Neglected holidays

Christmas is an important holiday, but it seems that I have overlooked Halloween and Thankgiving altogether (at least as far as this blog is concerned). So I am back tracking to remedy the situation.

HALLOWEEN
Trick-or-treating with his friend Andrew at the businesses close to our house:
Showing off his loot (M&Ms were his favorite):
This picture is just so you can see his authentic Samurai pony tail:
Indiana Jones and the littlest Samurai:
Trick-or-treating at the Parents as Teachers playcenter:
We got fun Halloween balloons and decorated cookies at Whole Foods:
HUNTING
While not technically a holiday, hunting pretty much has the same status in our household.
Making cookies with grandma:
Posing with daddy's 4 point buck (he still says "daddy broke deer"):
Making a pie with granny:
"Driving" one of Paw Paw's tractors. I could barely get him away from them:
THANKSGIVING
The highlight of Josiah's Thanksgiving was getting to "drive" the fire truck at the fire station where my cousin Kurt works:
He also had fun hanging out with his cousins:
We also had fun visiting family and getting to see my mom's cousin Pat who drove up from TX to see everyone.

This ends my tribute to Halloween, hunting, and Thanksgiving. Happy New Year's Eve - I won't be blogging again until 2010!

Most wonderful month of the year

As is probably the case for you and your family, December is a blur. A fun, exciting blur, but a blur nonetheless.

We kicked off the month with Josiah's 2nd birthday party. His 2 sets of grandparents were there to help us celebrate with a dog-themed party (no we have not gotten a dog yet).
I went a little overboard with the desserts. We had 48 cupcakes (we had both white and chocolate cupcakes), dog bone shaped cookies, and dog shaped cookies.
Josiah did not complain about there being too many desserts. But, he did not quite understand why he had to wait until after we sing and blow out the candles to be able to eat his cupcake. He thought we were torturing him by dangling this cupcake in front of his face and making him wait.
As you can see, he was not shy about digging in once the candles were out! A big change in his feelings toward cake since his 1st birthday. He liked the cream cheese frosting more than the actual cake part.
He had a blast unwrapping his presents. He was confused by the fact that we wanted him to not play with the cool thing he just opened, but to open the next thing instead. He also was not a fan of the time it took to get all these cool toys out of their boxes.

This is the tractor that his daddy picked out for him. He was so excited, but could not understand why he was not able to climb inside of it. That was kind of frustrating for him. He went to every person in the room to see if they had a solution to his dilemma.

The next 2 weeks of December were packed with putting out the Christmas decorations (we decided to wait until after his b-day to do this), wrapping presents, baking, doctor and dentist appointments, a Parents As Teachers event, getting our windows measured (to be replaced soon!), etc.

Our friends Genevieve and Mick got to stay with us the night of the 20th while they were passing through - it was great to see them - we had not seen Mick in 2 years! Josiah had fun playing with Olivienne and we all ate Jack Stack and relaxed. I guess I was too relaxed - after they left I realized that I had not taken any pictures! D'oh...hopefully we'll get another opportunity before 2 more years fly by.

We had our family Christmas on Tuesday the 22nd right before we left town.

It is so fun seeing how excited Josiah gets opening presents. We have fun playing with his toys too.Then we packed up and headed to Pittsburg, KS where Josiah got to check out his Mi Mi's office at the hospital and terrorize the hallways with running and screaming. They were happy screams. Hopefully the patients knew that.

He had a blast seeing his family in SW Missouri that he talks about so often. And of course opening more presents.
We spent 4 hours Christmas afternoon driving up to mid-Missouri to see my side of the family. On the 26th Josiah's cousins arrived, and he thought the best way to say hello would be to tackle them. You're looking at the future faces of WWE.
Two more batches of present opening followed in the 2 days we were there. Here's Josiah with his new guitar. He loves it - a little too much. I am wondering how long it will stay in one piece.
Throughout this fun and crazy season, when we ask Josiah what we're celebrating - who's birthday it is - he says "JESUS!". It is so cute. And a great reminder amidst all the chaos.

We are home now, thankful for all the fun we had with our families and trying to sift through the mountains of new toys. We are truly so blessed in millions of ways, big and small.

A couple of random updates - Josiah is now saying 4 word sentences. Like 'my daddy take truck'. I plan on posting some videos of him talking soon. He also is trying to sing parts of Jesus Loves Me. Right now it sounds like this: 'Yes, Jesus. Yes, Jesus.' That's pretty much it. Sometimes he will also sing 'bible tell.'

