Hot Fun in the Summertime

The "Three Schneiders" have been very busy with lots of summer time activities - trips to the zoo, hanging out with friends downtown, swimming, hiking, taking long walks, and lots more! Here are some highlights from the last week or so. But, before we get started with that, I thought I'd start you off with the "Funny Josie Photos of the Week." Check out her new favorite sleeping position: If you straighten her legs out, she instantly springs back into this position!
I guess there's a reason why this is called "Child's Pose" in yoga! :)

Okay - onto the summertime fun! We want to be sure Josie is comfortable with the water, so we've been trying to take her swimming whenever we can. We're not starting any swim classes or anything right now, but we're trying to get her used to being in the water. Here we are at the Wyoming Pool where we hung out with Carrie, Skylar & Blaine. We had so much fun lounging around and playing games like "Motorboat" in the water.

Note: Josie did not take a nap until 4:30 that day! She was having way too much fun, although you can clearly tell she was exhausted in the photo above. And here she is in her cool new cowgirl sunhat. It really is hysterical.
Over the weekend we went to the pool at our rental property and had the whole thing to ourselves. Here we are hanging out in the pool. (And why I'm putting a photo of myself in a swimsuit on the blog, I'll never know. Maybe I'm trying to get even on Louie's behalf since posting the hula hooping video of him here.)
Our little water baby loved the raft until she figured out how to push it down and get her face into the water. That was a bit of a disaster, but I really feel like that needed to happen in order for her to have a healthy fear of the pool. She recovered quickly & had no problem getting back in the raft after some big hugs from her (very freaked out) mama.
Onto another favorite summertime activity - hiking! Who would've known that we had over 1000 acres of forest just 10 minutes from our house? Now that we've discovered Mt. Airy Forest, there's no excuse for not getting in some quality outdoors time every couple of weeks. These photos are actually from two separate trips. I love this first photo because Louie & Josephine have the exact same look on their faces!

Obviously Josie loves to "hit the trails" with mom & dad.
This is from the other trip to Mt. Airy Forest & I like this picture because it proves that Josie definitely gets those big blue eyes from her Daddy.
Really - a huge tree house less than 15 minutes from our house?! (And grandma will love knowing that the Bengals helped build it.)
Very cool!
Okay - now onto some fun stuff around the house. This is definitely the "check out our big girl" series of photos. As I mentioned before, Josie now drinks from a straw. Bottles are now for storage purposes only (which as you all know she never really loved anyway) and she gets all of her fluids from a sippy cup or cup with a straw. During one of our hikes, Louie & I were drinking from this water bottle & Josie reached for it. I was like "haha Josie, there's no way you can drink from that" and she, in typical Josie fashion, aimed to prove me wrong. Ever since, it's her favorite way to drink - which is hilarious because she can barely lift it when it's full.

Here's another "big girl" story for you. Josie's favorite book is "Charlie Monkey" and Louie reads it to her every night before bed (sometimes several times). The other night Louie wasn't around during bed time (poor thing went to bed before Josie) and I was getting her ready for bed. As I was putting on her pajamas, she crawled over the bookshelf and pulled out every single book until she found "Charlie Monkey." Then she sat down and started "reading" it to herself. Ha -What a smart cookie!
In other "big girl" news - here's Josie with her alligator push toy. She can push it standing up (which I promise to take video of & post soon) but the other day she figured out that she can go much faster if she pushes it on her knees.
Seriously - just leave it to Josie. What a hoot!
And, before we move on to a couple of quick videos. Here's a random photo of Louie with two of his favorite girls on the couch. I'm proud to say that Josie will now only pet animals with her pointer finger if we say "Josie, one finger touch." This little trick came in very handy on Saturday when we went to "Dog Days Downtown."
And now for your viewing pleasure - two short videos. The first one is just funny because it looks like Josie is trying to levitate. We've always known that Josie is part-Tigger. Watch her go!

And, finally, I'll borrow from Jon Stewart again & leave you with this week's "moment of zen". Here's Josie sleeping in her crib with her bottom in the air. The video is dark, but I wasn't about to turn on the light and risk waking her. Enjoy!