Splish, splash (but not in the bath)...

So the playdough was a little bit messy and we were looking for another rainy day activity, so we decided to have a bubble party in the kitchen. Josie was very impressed with Louie's antics, as you can see from these photos and video. Sometimes there's nothing like having some good clean fun...

And, since the three of us were already covered in soap from the kitchen, we decided it was time for Josie's first shower. Every morning she watches either Louie or I from the outside of the glass, but on Saturday she got to step inside to the magical world of the shower herself. Here she is from the inside looking out...

And finally getting brave enough to stick her face in the water...

And, just being adorable in her birthday suit...

Who would've known you could have so much fun playing inside?

Rain, rain, go away...or not

Saturday was one of those days where we started off whining that we were stuck inside, but ended up having so much fun just hanging out together that we decided to just keep on playing once we realized the sun had come out. We decided to watch all of the Josie home movies from birth to her first birthday. So, with that as the backdrop, we kicked off the rainy day festivities with our first experience making homemade playdough (recipe here, super easy & fun). We made a pretty fantastic octopus, had fun making our handprints and footprints, and wrapped things up by making our own playdough slide for little balls to roll down because Josie insisted we make a park. Here are a couple of photos and a quick video of Josie saying "playdough" in the cute little way that only she can...

On the park circuit

Now that the weather is warming up, we're totally on the local park circuit. Big props to Katrina and Stella to introducing us to the joys of Lunken Airport's "Land of Make Believe" where the little ones (and big ones as seen in this first photo) can play on a ton of great equipment while planes and helicopters take off and land nearby. Wow! Josie insisted on doing this zipline - over and over and over - she is truly part monkey...

Here we are enjoying the park at Shawnee Park on a recent trip to Grandma & Granddaddy's house in Xenia. The playground is completely different (and safer) than the one I grew up playing on, but Josie doesn't seem to mind. In typical Josie fashion, here she is pushing the limit, going down the slide with no hands...

And walking like a duck...

And, um, getting ready to take a ride with her "D-D" down a slide that ended up being way too big and way too scary...

Cha,Cha,Cha Changes...

Just for fun I went back to March of '08 for comparison purposes and this time last year, Josie was just starting to eat solid foods, sit up on her own, etc. Remember when she carried around the bag of green beans all day? That was a year ago this month! Anyway, considering it's only been a year since she got her first tooth...it's pretty amazing that these are all the things she can do now. Really, she blows our minds everyday. I can honestly say that I don't know how she learned all of these things, except for to say that her memory is unbelievable and it seems she only has to hear something once to file it away. Here are some of the cognitive developments in the last month:


Josie...
* Recognizes all her capital letters and some lowercase letters
* Says all the letters in order A-Z
* Counts to 10 on her own (although she thinks she can count to 20 but she skips from 12 to 18)
* Knows her shapes - rectangle, square, circle, triangle, star, heart, moon
* Knows all her colors
* Does the hand motions to all the classics - Itsy, Bitsy Spider / Pat-a-cake / Etc
* Sing along with her favorite songs from music class & on CD
* Talks non-stop (especially pointing and naming things - "Blue Bus, Brown Dog, Green Shirt...")
* Strings words together to make sentences ("Josie Do It", "Swing Mama", "Eat Berries")
* Loves drawing/coloring/writing and gets totally occupied with all of her books
* Can identify tons of animals and knows who lives where - i.e. if you ask her what to draw in the fish tank she'll tell you octopus, sea star, fish, crab, and many of the characters from the books she reads like "Pout Pout Fish" for example)
* Calls people she knows by name, including friends, family, etc
* Loves to play games with us like "Hide the bear" and wait for us to find it

Okay, that's all I can think of off the top of my head. In other "developmental news" - check this out - for those of you who have ever been to our condo - get ready to let out a huge "UH-OH!"

That's right loyal readers, Josie can officially push our elevator button on her own. OH NO! (Note for those of you who have never been here, it is in our dining room.) This is - ummm- not good to put it lightly. If ever we needed any more reason to sell this place and get a house, this is it. It's not like Josie is ever unsupervised long enough that she'd get very far before we realized she was missing, but the thought of the elevator door opening and closing on her (because her little body often doesn't trip the trigger to stay open) is terribly frightening! So, everyone send your collective condo-selling-vibes our way.

