Playing Dress-up

This weekend was all about playing dress-up, beginning with Halloween on Friday. Here is our Busy Little Bee:

Our friends Erik & Kim invited us to hang out with them & borrow their neighborhood for Trick-or-Treat since not much of that goes on around our condo. It also worked out perfectly because they live in Old Milford where many of my former students live, so I got to see some of my very-grown-up little ones (who are now 7th graders & I had them as 2nd graders). Josie is too young for candy (and don't even get us started on the peanut allergy & Halloween) but she enjoyed a picnic of peas and turkey in the front yard while all the kids came up to get candy.
I thought I'd include a short video of her in her costume as well, because there's something more fun about seeing her buzz around in it than just seeing the photos. We'll call this one "the barking bee" because she was too busy "woof, woofing" at Kim & Erik's dog to bother learning how to actually "buzz".



And - before I go on to other dress-up festivities from this weekend - BIG PROPS to our friends & neighbors Chris and Nicki who actually bought this bee costume for Josie. All we had to do was add our own wings and body suit and voila! It was SO sweet of them to pick it up for Josie when they saw it at the Thrift Store and knew we didn't have a costume yet. We have such great friends!



In other dress-up news - here is Josie's new snowsuit. She looks a little bit like Barney in it, but she's so adorable. Actually, if you think this one makes her look like like your favorite big purple dinosaur, you should've seen her in the 24 month size. This one is actually 18 months - we took it and exchanged it for a 24 month - brought that home to try on & then took it back and swapped it for this one again. I can't wait to take her out to run around in the snow!
Totally unrelated to the snowsuit, here is Josie saying one of her favorite new words - "Up!" Her vocabulary is really taking off. She also said "Go" tonight. The whole "Up" thing is so cute. She's been using sign language to communicate her wants/needs for a couple of months now, but there's just something so sweet about her walking over to me, tugging on my leg and saying "Up." See for yourself... :)



In the most exciting dress-up news from the weekend (according to Josie) - we went shoe shopping!!! I promise that Louie & I started with the best of intentions to get Josie her first pair of totally sensible, practical big-girl shoes but this is what the three of us agreed on. Ladies and Gentlemen, meet Josie's new kitty boots....


Here is Josie wearing her new kitty boots... (insert your own "Meeooowww") Here is a photo of just how happy Josie's new kitty boots make her...
And here is a video of Josie dancing with her new boots, which she either wore, carried, or spun around with for several hours over the weekend. She really does love them & if we would've let her, I'm sure she would've slept with them too.



Here she is just before bathtime in nothing but her diaper and boots. Clearly, she was quite pleased with herself and I think she's perfectly adorable in all three of these photos so I had to share all of them with you.

Holy Molars! (and More)

First, let me explain that subject line. Just when I almost had myself fooled that Josie was still counted as my "baby," she went and sprouted to great big giant MOLARS! What? There's no looking back now - I've got a KID on my hands (although we will call her "Baby Josie" until she begs us to stop).

Okay, now to catch you up on the past week. First and foremost, I GOT TO SEE BABY LYLA AGAIN! Here are proud mommy Manda, Lyla and I...
My mom spent the week with the "Three Austins" to help them out & my daddy-o graciously offered to swing by Cincy to pick me up so I could ride with him to Chicago to pick up my mom (did you follow that). Anyway, it was a very short trip - right about 24 hours - but well worth it for the view alone - Friday night also went down as my second night away from Josephine since she stayed home with her daddy instead of making the road trip. Just to note: my first night away from her was the night my sister was in labor. It's amazing how much I miss Louie & Josie even when I'm just away for a day.

Back in Cincy Saturday night and a fun week around the house. Here are some fun moments from the week...

Josie getting cozy in a new seat she found (the rice drawer in our pantry)...

Josie striking her best pose in her fun poncho from her Great-Uncle Denny and cousins Sam & Katie in England (and of course her rainbow legwarmers from last year)...

Josie carrying the diaper bag around the house (all morning long)...

And now for some videos!

Here is Josie creating her first masterpiece with the cool crayons that her little friend Maya got her for her first birthday. She had so much fun doing this that we've created more drawings every day since this one...

Here is a video of our big girl Josie feeding herself Oatmeal with a spoon. Of course she got tired of the whole spoon thing about the same time I grabbed the camera, but that just makes it even more funny if you ask me...

