flu (for mommy) and I was starting to wonder if we'd make it to Friday. Thankfully everything came together perfectly.

We had to modify our plans a little, but Ryan and I were able to help Josilyn celebrate her 2nd birthday with a trip to Nickelodeon Universe for some fun rides and a special dessert. Thank goodness Ryan didn't catch whatever I had because he was on 100% ride duty. Josilyn seemed to have a blast ... maybe she'll be ready for Valleyfair next year.

Thanks to my flu bug, my party prepping was put on a major hiatus, causing me to order a cake instead of doing one myself. I was however able to muster up enough energy to make a small batch of Elmo Cake Pops for all the kids to enjoy at her party.

The birthday party went off without a hitch! It was so fun to see all of Josilyn's little buddies in one place. The park was a hit and allowed all the kids to burn off lots of energy (and birthday cake) and the parents could still visit a little.

We are so thankful to have such wonderful family and friends in Josilyn's life. She truly is a very lucky little lady!

Proud Momma Moment

We had our follow up appointment with the dentist today for Josilyn's chipped tooth and I can honestly say I've never been more proud. Josilyn was the epitome of PERFECT. Seriously.

This whole week I have secretly been dreading this day; with flashbacks of the screaming little girl I had from our last visit, who wouldn't be dreading a repeat trip. But what, wait, hold the phone ... did the Tooth Fairy come during the night to rid Josilyn of her fears?! She must have because we had nothing but smiles and a cooperative girl today. She got ready without a fuss this morning, brushed her teeth (I mean actually brushed her teeth instead of just sucking the toothpaste off like normal) and off we went. Josilyn. Dolly. Bunny. Tags. And Mom.

The dentist went through a basic exam first. Both of Josilyn's 2-year molars on the bottom are IN!!! Then she got our her "tooth tickler" to sand down the chipped tooth. I couldn't believe how well Josilyn laid back in the dentist's lap and kept her mouth open. Each of the staff kept commenting on how good she was and how brave she was being ... so much so we walked away with a stock of stickers, toothbrushes and a fishy sippy cup. Christmas at the dentist - maybe!?!?

As we left Josilyn had to say goodbye and give a Hi-5 to everyone, including the fish! I walked away thinking it doesn't get much better than this. Love my girl to pieces!

Josilyn loves the #2

What a fun Labor Day weekend. Minus the wind we really couldn't have asked for a more relaxing time at the cabin. Josilyn and I ventured up Thursday afternoon with my mom to get some extra LAKE time in. Oh does Josilyn love the cabin!

We were just there two weeks ago so to her it was almost as if we had never left. Everything is her's or "Bacah's" (grandpa). So cute. My dad, brother and Ryan showed up Friday ... which threw Josilyn for a little loop this time around. Last time it was just us girls and Grandpa Brogard. Suddenly she had not one, but TWO Bacah's!

We've been working on our counting - but ONE, TWO is her favorite. So all weekend we heard "one - two bacah's". Unless of course one was missing, then it was "one bacah's ... where two?" with a puzzled look on her face.

Also true with our last trip to the cabin; Josilyn LOVES the toilet there. Weird right? I know. Well for whatever reason she completely #2 potty-trained when we are at the cabin. Here's to hoping this time it sticks with her once we get home :) Maybe I should just throw out the "potty" chairs and stick with the real thing.

Overall it was a ton of fun to go for morning walks, be lazy by the beach, catch up with family, eat lots of junk food, watch Josilyn run everywhere, play with Pepper and just relax. Hopefully we'll get one more nice weekend in before the cold weather comes.

No love for the bugs

With fall quickly approaching I thought it would be fun to hit up the local apple orchard for some fresh raspberries and apples. I have been wanting to make some yummy raspberry desserts and jams all summer - but things just don't seem to be going our way this year.

Josilyn and I attempted to go in early August for the first batch of raspberries only to be two days too slow - everything was picked over. Ugh. I guess we weren't the only ones with thoughts of chocolate and raspberry angel food cake ;o)

Well yesterday we tried again, this time we invited Christine and Liam to join us. Because of the warm summer the apples were ready to go too; what could go wrong?! I'll tell you. BUGS. They were absolutely awful. We tried to get to the raspberries, but we seemed to be spending more time swatting away at the swarms than actually picking anything. Not to fear, Josilyn still managed to get a few samples in the process.

We decided to try our luck with the apples only to come to the same conclusion ... Bugs Suck! So what were two moms without bug spray to do? We bought a bag of pre-picked apples and headed back inside for a fun, bug-free playdate!!!

