We left Humble after some shopping...

...and over two hours later got home. It was horrible. It was miserable. But we made it. Laura, Joanna, and I were on a shoe mission in Humble this afternoon and headed home about 3ish. I could see that both the highway and the exit for Kingwood Dr. were backed up, but we decided to stay on the highway. If we had only known... Apparently there was a truck fire on the highway just after the Northpark exit, and the highway, all 4 or so lanes of it had to exit Northpark. I believe it was about 3:30 when we passed the Kingwood Dr. exit. It was about 3:45 when we passed the sign that said "Northpark exit 1 mile." It was about 5:20 when we finally exited at Northpark. I believe many of you know that riding in the car is not one of Joanna's favorite things. Sitting in traffic, hot, with no milk, strapped into her carseat is seriously not one of her favorite things. She was so sweaty by the time we got home (our van does not have air conditioning). She perked up a bit when we got home, but what a really yucky way to spenk two hours! I actually had a couple of magazines in the car, which we read. I took pictures of random things. Laura fed Joanna 8 thousand Cheerios 'till we ran out. We handed Joanna toys and shoes and books which she threw one by one to the floor. We listened to our song play CD. And we sweated. Luckily it was a beautiful day. If we'd been moving, the breeze would have been lovely. Here are my random pictures from the "drive" home:

Yea! We're close, right?

Joanna in the rearview. Tick, tick.
Crossing over Kingwood Dr.

Tick tick tick. Tick tick tick tick.
Finally cried herself to sleep about 5:00.
We can see it!
Almost there!

Here are some pictures of us actually having fun today! We headed to the park because it was soooo beautiful outside and Joanna seemed a little stir crazy.She kept wanting to ride the "quack, quack."Sliding and swinging are fun...She looks so tiny! She really loved swinging all by herself.Laura's head is like a drum.These next few are from Thursday. I just love this little strawberry outfit!"Where's Joanna?"

Much better days.

We've all been doing much better since Tuesday. I woke up Wednesday feeling completely back to normal, and Joanna was acting fine, too. We made it to Bible study, and had fun playing and running errands in the afternoon. Joanna did have a little Tylenol on Wednesday; we're pretty sure her face was hurting. Even though she's pretty discolored between the eyes, she's acting pretty much back to normal today. She even slept 1 1/2 hours for her nap at school today!!! Oh, my goodness!!! I will post some pictures of her healing face and other fun things soon, but now I'm going to go eat girl scout cookies.

We are not having a good day.

We'll get to some happy things in a minute, but first for the rotten things of the day. I woke up sick this morning. Considering I haven't been sick in a year, it's not so bad. I have whatever my mom and Matt had last week. Their's only lasted two days so I've got my fingers crossed. Joanna's fever was gone this morning and yesterday the nurse at her doctor's office told us to go ahead and keep our appointment today. We had a 9:20 appointment, and it was around 10:30 before we saw the doctor. Usually our appointments are on time and go very quickly, especially morning ones. The wait just seemed interminable because I wasn't feeling so good. Luckily we had Gran and my friend Laura with us to entertain Joanna for the wait. Some findings from the doctor:

She is 16 pounds, 2 1/2 ounces and 27 1/2 inches long with a head circumference of 18 1/4 inches. Her height and weight are in good proportion to each other and she's headed up nicely. She's definitely below apparantly ALL other babies in the world :) in her weight, but her doctor says she's doing great. It will just be forever before this child can forward face in her carseat! The doctor seemed pleased with her development but wants us to work on correcting her sitting. For those of you who don't know, Joanna "W" sits (kind of like a squat) instead of sitting on her bottom when she plays. She's just developed this naturally and apparantly Gran sat this way as a child, so maybe it's hereditary. He didn't seem too concerned, but said that it's probably not a good thing for her legs. I personally think she'll faze out of it in no time. Until then, I'm going to do my best to put her on her bottom when I put her down on the floor. I'm not going to follow her around constantly moving her legs, though. I had sort of suspected this next bit, but was hoping it wasn't so. Joanna has eczema which is a skin thing that her Aunt Kathryn has always had. Basically we're just supposed to keep it really moisturized and put hydrocortizone cream on it until it clears up and when it flares up again. Right now she has places of it behind her knees and on her neck. I remember Kathryn used to always get it on the insides of her elbows and it itched like crazy! Poor Joanna! (Oh, and poor Aunt Kathryn.) Joanna had two shots at the end of her appointment which of course made her cry a lot. So far she seems to be handling them very well. Okay, now for the worst part of Joanna's bad day. Joanna pulled a little table holding Gran's laptop down on top of her. I didn't see it but I was right there looking the other way. The table shouldn't have been out (it's not steady enough for our little cruiser) and it's put up now, of course! It looks like she pulled and it fell right on top of her face. I pulled the tray off of her nose basically and the computer (which was closed) flipped over her, I think. It may have hit her becuause she's got a mark across her forehead as well as the bruising on her nose. I guess the edge of the tray may have hit twice. Oh, she cried and cried and I cried and cried and we cuddled for a while. I was on the phone with Matt when it happened, and all he heard before I threw the phone to the floor was "Oh, *&$%, bye." For awhile, all I could see was the marks on her forehead and some discoloration on her nose. Then her whole nose and forehead puffed up. I personally think she could be on Star Trek. We took some pictures of her first major accident:My poor baby!

