14 Days Left

I can't believe we only have 14 days until Christmas. Seriously, where does the time go?! I am excited to see how Josie does this Christmas. She is starting to understand things. She points at our trees and says "pitty". When we go to bed at night she waves at her snowman outside and her tree in the toy room and tells them 'night night". She is trying to say Merry Christmas but only gets out "mas". She is noticing the houses with the lights on them.

And here I am, it's not even Christmas yet and I'm already obsessed about her birthday party this year. I know she is going to change her likes and dislikes between now and next August but I can't help but think about it. I was thinking about Elmo because she loves him and Cookie Monster but I know that could change by then. So now I'm really thinking about finding either an outfit for her to wear that day and plan it around that or a piece of fabric for the tablecloths and plan around that. Or I've even thought about planning around her birthday month items, such as flowers are gladiolous and water lillies. Something like that.

Really what it boils down to is I love to throw parties and now that i have her i have a reason to do it. I would love to figure out how to get a business up and going around here that revolves around children's birthdays. But I don't know how to go about promoting it.

I called Rising Star yesterday and I think I am going to enroll her in a tumbler class that they have. That is really the only thing I can find here for her age group to get her involved in. Everything that I am finding is during the week and not every Mom has the luxury of not having to work people! You need to have some weekend stuff too.

Josie is really picking up on a lot of words. She now says:

aner "hanger"

andy "candy"

pease "please"

Thank you

co off "coat off"

at "hat"

ooh-daa "doo-daa" (her play sweeper sings doodaa day)

She also getting to be very independent and doesn't really want your help on much. She is also definitely testing her boundaries. You can tell her no fifteen times over one thing and she will consistently do it while you are telling her no and smile about it. Very frustrating! And Mommy is going to have to get a sturdier backbone. Sometimes she'll push me and it's easy to get on her, others, I choose my battles. It's really easy when its something that will hurt her and she seems to get the maddest about those things when she is corrected.

Tomorrow we are going to see Santa at Fountain Square and we'll see how that goes. We ran into Lisa and the boys at the mall Saturday when we went to get our pictures taken so we took the kids down to Santa and we have a picture of the boys on Santa and Josie on Jordan's lap and she is crying. She might be better with Riley & Kayla but I guess we'll find out.

Then after the girls wake up we are going to do our Gingerbread houses. We didn't do them last year because I wasn't up to it, so this is the first year for Kayla. Riley likes doing them because after Christmas is over, he takes it outside and runs it over with his Gator. Which this year he will have to run over it with his 4-wheeler cause he has outgrown his Gator.

Well that's it for now! I'm tryin to add some photos but this thing won't let me!

Thankful For!

This Thanksgiving I am thankful for:
Josie (so much more than you can imagine)
Mikey
My Family
Having the assistance to be over Postpartum Depression (awful!!!)
My Home
My Job
and everything else the good Lord has provided for us.

Now on to the new stats from her 15 month appointment. (Technically 15 mo. and 3 weeks)
Height: 32.5 In (90-95%)
Weight: 24 lbs 2 oz (50-75%)
Stage of development: 21 month and 1 week (she gets that from Mommy! tee-hee tee-hee)

We have had to move up to size 7 in shoes and I don't think it will be long until it will be size 8. She can wear them now but I don't like putting shoes on her that are too big and she can possibly slide around in. I know it would be cheaper in the long run.
We have been potty training now for about 2 wks. I was going to wait until after Christmas but I think she had other plans. Some days she is really into it, others she could care less.
She got her first really bad cold on November 4th thanks to typhoid Kayla. At least that's who we're blaming. She was sick first. Anyway, Wednesday night she laid in bed with me for about an hour and watched TV. That is so unlike her so I knew something was up. She went to bed that night with a 99 degree temperature. Then Thursday morning when we woke up she was roasting and had a 102.3 temperature. We fought the temperature all weekend. By Monday, it was gone but she still felt awful. Plus on top of that she had more molars coming in. When we went to the Dr on the 20th she was still coughing, although it was better, and she still had a snotty nose. So he put her on Amoxycillin for the first time. She loves that stuff. If she sees her syringe on the counter or her medicine in the fridge. She is pointing, whining and saying "cine". I don't know what we'll do when it runs out! :-)
Speaking of her talking, she is picking up so much now and understands what I am telling her. She is mommy's little helper. I can give her laundry and tell her to go put it in the basket and she will. She also takes her toothbrush to the sink when I tell her, and goes and gets her clothes and throws trash away.
She is in to sitting on the counter while I am in the kitchen working so that she can see what I am doing. I'll be glad when she can stand on a chair and not have to worry about her falling cause it's awfully hard trying to do something with supper and having little hands flying into what you are doing! :-) Especially scrambled eggs! YUCK!!!
If you wash your hands, she is pulling up her sleeves and saying "eeves" and "osh". Kind of makes me not want to wash my hands sometimes cause I know she's gonna be next!
Speaking of talking she says the following:
appy "Happy"
oncle "Uncle" (She is obsessed with Uncle Nathan)
Mama (Mama Carole)
Papa (Papa Doug)
Gma "Grandma" (Angalene)
Iley "Riley"
Ayla "Kayla"
crackie "crackers"
eeves "sleeves or leaves"
spooky "anything Halloween related"
ash "trash"
aci "pacifier"
peepee "potty"
ower "shower"
ath "bath"
urkey "turkey"
eer "ear or deer"
pitty "pretty"
incess "princess"
ookie "cookie"
eat (she has that one down pat!)
ater "water"
ilk "milk"
ogu "yogurt"
uit "fruit"
hi "is either HI or if her hand is raised when she says it that means High Five"
ello "Hello"
Get Down "she has that one down pat as well and has a voice raising as she says it"
It Down "Sit Down and she has a voice raising on that one as well"
Eeth "Teeth" (when she wants to brush her teeth)
Ocky "Rocky" (in the rocking chair)
pus "purse"
ackpack "Backpack"
And when she says "pus" or "ackpack" she will also tell you bye as she is putting either one of them over her shoulder.
She still loves playing in her bed as well. We got her toy room done and she loves being down there playing. Everything for the most part is totally accessible to her and she can do it on her own.
I think I have covered it for the most part. I have already made my New Year's resolution that I will be better at this. So sorry for those of you that read this all the way through!

