Don't even pretend like this isn't tender

Last week Ema and her kids took Jolene, me and my mom to the library with her. It was Jolene's first trip, and it was a heaven for her! The minute we walked in she squealed and ran straight for the books. She's such a book girl. 
We all had a lot of fun but considered we skipped Jolene's nap to go- she quickly turned into a beast. She kept standing up on chairs and despite me telling her repeatedly to sit down, she would continue to do it and stare at me with a smirk until I would go over and spank her bum and put her down off the chair. One of the times, I was reading on one chair to Jenna and she was about 5 feet away on another chair standing up. I said "Jolene, sit down!" and she did, right over the edge of the chair and onto the cement floor that had the thinnest industrial carpet I'd ever seen. She screamed her head off of course. In a library. I took her outside to walk it off (as to not disrupt the other patrons) and brought her back inside explaining to her as I pointed to the chair that she was not to stand up on chairs. I put her down and a short time later she was back up on a chair. I said "Jo, sit down." she stared with a smirk. I said, "Jo, sit down!" smirking still... "Jolene! SIT ---" and before I could finish she says  "DOWN!", smiles and laughs then goes to squat as if she's going to sit down, then pops up laughing. As I stood up to go spank her, she goes to flop down and falls off again, hitting her mouth on the table on her way down. Second trip outside to scream it out.
Exhibit A- she's a beast. (This is not your opportunity to give me unsolicited parenting advice on how to handle a child like this. We think we are doing pretty good and like our methods, thank you.)
Needless to say, Ema was gracious enough to cut her fun trip with her kids at the library short so that we could get the beast home and in bed. THANKS EMA for understanding! :)

Well the weather has been pretty warm lately (understatement) but we do live in Arizona so what do you expect? Today Jonathan and Dad worked in the backyard first thing in the morning- so the Griffins stopped by and we played while the men worked (muwahahaha)


Jo loves the swing. She freaks out if we take her out before she's done (we're working on that). Aunt Kimber recently introduced her to the spinning affect the swing can have. Our little daredevil loves that too. She's so crazy.

It is rare that Jolene likes to cuddle. When she first wakes up you get about 90 seconds of a cuddle sesh before she realizes she could be down playing. When she's not feeling good she gets to lay on you but you aren't allowed to cuddle her... so that's almost a cuddle. But every once in a while, she'll surprise us and just jump right up and cuddle. And this time, it was daddy's turn!