It's not all bad...

Well, I'll just come right out and say it. Why? Because it bothers me that more people aren't more honest about things that really matter. So, here it goes... the last couple weeks have been awful. Little Lyla Bird has been diagnosed with hip dysplasia - read more about that story and see photos of the little darling on my sister's blog - www.threeaustins.blogspot.com We're are so sad that life has thrown our Three Austins a major curveball, but comforted by the fact that they are equipped to handle it with so much love, poise, honesty, courage, and wisdom.
In other sad news, I had a miscarriage last week. I know this isn't the standard, sit-back-and-smile blog post, but I figure if you're one of our loyal readers that is here for more than the pictures, than you deserve to know. Plus, I think one of the hardest things about having a miscarriage is that it's such a taboo subject in our culture. And, everyone is different of course...but I'm the type of person who handles things better when I can talk about them openly. So, there it is. We were pregnant, it was early on, and things weren't developing properly. Everything happnes for a reason. Everything. And we are confident that Josie will get her brother or sister as soon as the time is right. And perhaps that's a reason I decided to share this with everyone - as a sort of defense mechanism - because we're getting a lot of "It's time for #2" from people and my response from now on is just going to be "Trust me; We're trying."
Well, the last two weeks haven't been all bad. Lucky for the former Johnson girls, our little ones have kept us smiling and have acted as a constant reminder of just how fortunate we already are. Josie has been extra cuddly lately, which makes everything easier. Oh - and my hair is brown...Check out Josie wearing my sunglasses that she helped herself to from the kitchen table...
She has also decided that she hates the highchair, which oddly broke within days of her decision. Here she is sitting at the big table, which is crazy... She is getting a little more used to the idea of sharing, although we're not there yet. Here are the girls taking turns (can you believe it) on Andrew's bus...

And here are two photos from a collection we could call "You know you have a toddler if..."

After she put the animals on the potty, they of course needed a bath... There really are at least a dozen more photos from this series of shots where I followed her around the house silently photographing what she did with these three little animals. What an imagination!

And...she's getting her second set of molars! Already! Accordingly, this is the new official Josie pose...
I'll leave you with a quick video that recreates what happened on the street the other day. We were walking past the newspaper stand and Josie pointed to our President (wow, I'll never get tired of saying that) and said "Obama." So, I thought I'd share that joy with all of you. Enjoy!

An hour in the life...

It started simply enough - I wanted to capture Josephine's sheer determination in trying to master her new puzzle. But, the afternoon's good lighting, Josie's good mood, and my great new portrait lens turned into a full-scale photo shoot. So, here it is - an hour in the life of your Three Schneiders. Enjoy!

A B C D E F G H 9 10

I just had to share this quickly - Josie likes to say the ABCs and count herself to sleep. For the second night in a row and then just now as I put her down for her nap, this is what she's been repeating to herself - A B C D E F G H 9 10. My guess is that when she gets to "H" she hears "8" and of course 9 & 10 come after 8. How funny is that? Too cute.

And.... JOSEPHINE IS NOW 18 MONTHS OLD! Holy cow, she's half way to TWO!

You hear it all the time - kids this age learn through imaginative play. I can't tell you how many of Josie's "leaps" have taken place at the Museum Center. We had some big strides there at the end of last week - first she finally "got it" at the water table - filling, spilling, splashing, pouring,etc. This transferred over into bathtime which is now a much more "productive"activity of spilling bottles with water, emptying them into cups, etc. Here's Josie partying in splash-zone.This was a BIG deal! We've been going to the museum for months now & week after week I break my back lifting Josie to the top of the slide 100 times and cupping the back of her head so she doesn't slam it on her way down. Well, I think she got some courage from Aoife last week, because this week she got daring and wanted to do it all by herself. I stood back and down she went. And, I'm not kidding, she clapped for herself and said "Yay" at the bottom. Here she is before going down for like the 30th time...No exaggeration -she spent a solid half-hour marching up the stairs, positioning herself at the time, going "weeeee" the whole way down, clapping at the bottom, saying "yaaaay", and marching back up the stairs again. She was literally getting out of breath. Check out these action shots. I love how she looks scared to death but just kept doing it.

