Final Countdown to Christmas

Here are a few random holiday photos before I get into "the meat" of our Christmas celebrations!

The weekend before Christmas, Josie's cousins Morgan & Katrina came down for some holiday fun and a walk down the street to the Duke Energy train display. Josie has so much fun with her older cousins - as you can see in these pictures.

 

An instant classic!

Another day...another train display...another outfit that includes a tutu. (She loves her tutu, and as we see it, there's no harm in letting her wear it whenever she feels like it. Let's be honest, if I could get away with wearing fairy-ballerina clothes out of the house, I probably would.)

I'll make a very long story as short as I can when I say that we wanted to make a gingerbread house and had to do it from scratch because all the kits were processed with peanuts. It was definitely a bit of a disaster that started with some way-too-sticky dough, proceeded to "oh no open the windows, it's on fire", and ended with a gingerbread house that we feared couldn't be saved. Alas, we pressed on & ended up with something that Josie deemed worthy of Rudolph's table (more on that later).   This first photo is a bit like a crime-scene to anyone who witnessed the gingerbread debacle.

The final product - which caused Josie to sustain a head injury after bonking her brow into a rock-hard piece of gingerbread while trying to suck a gumdrop off of the gingerhouse 'lawn'.

 

Oh the memories...

Sisis Christmas

Josie loves her "Sisis" like family (and so do we), so it was only fitting that we would have our own Christmas morning with Carissa before she left to go home to New York for the holidays. Here is Josie with her new princess jacket from Lisa & Bill (Carissa's parents) that she adores! Big thanks to Lisa & Bill for being so thoughtful & so sweet!! 

I love these 'action shots' of Josie with her new soccer ball from Carissa. We'll add private soccer coach to Carissa's list of talents & maybe Josie will follow her footsteps and play XU soccer one day. (This ball is certainly Musketeer-blue!)

 

 

 

Here is Josie admiring her Pandora necklace to match the bracelet that Carissa got her for her birthday. They are both so special & Josie is one very lucky (and stylin') little girl!

 

This is Josie with her new super-fabulous Disney princess art set which has already inspired many hours of princess fun!

I love these of Carissa admiring the handmade frame that Josie made her. The reaction to Josie's hardwork really made Josie feel so proud! And we accomplished our goal of teaching Josie that Christmas is about giving and not just getting. 

 

 

This last one really says it all - how much Josie loves Carissa, how much Carissa loves Josie, and how fortunate & grateful we are to have such a wonderful influence on our daughter!

Thanks for everything Carissa! We love ya!

Quick Quote

Josie, singing to herself: "I love you, I love you, I love you soooo much..."

Me: "I love YOU so much Josie."

Josie: "No mom, I was talking to my Rody."

(Note: Rody was her favorite Christmas gift this year, Rudolph brought it to her after she talked about it for weeks after visiting her buddy Ronan in Madison earlier this fall. If there's any doubt how much she loves him, check out this photo of her sleeping on her way back to Cincinnati from Xenia after the Christmas festivities ended - literally cuddling this giant plastic bouncy horse for over an hour!)

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?