Even more of the World According to Josie . . . .

This weekend Josie came up with a new insult:

1.) Mom, you're a pair of sock! (Hysterical laughter follows) And yes-sock was singular even though she said a pair . . . . And no-I have no idea why this is so funny.

2.) Josie discovered a hole in the crotch of her tights. She became fascinated with said hole. I'm sure you're getting a mental image at the moment. The rest of the evening consisted of me telling her to "leave it alone!!!!". Those tights are going in the garbage . . . .

Biking with Grandpa Joe

Near the end of last summer my Grandpa decided to buy a bicycle because it was becoming too hard to keep up with her on foot when she was riding. He was a bit wobbly (and still is I suppose!) and completely knocked her down the first time (they were fine), but apparently after this ride (where I finally, thankfully, got some pictures) Grandpa Joe has hung up his helmet. I guess he took a little spill. If he hurt himself, he's not telling. And that's okay-he's 92 years old. He can do whatever he wants!

This is the two of them on the way to the playground.

Family and Kids Festival

We had so much fun at this a couple of weeks ago-lots of free stuff at the booths, cheap tickets for the petting zoo, bouncy houses and reptile booth. Free performances by gymnasts, children's theater, OMSI, etc. We spent about 4 hrs there and I had to drag the kid away.

Free Face-painting! She's so into unicorns right now . .

She also now LOVES flamingos! Thsi was from a booth that will go to a house in the middle of the night and "Flock them" by putting up a ton of plastic flamingos. And sometimes they are in costume-like for Halloween or Valentine's Day. Pretty funny prank. I entered a raffle for a free "flocking" (boy, that sounds kinda dirty!) but apparently didn't win. I entered lots of raffles and Josie must've spun 20 different prize reels. It was all about the reels!

And it was all about the gymnastics-there were 2 different booths from gyms and they both had mini-gym courses and instructors to assist the kids in their forward/backward rolls, etc. Josie spent a lot of time there. Then after a demonstration-they left up the equipment and invited the kids (and one brave, brave adult) to do the course. Josie went round and round until they tore it down. I may have to try some gymnastics classes for her.

It's not too late if my neighbors still have their Xmas wreaths out right?

No? Whatever. Bite me.


Sooo . . .Christmas Eve was at my parent's house as usual.  Below is my dad without his usual Xmas eve bow on his head.  Maybe we hadn't opened presents yet.  We open presents with my brothers and their families on Xmas eve.  With 7 grandchildren-this gets a bit chaotic.

Passing out presents (this takes forever as there must be hundreds of gifts, I swear!)

Rapunzel!

Thankfully, Christmas Eve into Christmas morning passed without any sickness on Josie's part (unfortunately that can't be said for other family members) and Josie awoke to the anxiously awaited UNICORN PILLOW PET!  She'd been asking out one for months (seems everyone at daycare had a pillowpet) and I told her she could ask Santa for one.  And boy did she remember.  Anyone who saw this kid int the months of November and December learned that she wanted a unicorn pillow pet for Christmas.



Behold-the unicorn pillow pet!

More gift unwrapping.  I may have gone a little overboard (though it didn't seem so at the time.)  Anything I wanted to get for her from August til December was put away for Christmas and she got a good haul. 

Playing with yet another one of those play sets with the itty bitty pieces.

Josie got Grandpa a Dora doll for Christmas.  He's supposed to sleep with it.  Heehee.

Playing Tea Party with Grandpa Joe (for like, an hour and a half!)

Love this pic!

Josie taking a "nap" with her new Ariel, Belle and Cinderella dolls.  Unfortunately, only 2 of the dolls fit in the bed so Ariel had to sleep on the floor.

December recap

Yeah, yeah . . .I'm late. I'M SORRY!! Anyway-here's a few photos from Josie's ballet recital, Magic Snow at Pioneer Place, and Pioneer Square (with the xmas tree in the background.


My ballerina!

Josie with her ballet partner-Seal.  An unusual pas de deaux to be sure . . .

Waiting for the Magic Snow to start (of course I didn't tell her what we were waiting for).  She's really into getting her picture taken now.  Nice pose, huh?

"What the . . .?"

Pretty!

She had a blast running around, dancing and catching "snowflakes".

Waiting for the Max at Pioneer Square:

There's an echo in here . . .

Watching Fantasia (the dancing ostriches, hippos and yes, elephants):

Me: "Those hippos are funny! I love the hippos!"

Josie: "No-those are elephants!"

Me: "No they're not-see no trunks. Look at that mouth-definitely a hippo."

Josie: "No-ELEPHANT!"

Me: "I'm not going to argue with you Josie . . ."

(the elephants enter the picture)

Me: "There are your elephants."

Josie: "See-elephants! I'm RIGHT!"

Me: "Josie-those are elephants. The other ones are hippos."

Josie: "I'm not going to argue with you Mom."

Josie's first dance recital Part 2

She did much better in this one-though it's a bit disturbing that she unceremoniously dumped her "baby" on the ground. It may not look like a dance routine in the middle-but she actually was doing her "triangles" and arabesques pretty good. Hey-they're only 4! ;)

Josie's First Dance Recital Part 1

Josie had her first dance recital last weekend. The Christmas one is (apparently) a low-key affair at a church hall and the "big" performance is in a high school auditorium this June.