Giggle, Giggle

Is there anything cuter than a baby's giggle? Actually yes - it's watching your daughter make your niece giggle... Enjoy!

Three Austins + Three Schneiders

I love my sister...a lot. And, over the years I've certainly come to love Michael like a brother. But, come on people, let's be honest here. The reason for this particular trip to Chicago is right here.... Little Lyla Bird is unbelievably sweet, and we found it hard to believe how much she has grown up and changed since Christmas. We had lots of great moments laughing and smiling at our girls over the weekend, and some special moments like this one when I realize that Lyla isn't the only one that has grown up before my eyes...

Like I said in the St. Patty's post, it's always fun to get out and do things together, but when we don't get to see each other very often, the best times are spent just hanging out together and catching up. Here are some photos from Saturday afternoon & Sunday morning.

Josie doing her best pose for the camera (from Lyla's way-too-small-for-her exersaucer, which she was obsessed with and got into and out of herself)...

Louie doing his best pose for the camera...

Manda keeping both Josie and Lyla simultaneously entertained with "Old McDonald" -

Lyla's "huh" face -

Josie's "Huh" face (we see this one a lot these days, she hides things and then goes "huh?" over and over until you find it) -

I love this photo. Josie and Lyla were both on Manda's legs and she was bouncing both of them. I love how Josie is looking so lovingly at Manda while Lyla is looking so lovingly at Josie.

And - man - I just realized there aren't any pictures from the weekend of me and Lyla together. Luckily this one of Lyla with her Uncle Louie is cute enough for the both of us.

Another great weekend in Chicago...luckily there's already another visit with The Austins on the calendar for next month so we don't have to wait too much longer for our next fix.

St. Patty's

It was just a coincidence that we were in Chicago for the annual St. Patrick's Day festivities, but we decided to take full advantage of the opportunity to get the girls out into the city. We started the morning with a brunch at Michelle & Ed's house, whose daughter Savannah was unbelievably sweet when it came to sharing all of her toys, food, etc. What a little sweetie! Here are the kids playing together. So cute! Then, we walked a couple of blocks to the parade. Just check out our crew -

I'll spare you all the details of the total breakdown that occurred between the previous picture and this one. Suffice it to say, it was 2pm our time when we got to the parade, Josie hates her stroller, and Josie hadn't had a nap. Lots of tears later - she finally passed out and here is what Lyla and Josie saw of the St. Patrick's Day parade. (Lyla was in our UppaBaby testing it out & that's Josie's little Uggs poking out from under the MSU blanket.)It wasn't quite as warm as we thought it was, but there were certainly some memorable moments. And, it's always fun to hang out in a different city. And I always enjoy spending time with my sister & Michael's friends. It makes me feel better about them living so far away. I miss my sissy... Here are Louie &I pretending that we weren't about to kill each other over the no-napping-Josie, no-go-with the Moby wrap fiasco. ;)

All in all, it was a great way to spend a sunny Chicago day but boy were we pooped and ready to hang around Chez Austin the rest of the day.

Job Update

Just a quick job update, my hours were reinstated so I am back to 20 hours/week. I still don't have much job security, but I'm definitely thankful. My contract is up at the end of June, so if anyone hears of anything let me know. :)
Also, big congrats to Louie who tried his first case from beginning to end all by himself this week! I'm super proud of him! This is a pretty big deal.

Future artist or barista?

Coming soon (hopefully tonight) I will get the photos and videos posted from our weekend rendez-vous in Chicago with the "Three Austins", but in the meantime, here are a couple of photos I hadn't posted yet from last week. Check out our clever girl finding a new place to keep her crayons...

She's hilarious. Really, every day it is something new. I'll post an update of her recent milestones, because she blows our mind everyday. Quick story - she's talking up a storm now and we can't believe what words just pop out that we didn't even realize she knew - like yesterday on my afternoon coffee run. No joke - I wheeled her in for my daily fix and she looked up and said "Starbucks" clear as a bell. We all had a good laugh about that one.