And finally, here are some of Josie's favorite animal noises. You'll have to trust me that there is usually a bigger difference between the sounds, but she had a mouthful of oatmeal and I just filmed it "on the fly" because she normally won't do it for the camera at all. Enjoy...

Please read

We would really appreciate if each of you would please take the time to read this blog entry from a parent of a child with a severe peanut allergy like Josephine. It's a bit long, but well worth every word. I feel like it perfectly captures our situation. Thank you.
http://rocksinmydryer.typepad.com/shannon/2008/10/what-id-like--4.html

A day at the museum

When the temps dip below 50 degrees, options like the zoo and the park quickly slip off the list of possibilities for playtime. So, today I took Josie on her first trip to Cincy's Children's Museum which is less than 2 miles from our condo. We met our friends Krista & Milo and we all had a blast! We headed there for the new interactive Clifford exhibit, but never made it because we had too much fun in the regular Children's Museum. Thankfully we went ahead and bought a family pass & will definitely be making this a regular (if not weekly) part of our rotation.

First things first, here is a video from when we first arrived. We were hanging out in the "ball room" and Josie just kept looking around and saying "Wow!" She was very impressed!

Here are some other highlights from the day...

Driving the tractor:

Hanging out on the farm:
Playing in the sand: Climbing the stairs (again and again and again):

Playing "store":

Pushing a doll around:Picking out the best produce:
Taking a stalk of asparagus for a ride:

And I'll leave you with the best part of our first day at the Museum - the grocery store! It's just so amazing that these little ones are such little "sponges," soaking up the world around them. Josie and Milo did this on their own. We didn't show them what to do. I guess Josie's had enough trips to Whole Foods to know what she's doing. Seriously, How cute are these two together?

Josie Update

Well, I know it's been awhile since the last Josie update. Things have been busy with the latest addition to the family (see http://www.threeaustins.blogspot.com/ for more photos), some big projects at work, and with the decision to put our condo on the market and start looking for a new place to live. (We totally underestimated how much work it is to get a place ready to sell and to find somewhere new.)

But, amid the sea of chaos around here, Josie cracking us up has been the only constant. The new thing this week is "helping" around the house. I'm not kidding. This was totally unprovoked and if you would've asked me before this happen if she'd ever seen me unload laundry, I would've said no. But, apparently she picked this up somewhere.

She literally walked into the laundry room, opened the dryer door, and started pulling her clothes out and putting them into the laundry basket. I watched her do this for about 10 minutes and took three separate videos, but all three of them are too big for the blog so you'll just have to use your imagination. When you're envisioning the whole scenario, be sure to take into account that she also paused to try to dress herself and got really excited about finding socks (probably because of their close relationship with shoes).

The next day, she decided to help Louie load the dishwasher. She loves opening and closing the dishwasher door, so we've learned quickly to keep the knives in the back.

So in addition to doing laundry and dishes, she has also begun making her own homemade applesauce, which we find in piles throughout the house.

Step One: Take the biggest bite of apple humanly possible. Then repeat (but don't swallow the first bite). The repeat (still remembering not to swallow). Then repeat. Once your cheeks are stuffed like chipmunks, move on to Step Two.

Step Two: Walk up to your mom, say "AHHHH" and show her all the crushed up apple chunks in your mouth.
Step Three & Four are unclear, but somehow involve removing the homemade applesauce and smearing it on the furniture.

In other exciting news, we bumped into Sarah Palin the other day on the way to the parking garage. She was in town for a speech and was spending the night at the Westin that backs up to our condo. Here are Josie and I posing in front of the McCain/Palin tour bus, looking a bit skeptical about the whole "Straight Talk Express" thing.

We decided to stick around to see her. Turns out she's more pretty (but just as unqualified) in person.

In other news, we had another wedding this week. Our friends Natalie & Dennis got married and we were there to celebrate the big day which was 14 years in the making! It was a gorgeous evening on the river in Milford. Here are Josie and I being silly. Oddly, out of all the photos I've ever seen of Josie, I think she looks the most like me in this one. One last, "that silly Josie" photo for you before I tackle my overflowing inbox. We were desperately in need of new laundry hampers, but we were fooled by ebay and ended up with two hampers that were much smaller than we anticipated. But, leave it to Josie to turn lemons into lemonade. Here she is watching Thomas the Tank Engine at about 6am on Sunday morning.
Here are some updates on Josie developmentally (now that she is 14 months old)!

