Reindeer Ballet

The last few weeks are going to slowly trickle out onto the blog over the next couple of days. It was truly a memorable holiday season & I'm going to just start you all where I left off. Here's a video a few days before Christmas of Josie dancing to Rudolph which was her favorite song on the Christmas CD that we made her. Enjoy!

Would you like to start with an appetizer?

Oh boy, there is already so much good stuff sitting in Picasa just begging to be uploaded to the blog but I am completely out of time. So, in the interest of leaving you with something, here are a couple of random photos from the days counting down to Christmas.  In fact, this is our Christmas Eve. As we speak, Josie is nestled all snug in her bed as visions of sugar plums dance in her head.  We made special arrangements with Rudolph to bring half of Josie's presents here tonight and the other half to her grandparents' house on Christmas morning.  We will undoubtedly be burning the midnight oil tonight as we help Santa and his team with last minute preparations. With that, gotta run. I hope you enjoy this preview! And HAPPY HOLIDAYS to you and yours!

 

 

"Merry Christmas to all & to all a good night..."

Who Dey Josie!

Josie's photo has been chosen for the Bengals website fanzone. Great idea Grandma! See the link below, scroll down.  Enjoy!

http://www.bengals.com/fanzone/fanfun.html

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree...

The combination of not getting a tree last year & hoping this will be our last year in the condo with it's super-high ceilings meant we decided to really go for it this year with the tree. Lucky for us, WholeFoods only offered two sizes - big and enormous - so our decision was easy. Meet our enormous ten-footer, which almost served up enough holiday fun just in the reaction we got out of Josie when the boys strapped her to our roof.

It took us a good week to take the tree from strapped to the roof to fully-trimmed so these photos cover that whole time. First things first, Josie saw Louie cutting the low branches and knew exactly what to do. She ran over and grabbed her scissors (which are her new favorite thing on the planet) and began her own pruning.

Ahhh- the lights - also known as "the hour or so we regretted getting a ten-foot tree".  Josie provided lots of well-intentioned "help".

 

As you can see, the whole family got into the holiday spirit - including Venus - who loves our homemade (by someone on etsy.com & not me) felt garland that made our tree extra colorful.  (Sidebar: if you aren't familiar with Etsy, do yourself a favor & check it out immediately. All handmade goods by real people in their homes sharing their talents with the world. This has indeed been a "very Etsy Christmas" as we purchased lots of new decor and gifts from there to try bring some "homemade" into our home.)

 

Watch out "Project Runway" - check out our little designer who re-purposed the treeskirt into this chic holiday attire!

 

And, last but not least, a few of the fully-trimmed tree, complete with Josephine admiring it & standing in awe at its sheer volume! (We swear it's growing...)

 

  In the photo above & the photo below she is actually "dancing" with the tree, holding on to one of its branches and singing "la, la, la, la, la" because "why not?"

So far this holiday season has brought so many smiles and we haven't even gotten to the "big stuff" yet. While I can't wait to see her run out here & see the tree full of presents on Christmas morning, it's these "little things" that will always stick out as special memories forever.

Happy Birthday Sisis!

Our very own "Supernanny" Carissa recently had a birthday and her mean-ole' boss still made her come to work. Fortunately, Josie made the day a memorable one by clopping around the house in her pajamas and high-heels while serving Carissa a hand-crafted "birthday drink". See for yourself. Enjoy! 



(I should probably apologize for giggling throughout the video, but I was still laughing from Josie's earlier comments before I grabbed the camera about drinking "nice hot coffee" and "beard" (which she meant to say "beer"). 

Sure makes a reading teacher proud...

Disclaimer: At the end of the day, this blog is by "by us" and "for us".  We LOVE that so many of you have chosen to keep in touch with our family and our lives since Josephine's birth through our blog. We are SOOO happy that you're here. From time-to-time, we realize things may come across in a way that we do not intend. This is one of those posts. We're not trying to say that our daughter is a genius or better than any other kid or any of those other things about braggy parents that annoy all of us. But, we think this is pretty cool, so we're sharing it.  Enjoy! :)

The other day Josie was busily drawing with some chalk on a piece of packaging paper from one of many Amazon.com deliveries while Lou & I watched football.  We were splitting our attention between her & the game, and she was happily entertaining herself.  Then, she started getting more insistent about something she had drawn.  I shifted my attention to her completely as she explained that she had written a word.  I walked over to the paper and saw this:

Then, looking closer I saw a word among the squiggles:

Josie had clearly written a "T" and "O" and what looked like an "N" or a "Z".  I said something along the lines of "OMG, Lou look at this!" and we asked Josie to tell us more.  She told me "T-O" spells "La" which cracked me up because obviously it doesn't.  But, nonetheless, we think it's pretty incredible that the little swaddled bundle we were just cuddling moments ago is already showing signs of "all grown-up."  I'll admit that I've said that each developmental phase has been my favorite, but this really is the best!  Maybe it's the former second grade teacher in me, but watching how her little brain works is just so fascinating and so rewarding.  

Here's a video of another "WOW" moment with her last week.  I was reorganizing her "play zone" (part of a larger condo-wide reorg) with the goal of putting away toys she had outgrown and putting others away that she wasn't quite ready for yet.  She had gotten these Melissa & Doug spelling cards from her Tia & Tio for her 2nd birthday and had only played with them a handful of times since August. I set them on the couch with the other things to put away until she was a little older.  Then, as I'm cleaning, I hear her spelling the words on the cards and walk over to find her tracing the letters with her finger & then reciting the words.  This is not something any of us practice with her regularly with these cards. We do "breakdown" words like this when we read books, but to see her apply this to the cards was really cool to watch. Obviously she's not really "reading" these words because the pictures are there as cues but it's still pretty amazing to see these early reading skills emerge.  Luckily, this went on for several minutes, so I was able to get the camera before she moved on to the next thing. Enjoy!

