Quick quotes

Josie to Venus as she chased her around the house..."Hey Venus, Let me smooch ya!"

Josie to us from inside the McDonald's Playplace when we had to stop there for a roadtrip break..."Well how cool is this?!"

That's a wrap, October.

Well, another month has come and gone. Here are the last photos of October 2009.  Enjoy!

Josie is increasingly opinionated about what she wears.  Here she is with Carissa after helping to pick out her clothes. The last picture with the really wide mouth is her response to "Smile big Josie."  Gotta love it!

This is the other night. I told her she could wear whatever she wanted to dinner at Dewey's and here is the outfit she put together (she's kinda obsessed with tights at the moment). I love her "Punky Brewster" sense of style - right down to the rainbow hair barrettes. 

The more colors the better! ;)

 

Welcome to November! Boy did we start it off with a bang. Last night about 10pm we returned home from one of the most perfect weekends on record after spending the weekend visiting good friends in Madison, Wisconsin.  I promise that seeing those photos are going to be worth the wait. And I do hope to start getting them up tonight!  Until then...

Forgot to mention...

Another quote...

Josie to my parents from behind the wheel of her DD's 54 Chevy: "I'm driving to see Lylabird!"

And, I can't believe I failed to mention that Josie has created an alter-ego.  She regularly & enthusiastically refers to herself as...brace yourself..."Ruby!"  My personal favorite is when she does something sillly, let's say stands on her head, and then looks at us and says "What is Ruby doing?" :)

And I quote...

Just had to share some more recent quotes, because we are constantly cracking up at the things Josie has to say...

The morning after she heard her daddy say "There's a freakin' worm in this pear"...Josie said to Carissa, "There's a freakin' bean on my placemat....It's gross...It's Ewwww....It's Freakin." (Because if freakin' is used to describe a worm, the definition of freakin' must be "gross".)

To her Grandma when asked if she was dressed as a Bengal Tiger for Halloween, "I'm not a Bengal Tiger Gramma, I'm a ZOO Tiger." 

Josie to me before bedtime, "Will you sing me the song that says I'm your sunshine?"

Josie to our waiter at Acapulco Mexican Restaurant (with Grandma & DD as witnesses)..."I want a burrito...no a cheese quesadilla ...por favor!" (after Lou told her to say please)

Josie to Lou & I with a very full mouth of food, "I just ate out of the trash." (And she had! Luckily it was just the rest of a turkey sandwich Lou had just thrown away that he thought she had finished eating. Obviously she had not finished eating.)

Josie to Louie as he got out of the car to go into to Starbucks, "Hey Louie, Get me a special milk!" (And we can't deny her the little box of Horizon chocolate milk because how do you explain that we get a daily Starbucks treat and she doesn't? And yes, she did call him Louie.)

Okay - that's all I can remember off the top of my head. Can't keep Tia waiting any longer on these... :)

Halloween on Halloween

As you can see here on the blog, we kinda celebrated Halloween for a couple of weeks. Personally, I did this by design. I wanted Josie to have the Halloween experience because I feared she wouldn't get the typical trick-or-treat fun due to her peanut allergy.  But, as trick-or-treat actually arrived, we decided to head out with our friends Fred, Liz & Joey and "borrow" their neighborhood for some Halloween fun. As it turns out, Josie ended up going "trick-or-treating" afterall. She was so cute. And something about walking our daughter up and down the street on Halloween really made me feel like a parent.  People were very polite when they offered something nutty. They just grabbed something safe from their bowls. Then when we got back to the house, we removed the occasional Snickers and let Josie have her first real candy. She loved the Nerds the most! And, long story short, she finally went to sleep that night at about 10pm cuddling with her two glowsticks that she refused to let go.  All-in-all it was a night of making special family memories.  Here are a few photos.  The first ones are of Josie marching down our block with her special cookie from a neighbor in our building.

 

And here's a video of her running around very excited before we left.  She really loves dressing up in costumes.  Enjoy!

 

Halloween @ The Zoo

Oh - the Cincinnati Zoo. We just love it there. And HallZOOween is just one of the many great reasons we do. Here are some photos from our afternoon there last weekend.  We were very lucky to be joined by my best friend Suzie, Kenny & her little Makayla.  What a perfect way to spend an Autumn Sunday.  Enjoy! 

 

 

 

And I can't go without mentioning the fact that the cheetahs spotted Tiger-Josie and *totally* made eye contact, raised up the fur on their backs, and starting inching toward her. It was scary, although everyone laughed at me because I thought they were actually going to leap 30 feet out of their valley to come and get us.  Still, pretty crazy.

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!