• She can now sign about twenty words in the proper context (new ones include cheese, horse, flower, car, frog, and giraffe).
• She now says "hi" at appropriate times (and whenever she sees another baby or child).
• She blows kisses.
• She purposefully gives hugs and kisses (my new favorite - nothing sweeter than when she comes bouncing across the room with her lips puckered and arms open for a big hug).
• When asked, she will tell you what all the following animals say: dog, cat, cow, sheep, horse, monkey.

Oh, and in BIG news - Josie is officially weaned. This is unbelievably bittersweet. Today marks one week since her last mama's milk. I'm very proud that we made it to 14 months and that she led the weaning process, which happened very gradually and at her own pace. Not that any of you all care about the last time Josie breastfed, but this blog serves as our family record as well, so I want to just say that our last time was really special. It was our favorite kind of nursing - during a nap. She was all curled up with me in her tie-dyed onesie and we both drifted off to sleep together one afternoon. I'm glad I had no idea at the time that it would be our last one, because I know I would've laid there crying about how fast she had grown up. But, it was time and we were both ready. Another milestone crossed for little Josephine...

Josie has a new cousin!!!

HOORAY - BABY AUSTIN HAS ARRIVED!!!

On Sunday at 7:28am, Baby GIRL Austin came into the world!

LYLA ANNE AUSTIN
8 lbs. 5 oz.
20 inches

I have never been so proud of my little sister who putting everything she had into birthing her daughter. (Although my favorite moment of Amanda's labor was Lyla's birth, a close second was watching Amanda do her "fantasy football" picks between contractions.)

I'm sure Amanda & Michael's blog will be updated soon with more details but suffice it to say that they are VERY happy to now be home with a happy, healthy, and BEAUTIFUL baby girl. Stay tuned to www.threeaustins.blogspot.com

You can see the beautiful photos taken at the hospital by visiting:
www.bellababyphotography.com
-click on "website"
-click on "client"
-enter password "0556austin"
-get ready to "ooh and ahh"

New England Nuptials

On Thursday, we headed to Rhode Island for a wedding! Lou's best friend Jeremy (who has always been known to us as "Chow" and will be known to you as "Chow" for the remainder of this post) got married to Ashley - one of the sweetest, most generous and kind, and not to mention beautiful girls we've ever met. They were SO kind to open their home to us so we didn't have to get a hotel (can you imagine have a houseful of people leading up to your wedding day) and they were unbelievable hosts. Seriously, we cannot thank them enough for everything - starting with four big beautiful lobsters for dinner when we arrived. (Did I mention Chow is a chef? So we were basically at our own private Bed & Breakfast!) Anyway, here is Josie meeting her dinner, which was unbelievably delicious and totally fun to eat. (And our little foodie officially enjoys lobster.) On Friday morning, we headed to the beach so that Josie could dip her little toes into the Atlantic like she did in the Pacific all those months ago in Cali.

Moments like these - hanging out on the beach in the morning with a light breeze and big sunshine totally make me question why on earth we live in Cincinnati. It was gorgeous and peaceful and perfect.

And, Chow even caught this big bluefish on his second cast out into the water.
Josie was very impressed. I know she would've eaten him, too but since Chow had a wedding and all, he didn't have time for smoking a bluefish, so we tossed it back and watched it swim away instead.

I love Chow. And, Louie does too. He's such a great guy and was also the best man in Lou's wedding. (And, to further prove my point that he's going to be a great husband - he actually called and left me a "Happy Mother's Day" message on my first mother's day. Too sweet!)
Here are some more beach photos, because you can't have enough beach photos. And here is a quick video of our little "Danger Dog" who - like I say in this video - totally "lives on the edge". She is not afraid of anything! And, just seconds after this video ended, she slipped out of Lou's grip and ran straight for the waves. (Hawaii is going to be very interesting indeed.)