"Mr. Stinky" and More

Here are some random photos from the past couple of weeks around the house.  Enjoy!

These first two could be called either "Why I Work From Home" or "The Millionth Reason We Love Carissa."

 If I remember correctly, I think the box was an airplane going to Chicago which later turned into a boat or a car...

Here is Josie modeling my Uggs which actually come all the way up her diaper. Believe or not, she walks around in these things.

Here is Josie's snowman from Art Class. I was really proud of her because she was very creative about how she used the objects to make the snowman.  She wanted "double eyes" and used the q-tip for a nose and arms. She also made pepper buttons and then sprinkled them pepper balls as "raisins" on the plate so the snowman wouldn't get hungry.  He has sense been dubbed "Mr. Stinky" because he's made of glue, flour, and cotton which apparently turns rancid after several days - but we still love him.

Josie really wants her own camera & we can't wait to see what kind of pictures show up on it when she finally gets one.  Here she is practicing with a block, running around going "Cheeese!" and snapping photos of objects around the house.

Have I mentioned lately just how much we love this little girl? She's so amazingly wonderful that sometimes it is truly too much to comprehend! :)

Cookies with Grandma

Josie was lucky enough to spend this Saturday with her Grandma & DD in Xenia. The goal was for us to use the 24 kid-less hours to convert Josie's room from a nursery into a "big girl room." While a nasty stomach virus prevented me from helping much, Louie sprung into action with a little help from a neighbor and worked well into the night to do what he could to get Josie's new bed ready for her return on Sunday. (Her new room will be the subject of a later post.)   Josie had a really great time with her grandparents and even got to help them pick out a baby kitten for Lyla for Christmas.  And - the highlight of her weekend was making homemade cookies with Grandma. Really, does it get any more precious than this?  Enjoy! 

 

 

 

 

Thanks to Grandma & Granddaddy for such special time with Josie!

 

"No, No, No" to "Ho, Ho, Ho"

In the timeless words of one Josephine Marie Schneider, "I do not like his suit, I do not like his beard, and I do not like his Ho, Ho, Ho...Santa is scary."

So, the whole idea of Santa thrills Josie but anytime she spots him (even from across the room) she says one of two things - "Cuddle Me" or "I'm ready to go home!"  This has been the case at more than one Santa-sighting. Since each time has gotten progressively more terrifying to her, we've gone from "let's not push it" to "avoid Santa at all costs." In case you need anymore evidence of her Santa-phobia, she told me the other day - "You tell DD not to say Ho, Ho, Ho to me. He has a beard like Santa." 

The good news is that there's plenty of non-Santa holiday action in & around downtown. And we've had so much fun already this year doing it all. Here are some photos from "Holiday Junction" at the Museum Center - where we were lucky enough to bump into Angela & Andrew so that J & A got to ride the train together.  Josie wasn't sure about it at first, but definitely had fun in the end!

 

 

She really loved the trains as you can very clearly see from all of these photos! 

(Trains aren't just for boys, ya know?!)

 

 

 

And, she got to spend some good quality time playing with her Daddy while I played photog!

 

 

The other big news about our day at the Museum is that Josie has now deemed herself big enough for "The Woods" which is like a big, huge maze of tunnels, slides, etc.  Look at her go!

Here are J & L inside a tube that makes you feel like you're actually inside the aquarium. Josie thought she'd make it even more fun by pushing her nose up against the glass at the end.

 

 

(This is looking down on them in the tube from the top.)

Here's my fearless family making their way across a tunnel that we all hoped was strong enough to hold adults, dangling about 10 feet above ground. Yay Josie!

 

 

And what would an afternoon at the Children's Museum be without a little sailing?

Be sure to head over to www.threeaustins.blogspot.com for some super-fabulous pictures of Lyla & Josie on Thanksgiving...

Clifton Mill

Well, I'm admittedly behind on the blog but that's only because we've been packing every day with family fun and last week was ridiculously-hectic at both of my jobs. So here are the photos from our trip to Clifton Mill "Opening-Day" when we were in Xenia for Thanksgiving. It was our first official holiday event of this year and definitely got the Schneiders in the spirit.  Seeing the holidays through the eyes of your child certainly brings a whole new level of "magic" to this time of year, and we got our first glimpse of that at Clifton Mill.  I should also mention that our drive to Clifton Mill was really memorable as well. Not only did we run into these donkeys and sheep on the way there (gotta love Greene County) but we used the drive to tell Josie all about Santa, his reindeer, Rudolph, elves, etc.  She thought we were crazy (especially the flying sleigh part) but got really excited about the whole thing. 

(Okay, wait.. sidebar...Josie has a few fave off-the-wall Holiday songs this year including "Jiggity, Jigg, Hee-Haw, Hee-Haw, it's Dominic the Donkey...The Italian Christmas Donkey." At the time of taking this photo, that little ditty hadn't made it into our lives yet but as I write this post, it has firmly sealed its fate as a Schneider Family Favorite.  And - kid you not - we were listening to it last night (it's the bonus track on a CD I made Josie of her favorite Christmas songs) and there's a part that says, "A pair of shoes for Louie and a dress for Josephine..."  Cuh-razy.) Anyway, I digress. Back to Clifton Mill...

Josie's first view of the Reindeer, which she later recounted "a million" of - 

 

Josie making her own antlers -

Josie very much enjoying her first candy cane - 

And the real star of the show - the lights - "ooooh, ahhhh" - 

 

 

All-in-all, a great kick-off to the holiday season. (And also a little foreshadowing into Josie's fear of Santa. More on that later...)