Josie is 18 months old!

Josie is now 18 1/2 months and it's time for an update! There are just so many new and cool things that she does, it's hard to remember them all. She learns something new each day and it's really hard to document it all. I'll try to at least document the big things. Warning: Enough pics and info in this post to last months! It's hard to choose which ones to post so I end up posting too many! I know Grandma and Grandpa will love it........

At 18 months.....
* No doctor stats yet, (I know, I'm the worst at taking her to appts. on time) Soon, though. I weighed her at home and she is around 25 pounds and is about average height compared to the other kids her age we know. That's all I can tell you, but she is still very healthy and happy! Still no major illness, ear infections, or anything. We are fortunate!
*she still has a very healthy appetite and could eat all day if I let her. She especially loves getting mommy to share her food with her. Her favorite foods include steamed carrots, frozen corn, peas and green beans, tomatoes, frozen blueberries, wheat noodles, yogurt and granola (especially sharing with daddy on his lap), wheat tortillas, ham, and cheese. She drinks mostly just water now. She decided she really doesn't like whole milk anymore. Not sure why, but one day she just started telling me it was "yuck" and refused to drink it. It was fresh, and to my knowledge she has never had bad milk. Whatever. So water it is!
*She now has her first set of molars to add to her 8 front teeth. No incisors yet so there is a gap between front teeth and molars. The teething was not really that bad, she just got a slight fever for a couple nights, but she handled it really well. It did seem to throw her sleep schedule out of whack. Not sure if that was the reason, though.
*Her current sleep schedule (as of the last couple weeks) is bed by 7:30 or 8 and up by 7 or 7:30 (sometimes 8 on weekends!). She STILL takes 2 naps. I tried to get her to take just one, but it was just not working out and ended up making things worse. 2 naps are fine, it's just a little inconvenient sometimes. The confusion about what I should do really happened the same time she was teething. I assume her weird sleep habits were from that. During that time, she had a hard time going down at night and was wanting to sleep a lot during the day. I thought maybe 2 naps were to blame. When I made her take only one nap, she wouldn't sleep long enough and would continue to be tired during the day. After several days of this, and of her falling asleep in the car and having a second nap anyway, I decided to just let her do what she wanted to do. So, the final schedule is 11-12 hours at night and 2 naps totaling 2-3 hours. The nap length varies somewhat, but it's not bad. Somedays, she does only end up with one nap, like Sundays, but she just goes back to 2 the next day. It's a little uncommon for her age, but if she needs it, I'm fine with it! As long as she gets enough sleep! One GREAT thing is that she is amazing about going down to sleep without a fuss. I put her down for naptime or bed and she simply gives me a kiss and says "bye" before laying down and going to sleep. AWESOME!!
*Some of her most used words we can decipher are, yuck, poopie, purple, "peep" (as in the sound chicks make), squeek (also an animal sound), dog, duck, walk, (a lot of these words sound the same so you have to know the situation to decipher), bath, ball, Bambi, bye-bye Grandma and bye-bye Grandpa, thank- you and several others I can't remember now. She talks all the time in sentences, I just only catch a word or two that I can understand. The best is when she "reads" to herself.
* Josie knows the word "poopie" because she has *sort- of* started potty training. One day she just started pointing to her diaper and saying "yuck." I noticed she would do this BEFORE going to the bathroom. I hadn't planned on potty training yet, but she seemed to be hinting she may be ready. So, I got her a potty. The next time she did that, I told her to go sit on her potty (we had discussed the potty before and showed her how to sit on it). She did and went poopie on the potty!!! AMAZING! Since then, she is real off and on about it. I don't pressure her and just let her do it if she wants to. She has tried a few times since, but doesn't usually make it on time. It takes too long to get her pants off. As summer comes and she is in dresses more, it will be easier. I don't know when she will actually be potty trained, probably not for a while. I just thought we would get her started on the path!
*Still loves to read and be read to, loves stacking things, sorting things, cleaning things, putting things where they go, sorting laundry, emptying the dishwasher, etc...Do you see a theme? Yeah, she is a little OCD about how things should go. She has become an amazing helper though, and loves to help me with things. She is very good about following direction. Especially lately, I have very little trouble with her listening to me. Only when she is tired do I have a problem. Hope that continues!!