Have you ever seen a more beautiful place for a swingset?
Here she is getting a big kiss and a big face full of New England sunshine!
And a swing ride with Mama because I couldn't resist a swingset with an ocean view either. :)
On to the wedding! :)
The rehearsal and dinner were on Friday. Josie spent the entire rehearsal running around the church, across the aisles and climbing the pews. Needless to say, I was a little nervous for the actual wedding after this little performance at the rehearsal. She actually did very well during the real thing, which I'll get to next. (Oh - and BTW - I'm obsessed with stripes, as evidenced by Josie's outfit pictured here.)
The wedding was at this perfect litttle white chapel on the top of a big green hill above the water. As we were pulling up to it, I said to Louie "I hope it's a little white New England church I'm picturing in my head." And it totally was!
The ceremony was so beautiful. Chow's dad performed the service (and became an officiant just for this event) and they wrote their own vows. It was so touching and there wasn't a dry eye in the house. Josie was perfect. Although, as I took the camera out to snap this one photo, I heard giggling in the row behind me and then looked over to find Josie helping herself to a banana - peel and all! Totally yucky, but worth the laugh in the end.
After the wedding, we headed to a beachhouse for photos. We tried and tried to get a good photo taken of us all dolled-up in our wedding best, but Josie had other plans, mostly revolving around getting her tights dirty (that a girl) and climbing stairs.

We'll call this photo "The Reason People Live in Rhode Island"... How beautiful!
On to the reception. The food was incredible!!! Josie, although she enjoyed a few bites of the good stuff, had to get started early on a meal of chicken nuggets and tater tots. This video is here for three reasons. 1) She ate so much chicken over the weekend that she mastered the sign for "chicken"; 2) She dances at the end which I'll say more about in a minute; 3) I don't ever want to forget what happened right before I got the camera out which was really cute and funny. [Chow and Ashley danced to Wilco's "California Stars" for their first dance. Josie was sitting eating and kept stopping to pat her head. I couldn't figure out what on earth she was doing - then I realized what song was on - "I'd like to rest my heavy HEAD tonight on a bed of California Stars..." So, chalk this up as evidence that she totally pays attention to whatever is going on in the background. Too funny.] Of course she stopped doing the head thing as I got the camera out, but here it is anyway.

After she ate her dinner and played for awhile in her high chair while we feasted, she got really fussy so we figured it was sadly about time for us to go home. We decided to start saying our goodbyes since a meltdown was imminent. But, a strange thing happened when we neared the dancefloor. She totally hit a second wind and demanded that I put her down. What happened next was one of my favorite Josie moments so far. During the Jackson 5's "ABC", Josie starting dancing and clapping and giggling and didn't let up for the next hour. She literally stood in the middle of a dance floor of partying adults and teenagers and completely "got down". We didn't have our camera with us, and to be honest, were having so much fun that we didn't want to stop to go get it. But, lots of other people took pictures of her & I'll post those when I get them.

Here is a photo of Louie & Josie dancing just before we left...

And here is Josie passed out in the backseat of the car before we even got out of the parking lot!
All in all, it was a fantastic weekend. Congratulations to Mr. and Mrs. Ewing-Chow and thanks so much for everything!

On one final note, here is Josie when we got home on Sunday night. Her special treat for being such a good girl for the weekend was as many blueberries as she wanted. And I am not kidding - she almost ate one full pound of them!!!!! Her stomach was hard as a rock and she was stained purple from head to toe. Clearly she is enjoying herself. :)
On to Hawaii in a few weeks...

First and foremost - HAPPY BIRTHDAY LOUIE!!!! I'll admit that we didn't get much celebrating in yesterday, but this weekend in Rhode Island (actually we leave in a couple of hours) will undoubtedly bring lots of good times!

Here is Josie enjoying the "Thomas the Tank Engine" card that she hand-picked for her daddy:

And, I'll leave you with this video of our smart little cookie, who is now quite adept at following directions. Thanks to Carissa who has been working on this with her. :)

Oh, in other Josie news:

• She has just gotten her 8th tooth (which means she is now even with four on the top and four on the bottom).


• She has pretty much weaned herself from nursing and is down to just one mama-milk-meal a day (breakfast).


• She now knows the sign language for "help" & uses it frequently and in the proper context.


• She says "uh-oh" and "hi".


• She is positively obsessed with shoes! (Case in point - the fact that I had to literally pry her little fingers off of a pair of pink sparkly Mary Janes that she helped herself to at Children's Place. At one point she had at least 6 pairs of them in her stroller. I took me no less than a half-hour to distract her enough with other diversions sufficient enough for her to give them up.) Hilarious!