We hope that you also had a great Christmas and that you have a happy New Year!

In case you forgot...

...Josiah will tell you AND show you how old he is going to be on Dec 6th, all while eating grapes.

Big weekend

We had a lot going on this weekend! Saturday morning I ran the KC Half Marathon (13.1 miles) with my friend and fellow mom Sydney. It was a great race - the weather turned out to be perfect and the course took us through downtown, Westport, and the Plaza with several bands playing along the way. We enjoyed the views but not the hills. :) We averaged about a 10 minute mile pace. We finished a full 30 minutes ahead of the elite marathoners - yes, this means that there are people who run 26.2 miles in only 30 minutes more than it takes us to run 13.1. Jerks.
We made these fun t-shirts to say thanks to our supportive husbands who (mostly without complaint) watched the kiddos for all those training runs for the past 3 to 4 months.
Saturday afternoon we got to see Jason's parents as they were passing through town. Josiah loved seeing Paw Paw and Mi Mi (he made up this name for Jason's mom - none of her other 6 older grandkids calls her that), and especially loved driving Paw Paw's big truck!
Sunday afternoon we went to a pumpkin patch with some friends which had lots of fun stuff for the kids. Josiah loved feeding the goat:
and hanging out with his friends:Yes, my shirt says "Single", but the fine print says "during hunting season". Always read the fine print.
Sunday was a momentous day - Josiah peed in his potty for the first time ever!!! It was very exciting. There has not been a repeat performance since, but I know it will take time, and we are working on it.

Here's a fun picture from breakfast - not sure how he got a Cheerio stuck to his forehead. That takes talent.Josiah is talking up a storm. He started saying 3 word phrases last week like "need that book". It is fun - you can pretty much have a real conversation with him now! His new favorite words are hurt, broke, and naked (i.e. "mommy hurt" because I hurt my finger, "broke" when his crackers or bread break in 2 - he prefers them whole). He loves to be naked (fully or just in a diaper) at any and every opportunity, and usually twirls in circles when he is naked.

In a little over a month he will turn 2. It's hard to believe how much he's grown and learned in the past 2 years. We are having so much fun with him!

Family fun

Labor day weekend we went to visit Jason's side of the family. Many thanks to Ericka, Colynn, and Jason for each running a part of 8 miles with me! And thanks to Debby for making me ginger snaps to fuel my running. We had a fun weekend - here are some pics:

-with Grandma:
-with Grandma Mary (and the discovery of delicious Smarties suckers):
-with Paw Paw:
-with Samantha (the best babysitter):

During the trip, Grandma gave Josiah the bear that Jason used to sleep with as a kid. Now this is how we eat breakfast:On Sept 19th Jason, Josiah and I had a great family day. We went to the zoo and then roasted marshmallows to make s'mores after dinner. Here are some pics:



At the end of Sept we went with my side of the family to Branson for a couple days to get away. We had a great time...more pics!

-Playing the guitar with Paw Paw (yes, there are 2 Paw Paws):
-hanging out with mommy:
-more hanging out on our way to a playground:
-at Silver Dollar City there were a grand total of 2 rides Josiah could do, but only accompanied by an adult. He LOVED them:


-riding in the jogging stroller with cousin Ava:

We hope you all had a great September!

Big talker

Josiah seems to be adding more words to his vocabulary every day. He started saying 'no' a couple of weeks ago but he says it in the sweetest way possible (most of the time). And now he says "no way". His affirmative response to things is "yeah" - but lately he has been saying "oh yeah". His most recent word is "cookie". Jason made his mom's famous ginger snaps this week, and now he cannot walk into the kitchen without saying "cookie? cookie?". It is cute but hopefully he will realize that there are other foods besides cookies. I think he also said "coffee" this week - he is obsessed with Jason's coffee mugs and thermos. He loves to just carry them around (don't worry, we only give him empty ones to carry). I will get a recording of him talking and get it posted one day soon, but wanted to let everyone know how he is progressing!

Since my last post my bestest friend Genevieve came to visit (and we decided on the spur of the moment to paint our kitchen), my parents came to visit and brought my nephew & niece (Kason & Ava), and we went with friends to see Disney's train tour (including a 10 minute 3-D movie trailer) to promote their Christmas Carol movie coming out in November. Here are some pics: