FYI: I know I'm a little behind, but it was a busy summer. I just got Josie's Shutterfly collection updated for August.  Check out all 400+ photos (including her second birthday) at www.josiemarie.shutterfly.com !

Halloween @ The Aquarium

So the combination of Josie's serious peanut allergy and our lack of a trick-or-treating kinda neighborhood means that we must seek out alternate ways to celebrate Halloween. Today we started by visiting the Aquarium.  They have a lot of Halloween-themed activities and even set up a little pumpkin patch. Here are some photos from today's trip - which I should mention - also happened because we had two showings on our condo.  That's right, it's still for sale. But, it won't be for long! We've decided that if it doesn't sell by the end of our contract (in two weeks), we are taking it off the market and seeking out renters. So, one way or another, we will get our house...and our yard...and our neighborhood...and friends who will come to play because they don't have to pay for parking...and leafpiles...and snowmen...and all that we are dreaming of.  Now, back to the aquarium. 
Sure, there was a little "yea, yea, yea - I've seen the otters before..." but mostly she was all smiles (with a few yawns).

 

It's great because Josie discovers something new everytime we go. This time, it was the jellyfish that piqued her interest.

 

 

 

As you can see, after a trip to the bookstore, Josie was wiped out. I love this photo - Louie & Josie on the bench waiting for the bus to take us all back over the river, enjoying a good book after a great morning. What a nice way to kickoff a week of Halloween!

The Cow Dance?

We captured this little gem just before bedtime - no music playing,
Josie just felt like dancing. Enjoy!

Happy Birthday LylaBird!

Lyla's birthday started off with the reality of weather in Chicago - wind and hail. Here is Josie trying to figure out why there is ice falling from the sky.

Luckily, the weather cooperated and the sun came out in fullforce in time to celebrate LylaBird's big day! Here she is looking absolutely gorgeous in her big first birthday attire (and standing up like a big girl).

Please be sure to check out www.threeaustins.blogspot.com for all the details, but there were a few I just had to share - like these - of Lyla enjoying (and sharing) her birthday cupcake.

You also need to scroll down to check out the video on Amanda's blog after Lyla had her first cupcake. It is hilarious what sugar does to these little ones. Here is Josie enjoying the first of two cupcakes. Boy was she excited! 

And this is just after the second cupcake. She is literally swinging from my scarf going "weeeee"!

Here we are getting in some good cuddles with Lyla - and me trying to imagine what it would be like having two toddlers (and what it was like for my mom). 

 

Even more fun happened once we all got outside to play. Here's some fun from the big park we had for the party.

 

 

And these are my favorite. Josie loves her "Ti-OOO" so much and just follows him around everywhere. It was very sweet of Tio to take some time out of his little one's bday party to play on this big serpent with Josie. As you can see, she had the time of her life!

 

 

 

What would it be without a couple of family photos?

(Josie wouldn't get her finger out of her nose, so we decided we should all just go for it. She was actually laughing so hard in that first picture because I had just pulled her hand out of her nose for the 10th time.)

 

These are some other photos from the weekend in Chicago that I had to share. Here are Lyla & Louie at dinner.

 

(This is Lyla's new expression which we all think is adorable. And hilarious.)

 

And finally, here are Josie & Lyla in the crib reading together.  Notice that they each have a pacifier in their mouth and one in their hand. Josie really wanted to sleep in Lyla's crib with her at night - but she settled for an air mattress on her floor.  That's right, our girls officially had their first slumber party.

 

All-in-all, it's hard to believe that Lyla is ONE, Josie is TWO, and my sister and I are...well...let's just say adults.  Thanks to "Tia & Tio" for letting Josie help to unwrap presents and for letting us invade your house on a busy weekend. Happy Birthday Lyla! XOXOXO!

Josie's World

These are just a few scenes that I captured over the past week or so that give us all a little peek into "Josie's World." Things like this always make me giggle, so I hope you find the humor in them too.

This is Baby Stella - taking a nap - face down (because that's how Josie sleeps)...

Here are the dolls later - sleeping with their markers - for whatever reason.

 Here is Josie with one of her many lines of toys. She lined them up littlest to biggest while Lou & I were watching football then stood at the end (because she's the biggest of them all). As you can see, she was very proud.

This is Josie's latest facial expression. We have no idea where it came from or how it started, but she makes this face all the time.

Here we find Josie situated on a stool with her milk waiting for the banana muffins to finish cooking.  Now that's patience.

And this is Josie's "what big eyes you have" face which begs the question - how will I ever say "no" to these big baby blues?

With this post, I think we're officially caught up on everything that happened before we went to Chicago for Lyla's birthday. I hope to have highlights of that weekend posted soon! :)

Z-O-O

Well, it happened. Today Josie went over to her easel and pulled out some letters and spelled her favorite word. She plays with the letters on it all the time (and as you can also her magnet of little baby Isla and President Obama), but today she surprised me by saying "Mommy, I spelled Zoo." Honestly, I didn't exactly run over their to see it because I was talking to my mom on the phone and I figured it was just a "z" or an "o" or two. But, would you believe I walked over there and this is what I found? Wow. She really did spell zoo.

Real Leaves!

Biggest...Leafpile...Ever!  What a big surprise it was to arrive at "Grandma Fifi" and "Grandpa Bop's" house to find an enormous pile of *real* leaves to jump and play in.  Josie spent about 3 seconds on the front porch and then ran screaming "come on" all the way to the pile.  This is the fun that followed. Enjoy!