We'll be back Sunday night so I'll be sure to check in early next week! :)

Some family time

This past week was stressful - to say the least - so it was nice just to have the weekend to hang out together and take a couple of deep breaths. Louie, Josie & I hung out together all weekend - starting with our regular trip to Findlay Market on Saturday morning. After lunchtime and naptime, we headed out to the Kenwood Mall to put a dent in Josie's fall wardrobe needs. (Oddly enough, you would never know that our country was allegedly poised on brink of economic failure because the mall was packed!) Here's a shot of Josie in her stroller, which I'm including because she looks like such a girl (and not a baby) in the picture. It's also funny because she had her mouth packed with cheddar-bunny crackers like a little squirrel.On Sunday after our weekly grocery store trip (and learning that you shave about an hour off the trip by hitting Whole Foods by 10am), we came home for family naptime (because forget about the Bengals) and then headed to the park at Sawyer Point this afternoon. The park has always been fun, but now that Josie is walking around, it's even better. Here she is toddling...

On to the big metal tubeslide (that she used as a giant drum in a photo a couple of weeks ago). Today, she got very curious & wanted to go down it (head first of course), and since Daddy was waiting at the bottom, we let her go for it.
But, leave it to Josie to have fun with good ole' fashioned nature. Slides and swings are great, but dancing with and chasing your shadow is the best!
Seriously, how cute is that!?

And, I'll leave you with a photo of Josie picking the grass. This is the same field where I took the picture of Josie and Louie exploring the grass at the Earth Day celebration back in April. She's grown up so much since then. :)

Allergy Test Results

The trip to the allergist yesterday confirmed that Josie has a severe allergy to peanuts and allergies to other nuts (although markedly less severe). We were glad that she only had to have twelve tests since we knew she was okay with milk, eggs, and some other common allergens. Poor little thing definitely cried, but they let me hold her so once they finished with the actual scratching, I was able to nurse her and she calmed right down. She was actually quite cheery during the 15 minute wait to read the reactions. They even had a TV set up next to her with a tape of Tweety Bird playing. All in all, it was frightening for all of us, but Josie was so brave.

It's easy to tell below which one was the peanut test. She scored at 4+ on a scale of 1-4 regarding the severity based on this reaction. Perhaps the scariest thing is that this is with a serum that is only a small fraction of the actual strength of the peanut protein. (I believe he said it was 1/32 strength.) So, obviously letting Josie come into contact with an actual peanut or peanut butter would mean real trouble.

Really, it is such a blessing in disguise that we now know this about Josie so we can do everything we need to do to keep her safe. Obviously we'll be having follow-up conversations with friends/family about the changes we will all need to make to protect her. We are also going to go ahead and do the blood test so that we can have a number to track each year. The doctor was hopeful that by the time she is a teenager (and if her exposure to peanuts between now and then is nill) that she could even outgrow the allergy! :) Thanks for the outpouring of support over the past week. Love you all!

Peanut Allergy Update

Yesterday afternoon we met with the allergist and came up with an action plan re: Josephine's (obvious to him) peanut allergy. Since she had Benadryl on Saturday, we had to wait until today to do the skin test for peanuts and other common allergens. I believe I mentioned that they were going to do blood tests, but after talking with him we decided to go ahead with the skin patch test which will give us instant results. (Since we are flying to Rhode Island one week from today, we would likely not have had the test results back before the flight where we will need a letter from the allergist to give to the flight crew re: her peanut allergy and in order for us to travel with epi-pens.) We learned A LOT yesterday and will undoubtedly learn a lot more today. Thanks for everyone who has emailed to check on Josie today. Please keep our little sweetie in your hearts today as she is going to have to undergo some pretty uncomfortable stuff at 4:30. (They will be pricking her back with various allergens to wait for a reaction. I'm absolutely ill over the thought of putting Josie through this, but it is very important for us to know the severity of allergy in order to move forward appropriately.)

THANKS!

Thank you to everyone for your kind words, support, and suggestions as we work to figure out all of this peanut allergy stuff. We have her appt with the allergist tomorrow afternoon & I will update everyone after that. Big Hugs, Your Three Schneiders