1st Emergency Room Visit

I guess I jinxed myself yesterday by updating the blog!
Josie was at Aunt Michelle's yesterday morning and Michelle called me around 10:00 and said that Josie kept pulling on her leg and whining. She took her pants off of her and didn't see anywhere that she had hurt herself. She called back around 10:45 and said she was still doing it and just as bad. So I told her to just give her some Tylenol. She then called back around 11:00 and said that something was really wrong with her.
So I called the pediatrician's office and they couldn't get her in to check her until 6:15 that night. OK, we'll give her the Tylenol and wait it out.
Then I get to Michelle's at lunch and the poor kid is screaming her head off. Anytime you touched her right leg she would cry really hard and grab for it. So I decided I would just take her to the Emergency room. I called Mama Carole and she rode in there with us to keep her calm in the backseat on the way in there.
We get to the hospital and they take us back to the room. The Dr and nurse come in to check her and decide to do an X-ray. So she and I go to the X-ray room and they took about 5 X-Rays of her leg. The poor kid is crying this entire time and they also won't let her eat anything just in case something is broke and they have to do surgery.
The Dr checks the X-ray's, says that nothing looks broke and that he is going to call Malone's office because he feels that Malone needs to check her later in the evening to make sure nothing gets worse.
So he leaves the room to go call the Dr. Josie falls asleep on my chest. The Dr comes back in and says that Malone wants some blood drawn to check her blood count and to check for fluid in her hips and knees, because sometimes kids have that. So we wake her up and the two nurses come in to draw her blood.
I set down on the bed to hold her and the one nurse lifts up her sleeve while the other is getting the needle ready. Lo and Behold! there are teeth marks on Josie's lower right arm. The nurse says looks like she's been bit and tells Josie she's had a rough day and needs to go home and start over.
Here I am all nervous anyway because my daughter has something wrong with her, No one seen her fall or anything and you hear all the horror stories about them grilling you in case of child abuse and then we find teeth marks on her arm! Thank God they were small and you could very obviously tell that they weren't from an adult.
Anyway, the nurses stick Josie and can't get any blood, so we woke her up for nothing and have to wait for Lab to get there to do it.
The tech comes from Lab and draws blood out of her arm and we are released.
We stop at McDonald's because none of us have ate. Mom fed Josie the peanut butter sandwich that Aunt Michelle made her on the way to McD's. She ate the whole thing and was still hungry.
We drop Mom off and go home, Josie was really good until I went to change her diaper. When I went to take her pants off she started in screaming again!
I finally got her calmed down and then she just sat on my lap for about 1.5 hrs and we watched cartoons.
At around 6:00 last night she seemed to be coming out of it and so far today she is fine. The Dr called and the blood tests all came back good.
I was always thinking in the back of my mind how well I would be able to handle her first real "sickness" and I am very proud of myself. I was well controlled and able to pacify her! I guess it does come in the thick of things that a Mother will know what to do!
But I hope we don't have anything like that for a while and thank God she didn't break anything!

Wow, really bad this time around! Almost 2 months with no posts.

Let's see, not much has really changed.

This past Saturday at almost 15 months we are no longer doing night time bottles. Josie will not drink milk out of a sippy cup. The only milk she was getting was her nightly bottle. I knew the Dr's didn't want them taking a bottle after 12 months but what do you do when they won't drink milk from a sippy cup? We had tried 4 different types of cups. She would sip milk out of the last cup we found but she wouldn't drink milk. Well the Dr confirmed what I was thinking of doing so we did it! She gets nothing to drink but 1 glass of water a day with her medicine in it and the rest she is only getting milk until she starts drinking like she is suppose to. Well it seems to be working. We filled up her milk glass 3 times yesterday. One cup use to last us a whole day, in and out of the fridge of course. The Dr said you have to be more stubborn than they are.

