Summer Girl

Here's a few more recent pictures...

And some random updates about Josephine:

Here's a picture of her ready for church last week. How girly! Even her tennis shoes are pink! She's got "Pink Billy" and her pink purse and is ready to go.

She really loves our dog Billy. Idolizes him.

More and more words and complete sentences: "Jos want down" and "so much!" and "daddy read book."

She climbs into her highchair all by herself.

She knows she's funny. She cracked me up the other day: "Mommy! Toe! Mommy! Toe!" she said from her carseat, in a worried tone. I looked back to see her pointing at a preztel stuck between her toes. Then she burst into laughter. This may be her First Joke.

She really loves french toast, pancakes, cheerios, yogurt - a breakfast kid.

She loves Ellie, our neighbor across the street, who has kittens and fish ponds and hippo statues everywhere in her garden, and who always invites us in and talks very seriously to Josephine. Ellie is truly a blessing - best neighbor ever. She also provides me with a good, living, real example of a great mother-daughter relationship: Ellie and her college-graduated daughter Claire get along fantastically.

She continues to adore books. And climbing. And running in the opposite direction.

During bathtime, she'll hold onto the thing on the faucet that makes the water go to the shower head like it's a microphone and sing into it, rocking back and forth.

Some of the photos show her in a pink dress at Fridays After Five, where she goes wild - running and dancing and singing to the music, sometimes following or leading other little kids. Lots of fun.

The other pictures with the leis come from the day I had to spend at home with her. We decorated the stuffed animals... then she got stuck in this basket - in this photo she's kind of fake-crying to get help out of it... hilarious. We had a lovely day.

It's hard to remember from one day to the next all the new things she's saying and doing - but she's amazing. Truly!