Hawaii Tsunami

I'm sure most of you have heard about the earthquake in Chile and the subsequent tsunami that is heading towards Hawaii. This hits pretty close to home for me. Some of my family and many of my friends and their families live in Hawaii, so you can understand my concern. Please say a little prayer for those in Hawaii and also all those who have been affected by the earthquake.

Olympic Fever

We've really been enjoying our DVR this month as we have been watching the Olympics and skipping all the talk and commercials! Josie's been getting really into it too. Whenever someone falls she says, "Ohh, sad.. " Most of all, she loves the figure skating!

Here's what I find after nap time...

We had a happy Valentine's day. Josie got a Mimi Mouse (Minnie) and now takes her EVERYWHERE. We went down to Mimi & Papa's house and got to play with all the cousins.

After church on V-day--Josie brought home her first nursery craft! Too cute! Its on the fridge now and Josie likes to point to it and say, "Heart!"
Helping mom with the ironing.. or something like that.

Josie's favorite breakfast is fruit loops. She usually does a great job gobbling them up.. not this morning. She methodically took them one by one from the bowl and put them in the cup holder on her tray...

Funny girl.. never a dull moment!

Winter blues...

Can I just say, I am SO SICK OF WINTER!!! I hate being cooped up in the house all day and I hate that the only place I ever go to get out of the house is a store. Josie is forever asking to go outside and it is just too cold! Another thing I absolutely hate is that we end up watching way more TV than I would like, just because we get bored! I'm afraid Josie likes the TV too much.. Finally, I am sick of being sick, and of Josie being sick! I don't know the valley very well, so I don't know of any indoor play places (besides McDonalds.. yucky) or fun indoor things to do that aren't too spendy.. so day after day we sit inside or walk around stores.
What do you do to beat the winter blues? And for those of you who live close by, what is there to do in the valley?

18 mo Check up!

We had Josie's 18 month check up today! We finally decided to go to a pediatrician (vs. a family doctor). Our new doctor is great. Josie warmed right up to him, so the exam was easy! She was chatting and playing with him in no time! He said that she is healthy and strong, and really advanced in her vocab. What a smartie! Here are her stats:

Height: 31.5", 42 percentile

Weight: 23.44 lbs, 35 percentile

We also got a fancy growth chart that shows where she lands among girls her age, and has lots of information on it, for example, the ideal weight for her height is 24.1 lbs. Oh, and if you were wondering about her noggin, yes, its still big. Its in the 93 percentile...

I finally uploaded the videos off of my video camera! Here are a couple of my favorites from the past little while.

I finally got her singing the ABC's! Listen carefully... my favorite part is at the end when you get a little "lmnop123!" :)

I have proof that I've been exercising! Here's my mimic..

Not much to say about this one, I just love it!

Life with an 18 month old...

We never have a dull moment at our house, as I'm sure you with kids understand. Here is what's going on with us recently:

Josie is now old enough to go to nursery!! For those of you who don't speak Mormon, we have a 3 hour block of church meetings on Sundays. Once kids are 18 months old, they get to go into the nursery for the last 2 hours of church. Lots of kids have a hard time with it, since they don't really know the nursery leaders and all that.. But we were very excited to be able to drop her off for 2 hours.. :) Here we are ready for church!

Josie did GREAT in nursery. I had to take her once to change the diaper, but when we went back to the nursery room, she walked right in and didn't look back. After church, we had a nice talk about it.

Me: Did you go to nursery?

Josie: YES!!

Me: Did you have fun?

Josie: FUN!!

Me: Did you play?

Josie: PLAY!!!!

I'm pretty sure she's excited to go back. Being able to go play is much better than having to sit through the adult classes.. sometimes I wish I could go to nursery too... :)

We went to a Superbowl party with the family at Justin's parents' house. We had some super tasty food, fun times with family and some pretty funny commercials. Josie got to observe baby Gavin up close and this is what we ended up with...
Josie has discovered the joy of skirts/tutus and dancing and twirling. Here's my sweet little princess. Isn't she adorable?

I get so sad because she just keeps growing and changing sooo fast. So its nice every once in a while when she does something she used to do when she was much littler.. like this. Finally, I've decided to keep this blog dedicated to family stuff, and create a new blog for my sewing and other craft projects. So, if you want to keep following that stuff, check out the new craft blog: http://madebyalissa.blogspot.com.

What a smartie!!

What are blogs for, if not to brag about how adorable/brilliant/wonderful/etc. your family is? So here is my latest brag.. Josie's a genius! Here's what we discovered in the last couple of days:

Josie can sing the ABC's! Ok, so not all of them, and she's not always exactly right, but she tries and its the cutest thing ever. She has a little pretend CD player that sings a few songs, one being the ABC's, and Josie tries to sing along. Here's how her song goes: "A B C D ah na G ah he he P. Now sing me! Yay!!!!" (with clapping).
She tries to sing along with the other songs too. Its adorable. I'm really going to try to get a video.

Josie can count to TEN! Today, we had reason to count to ten, so I started counting, and Josie went right along with me. She often forgets 4 and 7, but she knows all the rest!
Me: One...
Josie: Two, free, five...
Me: Four..
Josie: Five, sick...
Me: Seven..
Josie: Eight, nine, Ten! Yay!

That's right, we're raising a genius. And she's adorable too. :)

18 Months old!

Josie hit the 18 month mark on Sunday! I just can't believe how quickly the last 18 months has gone by! We don't have the 18 mo. check up until next week, so stay tuned to find out her stats. In the past few months, she's grown a bunch of hair and learned a ton of new words. She's a chatterer! Here are my favorite Josie-isms from the last little while:

(While watching Mickey Mouse)

Mickey: Let's see if we have a mousketool that can help us!

Josie: No tool.

Mickey: Everybody say, "Oh Toodles!"

Josie: No Toodles.

(While hanging out with Mom)

Josie: Bye-bye.

Me: Where are you going?

Josie: See later! (as she runs down the hall)

Favorite of the week: While playing with Josie on the floor, I sometimes pretend like I'm going to sleep. Usually, she just says Ni-night! and finds me a blanket. Today, she ran around looking for a blanket, saying, "blankie!" She came back after a bit and said, "Here-a go!" and handed me a binky, "Ni-night!"