Making Room

Every girl needs her own space... tonight Josie and I converted this big cardboard box into a little 'house' with a door and a window in the shape of a star. We painted in on the outside, and she colored it on the inside. She gets a big kick out of shutting the door and then popping it open to surprise us.

Meanwhile, we finally got some sun! So it's off to the park tomorrow with Daddy and the 2024 playgroup. Should be fun. And I am so ready for some warm weather...!

Fun in the Kitchen

It started off as a seemingly innocuous way to entertain Josie on a Sunday afternoon of crappy weather...a friend had suggested it... let her use measuring cups to scoop at dry pasta or beans, to enhance her tactile senses, fine motor skills, understanding of measurement, etc. And yes, she was enthralled. She spent a good fifteen minutes moving the stuff back and forth between containers... But then she discovered the even greater fun of dumping everything on the floor and swishing it around, spreading it as far and wide as possible... Yay!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Great-Grandma Hocker sent some candy in a fuzzy pink purse, to Josie's delight! She also got some lovely cards and stickers from her grandmothers.

Two Best Friends

These two dogs - or dog and cat - we get confused - are Josie's favorite toys right now. She holds one in each hand, as seen above, and then runs and dances with them throughout the house - they fly and kiss and play - as I write this, she's gotten hold of them and is taking them throughout the house. These were from Mama C (Cynthia) and George at the baby shower!
New words: "good girl," "nose," "please," "uh-oh," "shoes," "bath"... new ones everyday as she imitates everything we say!

Josephine in the snow!

Here's a video of the same event, courtesy of YouTube. Click the picture above.

Snowday!

I thought I would post this here. A fun little multimedia presentation. You will have to click here to see it.

Shopping

This was shortly before she took off running around the dairy area...

little teacup

Lunchtime in the bib Grandma Jones embroidered for her!

Pigtails

1) The pigtails lasted almost all day! Though you can see she's already grabbing at them to yank them out.
2) Sean's not a fan of the "patience tester" shirt; but it is amazingly difficult to find shirts for kids this age without writing on them! Also, this was on sale for $1.87 at Target, and with this cold weather, we needed more long sleeves.
3) Notice the new high chair that we had to get because we managed to break the plastic on her other one... it took me several hours to put this wretched thing together, mostly because the instructions for assembly were these pale, vaguely written, and badly illustrated diagrams that I had to interpret rather than follow... But it's been awesome. Josie actually eats when nicely strapped in!
4) She loved the fruit smoothie I made. Made me proud.
5) Random note: the red pepper nasal spray I ordered online last week WORKS. It's cleaning out my sinuses like crazy, my ears are popping, I feel awake and good! I highly recommend.

Amy (photos from Feb. 3)

Stickers

So, they had this sticker book at Target for a buck... I had no idea what a hit it would be with Josie! Turns out playing with stickers is a lot of fun - and best of all, unlike the "washable" markers that turned out to be rather "staining" instead, stickers don't leave a mess! Of course, now there are little kitties and puppies on everything in the house...