Extended family fun

It's been another fun week in the Tooley house. My grandpa came down for a visit over the weekend and ended up having so much fun he stayed until Wed. morning! It was great having so much family time - Josilyn absolutely adores her grandpa and great grandpa. So much so that when they are around she wants nothing to do with anyone else ... it's as if we don't even exist. Thank goodness they have both adapted to their new names; Baby Bakah and Big Bakah. Throw in Ryan's dad (Bakah Tooley) and Josilyn's world pretty much revolves around her love for her Bakahs :)

Some of Josilyn's favorite sayings these days:

* what's this?! (so fun to see her exploring more of her world and being curious about EVERYTHING)
* No way!!! (hilarious when used out of excitement, not so much fun when in response to say, brushing teeth or washing hands)
* Gooooo!!!

Just another day in the Tooley house

It's days like today that remind me why I love being home with Josilyn! We started the morning off with a little book reading ("Are You My Mother?" is our new favorite); she knows some of her books so well that she will actually "read" them to me and bunny! Then we had breakfast and got ready for our big consult with a specialist in childrens dentistry. We talked about the visit all morning so by the time we got there she was running into the building saying "cheese!" for her pictures.

If only that good mood would have stuck around once the doc tipped her back and started checking things out. Even with her "invisible" sunglasses on Josilyn ended up screaming more during this visit than she did from her actual fall. If the tears wouldn't have been flowing I would have tried to snap a pic of her in the chair with her shades on and the big x-ray jacket weighing her down. Priceless.

The good and the bad. The good news is that the doc was pretty optimistic that no major nerve damage was done!!! Yippee. That means no capping or filling of the tooth (which would have meant sedating her during the procedure). The bad news is that the tooth will probably still change color and fall out early. She put Josilyn on a 2-week soft food only diet to make sure the gum tissue can properly heal and still wants us to come back to file the tooth down .... ugh. Let's hope we won't have too many more visits like this for awhile :o) Another positive to the trip, they gave Josilyn a beautiful pink studded tiara for being such a good girl during her visit!

The rest of the day we spent enjoying the gorgeous weather. Swimming in the pool, watering the flowers, reading more books, doing the laundry, terrorizing Ozzie and going potty TWICE on her big girl potty ... all on her own!

This leads me to wonder if it is finally time? I don't want to jump the gun but in the past couple weeks Josilyn has been more and more interested in the potty. She's been using it enough that I'm tempted to breakout the Elmo undies and give it a 100% go. But am I really ready for her to be potty-trained? That makes all of our outings during the day a whole lot more difficult. Selfish on my part, maybe!

We ended the day with a walk around the neighborhood, feeding the ducks, playing at the park, feeding the ducks again, and another round of "Are You My Mother?". Ahhh! Does life get any better than this!?!?

There's nothing worse than a mother's guilt

So I am learning firsthand just how hard it is to deal with mothers guilt. We've had our fair share of bumps and bruises in the past 22 months of Josilyn's existence, but tonight was by far the scariest for me.

We were going for our typical end of the night walk through the neighborhood then up to the pond to feed the ducks; but tonight one of Josilyn's buddies Ava was out playing as well. We decided to stop and chat for a couple minutes so the girls could play. Of course being the adventurous and never fearful daughter that she is, Josilyn decided to climb onto another neighbors "bigger" kid bike. So I'm standing right next to her - literally not even a foot from the girl - and I turn my head away for a split second when all of a sudden I hear the scream and the tears. Sure enough she tipped right over onto the sewer grate.

I scooped her up and started my normal calm routine of checking her over whenever she falls when I instantly noticed her teeny tiny top front tooth was chipped. Not a little chipped, about 25% of the tooth was missing - leaving a very sharp dagger looking tooth in its place. Ugh. My perfect little princess has her first unhealable boo-boo :o(

Yes I know it could have been so much worse and I am thankful that it wasn't; but I still cannot get over the guilt of not watching over and protecting my angel better. My stomach has been in knots since the incident ... no matter how hard I try to tell myself these things happen the guilt just keeps coming back.

Thankfully she seems to be doing fine, the tears only lasted about a minute before she was ready to start running around like a wild animal again. A little Motrin before bed and a couple doctor and dentist appointments in place for Monday morning and hopefully we'll be good as new. Minus the uneven teeth that will be front and center for every picture from now until she gets her permanent ones. Let's just pray the damage stopped with the chip and there's no long term nerve damage.

The question for the day: why is it that the children of parents who actually watch their kids typically end up getting hurt more often then the children of parents who rarely watch their kids?