The world according to Josie . . .

I just want to jot down a few things that I don't want to forget:

1. Josie talking to the spoonful of chocolate pudding in her hand. "Don't worry-the mouth is coming!"

2.Whenever she's being goofy I tell her "You're funny!" And she always answers, "Yes, I AM funny" in a very matter-of-fact way.

3. My SIL (Josie's Aunt Mimi) started this one . . .when she stays at their house, she'll ask Josie who's baby she's going to be that night. Now Josie asks us, "Are you MY baby?" Of course we answer yes. Then she says, "EVERYBODY'S my baby!"

4. The way she plays with her stuffed animals or action figures-she play-screams and everyone is always in some sort of peril and needs to be saved from some sort of monster. Lots of cries of "Help!" and "I'll save you!"

5. The way she has suddenly started posing for the camera. As soon as she sees the camera come out, she strikes a pose and a big smile. Candids are getting hard to come by. Oh-and then she has to immediately see every picture I take. "Me see it!"

6. When she plays with the squirty toys in the bathtub. When she squirts water out of them-she makes a face and says, "EWWW! It's pooping!".

7. When she gets really worked up she gets pretty loud and repetitive. I'm very careful not to say "shut up" even though sometimes I want to. But I do tell her to calm down or chill out (I know-I'll hate it when she says that back to me.) Anyway-this morning she kept asking for something as I was getting it for her-so I looked at her and said "Josie, just . . ." "Chill out?" she said. Hilarious.

8. If she doesn't hear me (whether I'm talking to her or not) or doesn't understand what I say she says, "I don't know what you're saying."
I just know I'm forgetting some that I planned to document. Oh well.

Xmas post coming as soon as i figure out what's wrong with my camera. Including the conclusion to Ariel/Sleeping Beauty/Santa saga. ;)

First: Visit Santa. Second: Shop.

On Thanksgiving Day-Josie and I watched the Macy's parade and got very excited at the end when Santa showed up. She's so excited and into Christmas this year-and what's even better is she's still confused about it being on one day-the whole month has been Christmas to her. So I don't have to count down the days or anything-I'm sure that will come next year. So-right now-she's telling everyone Merry Christmas, looking at the presents under the tree but not getting that most are for her, etc. It's a nice place to be.

Anyway-back to the parade. I told her we'd visit Santa and she could tell him what she wanted for Christmas.

"What do you want to ask Santa for?"--thinking she won't be able to come up with something and I'd have to help her.

"A Sleeping Beauty doll!" No hesitation.

I was stoked-what an easy request! And in the ads that day was a Sleeping Beauty doll on sale. Cool! (though it meant I HAD to shop that weekend.)

Just in case-I asked repeated the question several times. Every time-Sleeping Beauty. Nice.

Got the doll.

Over the course of the month-we'd talk about Santa and sometimes I'd ask her again what she wanted for Christmas.

"Purple!" huh?

"What should be get for Grandpa Joe?"

"Blue!"

hmmmmmm So-I'd remind her about Sleeping Beauty. "Oh, yeah. Sleeping Beauty."

Finally on the 22nd-I took Josie to see Santa. I met Mom and Josie there and they went to the D*sney store while they waited for me to get there.

We get in (a very long) line and I remind her about asking Santa.

"So-what are you going to ask him for?"

"Ariel!"

Turns out there is actually an Ariel toy that Josie doesn't have-and it was at the D*sney store. A store that I'm NOT going back to. Shopping-DONE!

So-I spend the time in line reminding her that she wants Sleeping Beauty because she has a lot of Ariels. Oh-and what about Mater? You don't have a Mater-maybe you should ask for MATER! (Can you tell what her Santa presents are?)

"Yeah-and I don't have Doc."

"Right-Doc. You should ask for Doc!"

She was so cute-she sat on his knee and smiled-but was so stiff and shy. After the picture-Santa asked her what she wanted. She leaned in close (and so did I cuz I could barely hear her whispering . . .)

"I want Ariel!"

Winter's here . . .

Josie's been obsessing over winter. "Is it Winter yet?" Yesterday, it was quite cold in the morning so I asked her if she wanted to wear her new winter coat.

"Is it Winter?"

"Uh, yeah. Sure!"