These next shots are happy ones! Aunt Mindy brought over her pics from the birthday party, and here are a few for your enjoyment:

Chocolate cake!

Presents! You'll see some of Joanna's friends helping her -- how sweet!







A nice long shot -- so much activity!


Hmmm... who should I call, first?

On a totally random note, I saw this the other day and actually turned around to take a picture. I've never seen anyone jogging with a sheep before.

A Fever?!

Poor Miss Joanna has her first real fever ever. She went down for her afternoon nap without fussing (not normal for her) and woke up a little clingy (normal for her). We played for a while, and I noticed when I touched her that she felt pretty warm (not normal for her). I took her temperature and sure enough, 101.5! She's a real trooper. I gave her some Tylenol and I can tell it has kicked in; she ate a pretty good dinner and is having a bath right now. She has no other symptoms that we can tell, so I guess it could be a teething thing. Hopefully she will get a fabulous night of sleep and feel better in the morning (wishful thinking?). We have a "well baby" check up on Tuesday, but I won't be able to take my unwell baby!

Joanna Pence's 1st Birthday Extravaganza!

I know I've had some long posts in the past, but I think they all will pale in comparison to this monster post. Just FYI.

Because Joanna's birthday was on a Friday, we had two straight days of partying! Here are some "just because" shots of our ONE year old:
Joanna got many birthday greetings and presents.
Her first "Happy Birthday" phone call from Aunt Laura:
A BIG package from Nana and Popo
A new giraffe!
Joanna's very first E-card from our friends the Lewtons; she loved listening to the music!
A birthday present from Mamma and Pop. On the outside was a sweet little baby doll. If you look at Joanna's hands, they look like they're holding and patting a little baby. I don't know where she picked this up, but so cute!! She's gone to bed with that baby since then.
And a Birthday Bear from Build-A-Bear! It's paw has a birthday sound greeting for Joanna.
Now reading a card from Mommy and Daddy:Joanna and Mamma and PopThe next dozen (not kidding) pictures are the progression from mix to cake for the giraffe cake I made.
Ooooohhhh, looks beautiful!

Uh oh, not enough cooking spray on the bottom:
Good thing I bought an extra just in case. Perfect!
Here's the diagram for the cake I found in a book:
It's huge! The only place for it was the counter.


One coat of icing:

And another.
Some blue spots.
With all the leftover cake, my mom made a baby giraffe:
Joanna's first bite of cake (the baby giraffe). We took video too, which I will have to upload later. The child wouldn't take her fingers out of her mouth for quite some time. The look on her face was pure bliss the whole time!
After the party on Saturday -- only the head was left. Poor little yummy giraffe!

I did not make this cake. But it was chocolate and really good.
We had a Sesame Street 1st Birthday Party. Here's some of the decorations and food:

My little party princess. Before the party, I know Joanna knew something was going on. She was acting pretty silly. I just love this pink party dress!
Headband? or Toy?
Joanna's friend Anna was soooo sweet with Joanna. We think she thinks Joanna is a little doll for her to play with. They were so sweet together.
All the kiddos were sooooo good at the party! I was very very impressed. They played and shared (some, anyway) and ate and went home and took nice long naps (hopefully!). Here are a few of Joanna's friends and family at the party. I'm sure I didn't get pictures of everyone. Aunt Mindy took a bunch, too, and I'll post some when they come our way!

Abby and her daddy:

Anna and her daddy:
Jacob getting some chow. (Oh, and Jacob, you left your cup at our house.)
Aidan and his mommy:
Caleb and his daddy:
Lisa; Bella and her daddy:

Kurt, Aunt Mindy and Uncle Steve, Uncle Mark:
Great Grandma, Joanna and her daddy:
I could not have wished for a more precious, well-behaved birthday girl on Saturday. She hung out in her high chair and munched on sandwiches and fruit while everybody else ate. She ate chocolate cake (yum!), but didn't fuss when it was time to stop. She helped me open all her presents (whoa, did she get a good haul!). And she really played very happily with all her friends. There was one tiny incident of someone in shoes stepping on her fingers, but she forgot about it pretty fast :)

My grandmother gave Joanna Rose her first rose bush, and after the party we went outside to plant it in the backyard. I can't wait for it to grow!

Joanna didn't really nap after the party. She had a pretty good nap right before the party started which was perfect and gave her the energy she needed for the day. At about 5:30 she was eating dinner and pretty much fell apart. She was exhausted. I nursed her and she took a little snooze in my arms then she got a bath and went to bed. She slept quite well last night, I think!

We missed those of you who couldn't help us celebrate, but come on by anytime and we'll party hearty! Thank you everybody who came. I know Joanna won't remember it, but we took enough pictures that she'll grow up knowing she has always been so loved!