Josie started the class in September-a pre-ballet and pre-tap class for 4-5 yr olds. She has a great time and just watching the class is fun. The mommy's take turns being the "star lady" in class and putting stickers on their folders when they complete a move correctly.

I've been trying to explain what a recital was I knew she didn't understand. She was excited to go-especially since Grandpa Joe, Grandma and Grandma Baker were coming to see her. She hung out with everyone in the audience before the show started and was super-hyped up backstage when the kids were waiting to go on. But she was overwhelmed when they came out and it was dark with the "stage" lit up. So-she didn't do much of her routine. Except at the end when she was the only one to remember to blow a kiss-which she did in the other direction so it's hard to tell what she was doing. When I went back to help her change for the next routine she told me she was scared. Anyway-here's the video of the first one.

Pieces of Josie . . .

Josie and I are VERY lucky to have a wonderful family that both understands my need for "me time" and WANTS very much to spend time with Josie. So, after church on Sundays we head down to Salem to my brother's house where Josie is doted on by their family (they have 3 kids) and she gets to spend the night. Josie has so much fun at their house-they have pretty much every D*sney toy known to mankind as well as the corresponding movies. All of their kids are in a sport of some kind so she gets to go to their games. Somebody's always baking SOMETHING and there are teenagers popping in and out all the time. And they LOVE her-even the 17 yr old boys. They treat her just like the princess she thinks she is! And of course she idolizes my 12 yr old niece and her friends. My 9 yr old nephew alternates playing really well with her and being annoyed by her, which means they are basically siblings! And it's just generally loud and chaotic and very much unlike home. Which is a nice change for her. Uncle Jeff is a surrogate father and she's definitely got him whipped. If I never get married and give Josie a father-Uncle Jeff will be walking her down the aisle. And I'm sure he wouldn't have it any other way . . .

On Mondays-Josie's Aunt Mimi drops her off at my mom's and it used to be that she would drive up to my house and stay the night and watch her on Tuesday. However, she wasn't getting to see my dad very much and my mom really prefers her own bed and instead of Mom calling me every Monday afternoon to ask if she could spend the night down there for various reasons-we just made that the default.

So-I have the house to myself on Sun and Mon nights. I get home in the eve on Sundays and try to clean up the house or just veg if I'm tired. It's a nice break that I really enjoy. Monday nights are a bit harder-I have plenty to keep my busy but when I wind down for the night it's SO quiet and I find myself missing my girl.

Then I look up and see this and it makes me smile. I just love this gallery canvas wrap photo-I put it up on the mantel for now until i figure out how to arrange everything.

And then I'm getting ready for bed and go to turn off the lamp and almost scream.

Can't see it?  Here's a close-up.

Then I go to pull the cord and notice this:

Closer . . .

Wanna know what those are?

Fridge magnets.   This one was Ariel of course!

Everywhere I look there's something strange-Buzz Lightyear wedged under the lid of the piano bench.  A princess crown on top of the lamp by my bed (she has a thing with lamps).  Bracelets and necklaces draped over each bedpost.  Generic Silly bandz wrapped around photo frames:

She's everywhere I look and it's very comforting.  Boy I love the little stinker!

Halloween

Josie is still obsessed with Ariel and wanted to be Ariel for Halloween. Not a problem since she got the costume for her 3rd birthday! I found the wig in with a box of Halloween stuff in the garage-I don't even remember wearing it. It's horribly cut and very cheap-but it kinda looked cool with the costume. She wore the costume all day-church, lunch, Grandma Baker's house, Jeff and Mimi's house, trick-or-treating with her cousins and then to a harvest party at a church. Full day.

All day she would only wear the wig for a few minutes when we first arrived somewhere and then it would come off (don't blame her really)-but when we went out to TorT I told her she had to keep the wig on to get candy. She didn't even try ONCE to take it off! She was so excited-after every house she would yell, "I got candy Mama!" and show me her bucket. Every.single.house. We (the adults) called it quits after an hour and got some protest-but they got to go to a harvest party after that so it was all good.

I took these pics at church-she would not hold still-he was dancing all over the room.

This is my "Ariel in the water" pic:

Before and afters!

Sorry to be annoying-but this is the easiest way to show my family and friends these photos!  After getting frustrated with my limited Photoshop skills-I decided to purchase some actions from a photographer I admire-her Florabella collection.  I'm so happy I did-with just one click I can add 10 layers to a photo!  Here's what I've been doing:

Pose 1 before (my editing):

 After Florabella Pandora action:

Pose #2 before (my editing):

 After FB action (Mademoiselle)

Pose 3 before (my B&W conversion)

 After FB Mink action (I can't tell you how much I adore this pic now!):

Pose 4 before (My editing):

After FB action Vintage Wine:

Pose 5 before(my editing):

After FB  retro lollipop action:

 Pose #6 (original raw image):

After FB vintage wine action:

What a difference, huh?  Of course-this is just making my decision for the canvas wrap even more difficult (I'm leaning toward Pose #2 or the B&W Mink Josie now  . . .)  Either way-I'm ordering a lot of prints!