In other news, she learned how to properly use the shovel to fill the pail with sand in the sandbox as well. I love playing with Josie and watching her grow. It's amazing! She's just growing up so fast. We actually went to our first "school" tour over the weekend as well. We're trying to figure out whether we'll do Waldorf, Montessori, etc. so we went to the Waldorf School Open House. We definitely haven't "drank the kool-aid" yet, but it looks like a great place for at least pre-K. Really, it's just unbelievable that we have to be thinking about schools already, but since we live in the city, it's a lot more complicated. Whew - wish us luck! :)

Here are a couple of other loose ends from the past week:

This one is from my birthday last week. Carissa worked on trying to teach Josie to say "Happy Birthday" all day long, but gave up on the "Birthday" part and substituted "B-day" instead. But, for some reason, Josie thought "B-day" was the funniest thing she'd ever heard. Every time we'd say it, she'd crack up. This is late in the day, so it didn't get quite the same reaction, but you get the idea. Enjoy!

Here are a couple of photos from our niece Morgan's Ice Recital. Josie was very impressed. Here she is clapping and cheering for the girls - She was especially proud of Morgan leading the pack during their big number - And I'll leave you with this quickie of Josie with her cat puppet, because we think it's hilarious. Enjoy!

Cabin Fever

Well, let's see, not much has happened since my last post. We've pretty much been snowed in for the past week after two pretty massive winter blasts. And on top of the storms, it's been sub-zero cold, so we've been spending a lot of time in the house...and I mean a lot. In fact, just a few minutes ago, Louie pointed out that the diaper bag has been sitting in the same spot for about a week & if the diaper bag hasn't moved, well that's just not a good sign. I'm actually a little ashamed to admit that it was just this exact instant that I put together the fact that Josie's been a bit of a handful lately with the realization that this is probably because she's going absolutely stir crazy. Yep, cabin fever at it's best. Thank heavens there's a big thaw in the forecast. We've gotta get out!
Now that I think about it, a couple of things did happen since my last post. For one, I had a birthday. Thanks so much to everyone for the cards, emails, and well wishes. I have such wonderful friends & family. The big blog-worthy birthday news revolves around my new portrait lens that Louie got me. I love it! Hopefully you'll see why in these next two photos. Viola - instant professional photographer...Actually, these aren't the best two photos I've ever taken, but you can see how clean the images are compared to my small digital. I'm really looking forward to taking some more photos soon. I haven't taken many this past week because Josie took a nasty spill off the couch and had some pretty nasty rugburn on her lip and nose. I'll say this now so when we can all look back in 20 years and say I was right - there's a good chance Josie has a future in either Cirque du Soleil or mountain climbing. She's a total daredevil & not afraid of anything. This particular injury took place when she tried to balance on top of a ball while standing on the couch. She also has a new past-time of trying to see what she can balance herself on top of - her favorite is the stacking blocks from grandma & grandaddy.
Here are a couple of other random moments from this past week. Here's Josie playing with her reflection in the trash can (really, why do we bother buying toys). It was hilarious because she just kept pointing and waving to herself and going "Josie...Josie". Actually, that sounds more like "Jo-C" to those of you who haven't heard it yet. So cute. Here's Jo-C reading to a couple of her bears. She is very much into role playing like this - reading to her bears and dolls, dressing them in clothes, putting them in diapers, wrapping them in blankets & patting their backs while saying "night-night". She has such an active imagination and it's so much fun to watch that develop.

Oh - speaking of J's imagination - here's a quick video of her feeding a yummy breakfast of Haba balls to her bear. Just check out how proud she is of herself...

We'll call this next one "Evidence of Cabin Fever". You know you need to get out of the house when you get out the "hair pretties" and start taking pictures of yourselves. Josie thought it was hilarious that we had matching hair & made me show her each picture as soon as I took it. This photo actually predates the big storm, but I had to post it as further evidence of just how much of a girl Josie is. I'm telling you - it's biology. Here she is unpacking the Children's Place bag of all of her new clothes (what a sale!!!). She literally brought me each thing and said "On, On". We had to try on every single bit of clothing - including 4 long sleeve t-shirts that were identical except different colors. She marched around in her new clothes mixing and matching outfits. Thank goodness her shoes were back in her bedroom or I imagine we would've had to match them up to each outfit as well. Seen here is Josie in her first pair of real jeans - pockets and all - which she loves to fill with her favorite things - usually a handful of magnetic letters. Too funny!

Finally, I'll leave you with this video of Josie riding on her elephant. You can get a little hint of her daredevil nature in this video as well. I'm telling you, the child lives on the edge. Never a dull moment....

I'll spare you the video of Josie dipping "oven fries" in ketchup because I doubt you will find it as adorable & hilarious as Louie and I did. I guess it was just one of those moments where we were like, "Man, it seems like she was just breastfeeding yesterday & now she's asking for ketchup for her fries?!?!"

Hope everyone's doing well...