"Gloves too?" At this point I made sure to look closely at her to make sure it was my child. Last year, I had to practically sit on her to put gloves on when it snowed.

So-I found her gloves. (I had to lock myself in the closet to find the box of winter stuff since I had hidden all her xmas presents in there. I'm pretty sure she thought I'd lost my mind.) I found a hat too-but I was sure she wouldn't put it on.

But she did. The hat. The gloves. And the big puffy coat. And she was happy about it. Wow.

She was so cute she let me take some photos while she pranced around like she was on a photo shoot. She was annoyed when I stopped.






This morning it was even colder. "Let's put on your coat and gloves and hat."

"No-I don't like gloves!"

And the hat came off in the car.

That's my girl!

Conversation at the breakfast table

Josie: "I'm a girl!"

Me: "yep"

Josie: "And you're a girl. Cinderella is a girl. And Papa is a boy."

Me: "MmmHmmm" (We have a version of this conversation every day-so pardon my lack of enthusiasm)

Josie: "Mama? I'm happy. Are you happy?"

Me: "Yes sweetie. I'm very happy."

Josie: "Everyone's happy! Papa's happy, Grandma's happy . . but . .. Cinderella's not happy. She's sad. She's crying. But she'll be happy later."

This will have to do.

I forgot to get a pic of Josie in her Tinkerbell costume on Halloween-so this will have to suffice for everyone's Halloween fix. A little too big maybe?



We had a great Halloween week-Josie got to wear her costume 3 times for various parties/trick-or-treating. Now she thinks we're supposed to be going to a party every night though. I took her and two of her cousins trick-or-treating together. It was Josie's first time-and she loved it. After the first house she's all "Let's do that AGAIN!" At one point I'm pretty sure I heard her declare that it was "Awesome". I'll start worrying if she starts using words like "Rad" or "Gnarly".

Below-she is showing off her Ariel nightgown-complete with twirling. If you scroll REALLY fast-you might be able to see the twirl.

Worth it? heck yeah . . . .

Last Saturday, I spent an hour each way on the Max with a 3 yr old who asked at EVERY stop if we were there yet, stood in lines, paid $12 for lemonade, $9.00 for popcorn, and $18 for a strange-looking Ariel sword? Wand? Whatever. Crammed my not-so-petite self into a seat at the Rose Garden where my very short legs were too long (knees actually touched the back of the seat in front of me. How on earth does someone over 5'2" sit in these things? )

And why did I do this? So I could watch Josie's face when Mickey and Minnie came out at the beginning of D*sney on Ice. And then "DONALD!" " GOOFY!" "LOOK MAMA!" "HI MICKEY!" "HI DONALD!" She waved and clapped and was utterly enthralled. I think she went without blinking for the whole first half of the show.

I'm pretty sure I was her hero at the moment-for bringing Disneyland to her. In case you didn't know-she STILL asks to go to Disneyland again several times a week.

I only have a vague idea of what the first 15-20 minutes of the show was about-Mickey and Minnie had some sort of car trouble and then the cast of CARS came out-"CARS! Mama! CARS!" I've only seen the movie once-so I really only remembered Lightning McQueen's name . . . . . They drove around awhile, talked some, I don't know-I was too busy watching Josie's face and reactions to pay attention. Oh yeah-and taking a MILLION horrible pictures trying to get a good one of her.

Then a bunch of skaters came out with scarves to mimic the sea and the music from the Little Mermaid started. She started out just staring, but as the music went on, she realized what was going to happen and this little smile came on her face and got bigger and bigger as the music swelled and then "SEBASTIAN! MAMA! SEBASTIAN! LOOK!" and then OMG "ARIEL! LOOK MAMA! IT'S ARIEL!" And then she was singing so loudly the people in front of us started turning around and smiling at her. They were very nice because Josie kept smacking the woman in the head with her sword, wand, scepter thing because she wouldn't sit down for the whole show. She sort of leaned on the chair and me for the whole thing.

Does anyone else cry just because their kid is so happy? I'm a sap-I truly am.