Taking a break from sorting the laundry to have a wheat waffle ( I love the wheat Eggo's!! So good, but probably not very healthy, lol). I turned around and found her in there piling clothes on herself. She has also tried to take a nap in the laundry before. She literally started falling asleep.


*She has an unusually long attention span sometimes, especially when she is a little tired. She will get in a "zone" and play with the same thing for 30 mins or longer till I break her from it and put her down for a nap. It is helpful though, when I am doing something and need her occupied. She has become quite good at entertaining herself.
*Since we don't watch TV around her (or barely at all) the TV is meant for 2 things: Watching the same 10 mins. of "Bambi" or watching the Disney short, "Johnny Appleseed." Not sure why she loves them so much, but they are both cute movies so I don't mind. She is allowed to watch one or the other once a day. It's only about 10-20 mins of TV time, but it sometimes gives me a nice break! Most of the time she wants me there, though so she can snuggle with me and point to things during the movie and have me narrate.
*She is quite coordinated and I'm surprised sometimes at some of the climbing and balancing she does. She has developed quite a bit of boldness and tries scary things sometimes. She almost always has a scrape or scab somewhere and is quick to point out her "ouchies" if you ask her. She is very tough and barely cries even with the most dramatic of falls.
*She loves to spin and make herself dizzy (again adding to the scrapes), loves jumping on the bed with mommy, and loves going up and down stairs (any stairs outside our house, the ones at home are not appealing to her)
*Josie LOVES animals!! Maybe that's why she loves Bambi so much. Anytime she hears a dog, she freaks out and starts blowing kisses in the air and barking, telling me she wants to see it. We meet many animals on our daily walks and she is so cute with them.


*She loves to push things, especially shopping carts and her stroller. I keep thinking she wants to get out so she can run off. Nope. She actually stays with me and helps me push at the store or on our walks. She's really strong and gets it going a little too fast sometimes. So funny!

* Her "Snuggly" is still her favorite sleepytime pal. Whenever it's getting to be naptime or bedtime, I bring him to her and she immediately calms down, snuggles him up to her face, puts her fingers in her mouth and goes down easily to sleep. Don't worry, she only sucks on her fingers when she is wanting to calm down or comfort herself, not all the time. I have had people warn me about thumb sucking, lol. It's also a great tool when she is cranky or not feeling well. It really helps me avoid tantrums with her sometimes. It immediately calms her down and she stops her tantrum. It's awesome. I don't care if people think it's a crutch. It's awesome.







*She's just so sweet!!! She loves to snuggle and give kisses and always wants to be sitting on my lap.

Some cute daddy pics:

Riding with daddy after church at the airport. We hate it when daddy has to travel!!


At the Walkarusa Maple Syrup festival. First festival of the season!



As you can see from the previous pictures, Josie bangs and hair in general were getting quite long. I wanted to let her bangs grow out, but they really started to drive me crazy. They were always in her eyes. I decided to give her her first hair cut. I just trimmed her bangs and had to do it while she was playing. The are not perfectly straight, but it was to best I could do on the move.

Her long curls in the back:

With her new bangs. This was at a rehearsal I had for Beethoven's Ninth at the Notre Dame arena. She loved watching the orchestra and climbing up and down the stairs, of course.




We spend a lot of time at various parks these days. We usually go on a daily walk to any of the nearby parks. There are several within walking distance and it's nice to get outside and get some exercise. So, here are a ton of park pics!!!

*NOTE: I really don't have time to edit my pics most of the time even though we have photoshop. I know the colors are wacky in most of them. I keep forgetting to check the setting before I start shooting, lol.











Stopping in the middle of sliding down to wave hello to the guy mowing the lawn. Hilarious!

















Long enough post for ya?!?!? LOL.....