A quickie

We have a lot of catching up to do after a fabulous weekend in Chicago celebrating Lylabird's FIRST birthday. Keep an eye on www.threeaustins.blogspot.com for the details.  In the meantime, here's a quick photo to hold you over.  This is Josie just before she went on a coffee run to Starbucks with her dad and Baby Stella. She pushed her little stroller all the way down the street and back.  LOL!

20,000!

Wow. Really. Wow. That's all I can say. Wow. I just noticed that we have 20,000 hits on our blog. Thank you everyone. Hugs, Your Three Schneiders

"Look what I can do"

If you've ever watched MadTV and had the pleasure of laughing your buns off at "Stewart" then you know what I mean when I say "Look what I can do".  While Josie doesn't actually say this (yet, wink) - I gotta say I've thought it many, many, many times.

Here are some of Josie's new "skills":

• She can spell her name.
• She recognizes all the uppercase & lowercase letters.
  
• She knows about half of the sounds that the letters make (because at some point it occurred to me that if a toddler can remember that a cow says "moo" they should be able to remember that a b says "buh").
• She can count to 20.
• She recognizes a bunch of words. (The first word she recognized was "zoo".  She started pointing it out in books to us.  Then, when she looked at the word "school" and said "two o's just like "zoo" we decided it wasn't a fluke. So, since then we've been teaching her to read lots of other words - like cat, dog, mommy, daddy, etc and short words like up, to, etc. She also recognizes her name.)
• She speaks in complete sentences and puts sentences together to tell "stories" and recall events. She also asks lots of questions.  For example... "Mama, what was that noise yesterday in my room"?  ("What noise?") "It was loud, then the lights came on and the fireman was coming. And daddy opened the window to let the smoke out...." ("Oh! That was called a fire alarm.")  Sidebar: Yea - we set off the fire alarm. Oops.
• She can put on her own shoes and socks. She can also put on her own pants and shirts - as long as putting them on backwards counts. 
• She has spent the past several days wearing panties. And to borrow from my friend Ali, I'd say we're still in the "potty practice" phase and not yet "potty training."  We've had some big successes and a few setbacks, but we're getting there. Like most other things, we're letting her lead the way. It takes a little longer when you don't use stickers, candy, etc. but years of experience teaching second graders taught me lots of valuable lessons about the negative side of using rewards.
  
• She loves lining things up, sorting, etc.  For example, she lines up her toys in long lines from smallest to biggest, groups similar things into piles, etc. 
• She sings constantly. My favorite is when she randomly busts out songs from the Musikgarten classes she took as an infant (seriously, how does she remember them) and when she enthusiastically belts out Bob Marley or Toots & the Maytals lyrics. ;)
• She is starting to draw, color, and paint with more intention and precision. She doesn't just scribble randomly anymore. She can draw clear circles and attempts other shapes, animals, etc.
• She has a very active imagination and has started to play more by herself putting her imagination to work. This usually involves her dolls and/or her dollhouse but using other things, too.
• While her toddler-negotiation skills are definitely in full working order (i.e. "But I do want to eat a lollipop, right now"), we're pleased to report that she is a lovely, patient, calm two-year old 99% of the time.  She's very good at communicating what she wants and needs, which definitely helps. At the risk of totally jinxing myself, we're officially two months into two-years old without a single tantrum.
  

In other news, we have decided to pull her out of school for awhile. The combination of 6 hours a week in the car to get her there back plus week six of an ear infection that needs to heal to prevent getting tubes plus Carissa's soccer season ending so she has full availability again plus me taking on a second job doing adjunct work for UC again and then getting bumped up to full-time at my research consulting job equals Josie back with Carissa full-time.  It was not an easy decision (are any of them easy), but we are confident it is the right decision for our family.

More around Casa de Schneider

Here are some photos from around the house this week.  These are from the "slumber party cake" that Josie wanted to take when she spent the night at Carissa's house. Problem is, she came down with another fever so the slumber party got canceled.  We were still able to go out to dinner for Lou's birthday, but Josie - and the cake - stayed at home. I should say, Josie was the one who initiated the cake.  When I told her she was going to have a "slumber party" - she said "I want a cake with a heart."  (Because every party warrants a cake, right?) That later turned into a cake with a star - which later turned into a cake with shooting stars - as you will see below.

 

Josie adds milk from her cup to the batter -

 

 And we wonder why the cake didn't turn out "just right" -

 

 Josie adding more ingredients with Lou -

 

 The shooting star cake -

Napping Josie and happy Mama -

 Josie "meditating". Seriously, she climbed up on the stack of pillows - Ohm...

 

 This is Josie's "gallery" down the hallway.  It's where we display all the masterpieces she turns out.  It's so cute because when she makes something she's proud of, she says "Go put it on my gallery...."

 

This is just one of those "you know you're living with a toddler if"  photos.  It's two frogs and a sock monster toy asleep under a washcloth on Josie's floor - right where she left them. :)

 

Here is Josie with her dolls  - and her purse -

 

 

And finally - her favorite little guy - Billy Goat, dressed in playdoh - because why not? (You should see him in his beach attire.)

Finally - I'll leave you with a piece of exciting news. 

Josie has a new uncle.  Her Aunt Paula (Lou's sister) got married over the weekend. 

Welcome to the family Uncle Mark! :)