Some updates

Well, Josephine is now a 16-month-old, which is just crazy! I can't even tell you where this last month went. As I was updating the Josie's shutterfly collection with all the November photos, http://www.josiemarie.shutterfly.com/ I noticed there were some recent photos to share and some updates on her development these days as well...

First, Josie has turned into a total chatterbox! We just had her 15 month check-up, so we decided to keep track of her newfound vocabulary for "HotDoc". When we actually started keeping track, she was up to over 30 words in one day!!! Even though she does say "Day-Do" for "Thank you" and "Peeez" for "Please", I'm not really counting them as real words unless a stranger knew what she was saying. Some of our favorite Josie words these days are: up, bus, hat, uh-oh, oh-no, wow, home, off/on, help, all done, ball, doll, bear, boots, socks, heart, snow, rain, hat, bath, and more. She also says her body parts when pointing to them now, including knee (which was actually one of her first words), elbow, nose, eyes, and head. She also says names, including Lyla, Andrew, Aoife, and of course Elmo. Really, it's just crazy that she is totally communicating now, including very passionate "No's" to herself when she is doing something she's not supposed to (like going for a bite of cat food) and equally passionate "No's" to us when we suggest say, naptime for example.

Speaking of her 15 month appt, she continues to grow taller and taller. She's now up to 32 inches (that's an inch and a half since September) and she's weighing in at just over 23 pounds (just under a pound gained since September). This puts her in the 92nd percentile for height, 50th percentile for weight, and 25th percentile in weight-for-height. As the doctor puts it, she's "tall and thin but definitely not underweight". Everything looks great and we feel incredibly blessed to have such a happy & healthy little girl!

Here are some photos from the past week or so. I took some great videos today that I will get posted over the weekend, so be sure to check back. :)

This is from our playgroup last week. This is Josie and her little friend Aoife playing at Andrew's house. This was a crazy moment for me because I realized the kids are now playing together! As my mom put it, for a long time our hypnomama group used to get together so the mamas could "play" with each other, and now it's totally about the babies. (Sidenote: we mamas actually left the babies with their daddies last night and had a delicious dinner at Wild Ginger. We stayed well beyond our meal's end just chatting and having fun. I've said it before and I'll say it again; I don't know what I'd do without them!)

Oh, here's another funny moment from the playgroup last week. Ciara got out some yogurt for Aoife and Andrew & Josie immediately wanted to share. This led to Ciara getting three different colored spoons from Ang and feeding the three of them like a mama bird. Hilarious! Here's a very bundled-up Josie heading out in her Cincinnati-December-best. :)

And a photo of Josie very intently watching Lyla videos on http://www.threeaustins.blogspot.com/, I'm not kidding - she actually figured out how to restart the videos and watch them over and over again. I took a video of her doing it, but it's too large to upload here (bummer) so the photo will just have to do.

And here's a photo of what was supposed to be Josie's very first blanket-fort. Turns out, it was Venus' very first blanket-fort, although we did manage to color a few pictures under there before Venus totally freaked out! And, last but not least, a photo of Louie & Josie reading a book before bed the other night. I love moments like these. Josie just loves her daddy so much. I had to laugh when I saw this photo, too. I didn't notice this until I saw the photo, but Lou & Josie are sitting in the same position as the monkey & penguin over their shoulders. :)