The Lion King condensed story didn't make any sense but the skating and music was good. At intermission Josie finally took her eyes off the ice rink long enough to eat some popcorn and share a Kit Kat with me (Lunch of champions!) I would have gotten us real food but didn't want to take out a home equity line of credit for a hot dog or chicken strips. And thankfully Josie didn't need to use the restroom because we were smack dab in the middle of a row and I didn't feel like a repeat performance of "Scuse me, pardon me, oh-was that your head? Sorry if my bum's in your face . . ." just to get in and out and go to the bathroom.

The second half was devoted to Tinkerbell and was pretty good-even had "pixie dust" confetti at the end.

Josie passed out on me before we even hit the tunnel on the Max. She had a wonderful time and so did I. Thanks Grandma!

Hope you wanted to see some pics!


Riding the Max train.


Standing in line at the Rose Garden.


The weird Ariel wand, scepter, sword thingie. It lights up and plays music.












The Pixie Dust


What? It's over? Already? Note: Can you see that the battery cover is missing on the "thing"? Yeah-wish I'd noticed it before we waited forever to get into the procession to climb back up the stairs and then get out in the main area only to discover it missing and the "thing" not working. Back down the stairs, to our seats where we scoured the floor and some guy collecting trash asked us what we were looking for. "Oh-hey, I think I just picked that up." Digs around in the garbage bag and hands me a yogurt?-covered battery cover. EWW! But i found some napkins and cleaned it off . . . .


Waiting for the train home.

Fun weekend

We had a busy weekend consisting of the Children's Museum and a trip to the pumpkin patch with friends.

Josie was completely freaked out by the alligator at first-she would NOT lie down and put her head on the pillow/tongue . . . But she did finally get into brushing his teeth. The tooth chair was also a hit.



Checking out a tool belt in the Building section.



At Bauman farms- the sun was bright and I couldn't see the picture preview so I tried to guess at getting Taylor in the picture too-but obviously I wasn't successful. She was on one end and Chloe wouldn't still her head through the other end.


The jumping pillow-one of the coolest things ever. That thing is huge. Crummy picture though.



Climbing the hay bales and posing for the camera. . .

Josie's Two New Obsessions . . .

The computer-she has learned how to use the mouse and play games at the Ses@me Str88t website . .



Her second new thing? Here's the aftermath . . .



Yep-she's very into "cutting paper". Into teeny, tiny pieces. And it's apparently only fun if you let all the pieces fall on the floor.

My aunt found a Daisy Kingdom dress at a yard sale last year and Josie was finally able to fit into it. So this day she was a little Southern Belle-complete with shoulder pads and tulle. She loved the dress and all the attention she got.


A couple of shots of Josie with her Grandpa Joe . . .

The jumper AKA "THANK YOU GRAMMA!"

Funny stuff . . .

I'm loving 3. Josie is so funny-she's got a great sense of humor and her dramatics make me laugh on a daily basis. And her language is just exploding.

We were at a restaurant the other day and I brought the two of us bowls of clam chowder. She takes a spoonful and proclaims, "It's delicious!" And I'm all, "Yeah, it's yummy!" Doh!

Yeah-I think I can maybe stop with some of the baby words . . . .


The other day I put a jumper on her that her Gramma made and asked her if she liked it. She said yes. I then told her Gramma made it for her.

"Thank you, Gramma!"

"Josie-Gramma can't hear you . ."

"THANK YOU GRAMMA!!!!"

Once I picked myself up off the floor, I suggested that maybe we call Gramma later . . . .

No pics today as I keep forgetting the camera cable at home . . . .

I so want a bubble machine!

We had a family picnic at my work a week ago-complete with a monkey bouncing house, a monkey pinata (notice a theme, here?) and (Josie's favorite) a BUBBLE machine. She spent at least an hour playing with bubbles, but I did tear her away for the pinata, an egg hunt (who says egg hunts are only for Easter?), a water balloon toss (we lost!), some bouncing, and finally some Looney Tunes and popcorn in the auditorium to wind the evening down. Oh yeah-I did get most of a hot dog down her at some point. And drank a Mirror Pond or two myself. This was after I did a face plant in front of everyone trying to carry 2 plates of food, a juice box, a bottle of beer, and a couple bags of chips since SOMEONE wouldn't carry anything herself. But that's another story . . . .

The monkey pinata
Bubbles, bubbles, and more bubbles . . .