Here's a cute photo of Josie on her Magnadoodle. She loves writing, drawing, and coloring. And I love the way that she focuses so intently on what she's doing, as this photo shows.

19 months, really?

Well, I'll admit...I didn't even put together that Josie hit the 19th month mark until I just saw on "Three Austins" that Lyla is now five months! Among other things...YIKES...we totally never scheduled her 18 month appt. Oh goodness, must go call the doc. And of course go wish Josie a "Happy 19 Months"!

ROAR!!!

Well, it was a $10 gamble...Either Josie would totally freak out and flee, costing me ten bucks in ten seconds OR she would get into the new DINOSAURS UNEARTHED exhibit at the Museum Center and we'd have a memorable afternoon. Fortunately it was the latter. I'm posting all three videos that I shot because I think they'll give you the best overview of our afternoon. She had a blast and made quite a lot of friends with the other people in exhibit. I actually had NO idea that the darn things would be this huge and quite frankly, this scary, but Josie took it all in and had a blast. There are a couple of great moments in these videos where you can see she overcomes her fears. I love my fearless little girl. Enjoy!

My monkeys

Our little monkey has officially mastered the monkey bars...

I wonder where she gets it? The park is even more fun now that she actively plays on all of the equipment.

I was floored when she wanted to go down this tube-slide. She's just such a big girl!

Here she is running up to total strangers after shooting out the bottom yelling "slide, slide"...

Can you tell she's having fun?
One last shot before heading home for dinner after a perfect day in the city...

Bye-Bye "Brrr"...

On a daily basis, Josie wants to look out of our front windows over-looking the city. Whenever you say "outside" she instantly says "Brrrr". Poor thing; I think she had forgotten what warm weather was like. Thankfully we got our first taste of Spring on Saturday with 70-plus temps. We had an awesome weekend! (Much needed after a major hit that came on Thursday with a 50% reduction in my work hours - yikes!) Anyway, here are some photos from this season's first trip to the zoo. We couldn't believe the difference between the last time we were there in the fall and this time. What used to be mostly pushing Josie around in her stroller has definitely turned into chasing her around from exhibit to exhibit while she points at, names, and blows kisses at all the animals. Enjoy!

My two favorite people in the whole world...Josie getting as close as she could to the bongos...Josie refusing to turn her head for even a second to pose for a photo because she was obsessed with going "Mahhhh, Mahhhh" at the "sheeps". Incidentally, this was just moments before I realized she was also chewing on the feed-covered fence. Yuck!A weary Josie ready to be carried on her dad's shoulders....Josie cracking herself up in the backseat on the way home. For no reason and totally unprovoked, she just started shouting "Happy Birthday" over and over again. My birthday was over a month ago, and we were just amazed and laughing hysterically at the fact that his resurfaced out of nowhere.

Our little dance machine

Over the weekend we went to Kalie's dance competition (daughter of our looong time family friends). It was a blast! And, it was crazy to see Kalie all grown-up, since I remember when she was just Josie's age. Here are some photos and videos from what Josie called the "Dance Party".

BEFORE....
DURING.....

AFTER....

Videos!

I remembered to take my camera with video to the Children's Museum last week, so I can share our big girl on the slide with all of you.

Here's another one of Josie cracking us up wearing Louie's shoes. (Sidebar: Cat, pretty funny that Ronan was partying in your Uggs recently and now Josie is sporting her dad's kicks.)

Here are some photos that Grandma shot yesterday. She came down to Cincy to fill in for Carissa who is spending her week in Cancun (poor thing). Josie had a blast with my mom, as you can see from these photos of her hamming it up for the camera.

That last one is the end of a wink. ;)

COMING SOON>>> VIDEO OF JOSIE BREAKIN' IT DOWN AT KALIE'S DANCE COMPETITION OVER THE WEEKEND. Trust me; it's worth the wait...

On a final note, thank you so much to everyone for the outpouring of support for Three Schneiders & Three Austins over the last week or so. These tough times have been made much easier with all the love from our friends and family.

I promise to get some of the recent silly videos of Josie posted very soon. In the meantime, I've updated her Shutterfly collection with the January and February albums. Enjoy! www.josiemarie.shutterfly.com