Josie + One = Ack!

So the big news which I'm sure you've heard from us directly (if not - guess what!! :) is that we have a baby on the way, due to arrive mid- to late-July. They say it's a boy. We've tried to explain to Josie about the baby, that she'll have to share our love with her new baby brother, that she will no longer be the only apple of our eye, that she'll probably get less attention and will likely have to give up a number of toys as well as her personal space, but she hasn't seemed to catch on yet. She does get that there is a baby in my belly - she points at my (large) belly and says "Baby!" But she also points at Daddy's (not as large) belly and says "Baby," at Pop-pop's concave belly and says "Belly," and even her own belly and says "Baby!"

She does like to give my tummy kisses. She's very sweet. I think she's going to be a great big sister.

Photos!

My Girl Likes To Potty All The Time

It's been forever and I have way too many cute Josie stores.

First, per the title, the most exciting news - Josie is figuring out the whole potty thing. It started out rough - we bought her a little potty seat thing which she quickly became totally enamored with - but she REFUSED to get off of it. She wanted to have a naked rear all day and just get on and off the potty as she felt the whim. Not the "urge" mind you - she never actually used the potty, but she was insistent on a) being naked and b) having free reign to get on and off. When Cory (quite reasonably) insisted on a diaper, the girl just totally freaked out and pitched a huge fit. What a weirdo!!! Anyway, this morning brought a huge victory as she said "potty poo poo" and I put her on the potty and she smiled and kicked her feet and I coached her on with phrases I will not repeat lest I really hit mama-rock-bottom-embarrassment-that-I'm-even-talking-about-this. I picked her up and there was no poo but some pee! Yay!!!!

It's just astonishing that I find this exciting. But this is really like the most exciting thing going on in my life. Tell me that is not a depressing commentary on the state of my life.

Anyway, Josie story number two (no pun intended) is really funny and you will like it more than the first, which was quite frankly, fairly boring/gross. Okay, so Josie likes to say "hola!" to people really loud. We've been trying to teach her Spanish here and there and hola just seems to have stuck. So she's at the drugstore with Cory waiting in line for a prescription. And saying hi to everyone. And she'll say hi to people (strangers) in stores and such at a louder pitch and more frequent intervals until the person relents and says hello back. So she's saying hi to everyone, and everyone is saying hi back to her. This teenage boy is listening to his iPod, trying to pretend he's invisible - which of course Josie is having none of. She says hi. No response. Hi again, louder. No response. Again. Same. She scrunches her face and then says really loud, "HOLA!" The boy looks up and finally figures out that she's been yelling HI at him, then replies to her "Hola." Josie is happy. Everyone gets prescriptions, takes care of things. Cory is on his way out and Josie is, of course, saying Bye! to everyone. Except the boy. To him, she says "ADIOS!!" And he laughed and said Adios right back. So the key to communicating with your sullen teen, people of the world, is apparently as simple as just speaking Spanish.

I am going to post super cute photos as soon as I can get my computer working right.

One more!

She's not smiling in a bunch of the photos I put up. No good! She smiles like crazy, I promise!!

Long Time Gone

Dude, so it's been forever. We had Thanksgiving in Orange County, then Christmas (1) in Minnesota for a week with Cory's family, then Christmas (2)/New Years/Mom's Birthday in OC again this weekend plus. We're pretty tired. Traveling over the holidays with an 18 month old is a nightmare. Plus everyone at Cory's family's house got the stomach flu, including Josie, Cory and I. Disaster! Holidays were lovely anyway though.

It snowed like crazy in Minnesota, affording yet another photo opportunity (now that we have a new camera!). Josie didn't really like being in the snow, but she was ok being pulled around on a sled by her Nana. She's in love with a guy named Arthur, who is currently Cory's sister's boyfriend, but maybe in 20 years or so Josie will get her wish. We left days ago and she keeps saying Arthur, Arthur. Remember in that long western epic movie with the three brothers and Anthony Hopkins is the dad (what is the name of that movie??) where the young native girl was in love with Brad Pitt and it was like "uh, yeah, no" and then she grew up and they got married and it seemed totally fine? I think Josie has that story in mind.

Okay so photos.

A few photos to hold you over...

We did go trick or treating last night, but unfortuantely our camera is not functioning so we don't have photos at the moment. We went with our fabulous neighbors, Dave and Alexis, who of course had a camera. Mia is their daughter and she is adorable - about 9 months younger than Josie. Mia was a monkey (Josie loves to say "Mia!! Mia!!" and gets very sad when Mia goes home) and was adorable. Josie was a chicken and was too shy after she left the house to do the "bock bock" that she totally knows how to do. We went over to a friend of Dave/Alexis's to go trick or treating with their son, who was a boxer and had dribbled red skittle juice all over his shirt and it looked like blood. Awesome. So we went to about 10 houses, and Josie picked up candy, but didn't say trick or treat. A few times she tried to put the candy from her little bag back into the candy bucket that was at a few houses. Hilarous. She was really sweet and adorable. Had to cut it off at about 6:30 - she went into "Im tired and need to sleep mode" which is most often signaled by the thumb going into the mouth with the other hand going to the back of the head to stroke her own hair. So cute.




So until we get photos from Dave and Alexis, here are some from Palm Springs. In this first set, you will see how Josie was doing laps through the closet:



And then I open the other door....













And then come out the other side...