I was afraid she would really have trouble without that night bottle and start waking up again. But it's been two nights now and knock on wood, she's slept through the night both times.

Michelle and I took the kids to the pumpkin patch up by Morgantown yesterday morning. The kids seem to have alot of fun. We got us a big pumpkin. I think Josie's favorite part was probably the pumpkin patch. She just kept walking around and trying to pick up pumpkins.

That kid will pick up anything. Last night when daddy got home from hunting, she carried her riding toy to him so he would push her. I tell her she is a he-woman like her mommy!

Well that's it for today! I'll try and be better, I promise!!!

Feeling A Little Down!

Michelle & I are going to have a yard sale so I have been going through all of Josie's clothes from the first year. Makes me really miss my baby!!! Everyone says they grow fast but Lord, you don't know until it's your own. I enjoy everything she is doing now and the fun we are having and more to come but I also miss my little 8 pounder laying in my arms sleeping!
Speaking of fun things! Some aren't so fun!!! I had to take the knobs off of our gas stove a few weeks ago. One night I was cleaning the kitchen after dinner, Josie likes to push her highchair around the kitchen and she pushed it into the stove. She does this all the time. Next thing I know I start smelling something. She had pushed her highchair into the stove and turned the gas on. So we turned on all the exhausts in the house, opened the windows and headed out to the swing set. The knobs are now off the stove.
Then this past Saturday, Chris and Katie came over for dinner. Josie was playing with her little teapot that has a removable lid on it, she stood up and walked over to the stove and hung it where the knobs should be. I couldn't help but laugh!
Then Tuesday night, I had gotten done using the oven for dinner. She was in the kitchen with me whining wanting me to pick her up while I was cleaning up the mess. She grabbed the stove handle and pulled. She fell and the door fell on her. Luckily she didn't get burned! So now the self cleaning lock is on it.
She is now afraid of all sweepers. They don't even have to be running. All she has to do is see one and cry until you put it up. Don't know what is up with that one, but it's getting old really quick!
Her walking is now almost a run. When she gets in a hurry because she has something she's not suppose to have and she takes off, she puts her head and chest out in front of her legs and goes as fast as she can. Most the time falling to the floor cause she is off balance. Too funny!!!
I've got some new pictures but I don't have them on the computer yet so I'll get that up so you all can see her.
That's it for now!

SERIOUSLY!!! One already!!!

This is going to be a long post but if you hang in there you'll get to see some good pics!

We took Josie to the fair for the first time on Sunday, July 26th. She liked the animals but didn't really care about the cows or the pigs. I mean really, think about it! The pigs are always sleeping and the cows, all you see from where you stand is their butts. So what's so great about that! She really liked the rabbits and petted a couple. The goats she got a kick out of because there were a couple in different pens that kept ramming at each other. Guess they didn't like their cellmates! She had her first corndog. Not really this anal mom would only let her have the breading. But she liked it just the same. We also got her her first ice cream cone. That was funny she was trying to lick at it like a dog.

Papa Doug, Mama Carole and Grandpa & Grandma Jones bought her her first swing set for her birthday and Papa Doug brought it over for Daddy to build. So he and Chris worked on it in the garage and it took them 3 nights to get it all put together.

Saturday, August 1st, Daddy & I took her to the Indianapolis Zoo for her birthday. She bought a monkey and a monkey book when we were done. Here she liked the big animals and the sharks in the petting tank. We didn't let her actually pet one because all she would have done is splash the water and I'm sure they don't want that. We plan on this being her yearly birthday tradition.

(In this photo she has just got done trying her first Spaghetti-O's and her first strawberry smoothie. So far this kid has liked everything we have given her except for carrots! She'll eat them if she's hungry.)

She literally fell asleep in 3 minutes after we left the zoo.

Sunday, August 2nd, we had her birthday party! In attendance was Papa Doug, Mama Carole, Uncle Rick, Aunt Michelle, Riley, Kayla, Uncle Nathan, Aunt Emily, Granny Glodyne, Uncle Barney, Jackie, Jennifer, Becky, Aunt Susie, Dawnna, Nathan Garrett, Austin, Cindy, Allyson, Mackenzie, Madeline, Grandpa & Grandma Jones, Aunt Brandy, Nana Louise, Aunt Vickie, Aunt Sandy, Brad, Penny, Abby, Bopper. I don't think I forgot anyone!

She seemed to have a really good time! Didn't mind at all that there was a bunch of people there she just had fun watching all of the kids.

She absolutely destroyed her cake and ate about half of it. At first she started with just the icing, then she found the cake with her hands. Then once she had so much on her hands she just decided to stick her face in it. Why bother with the hands!

This is what was left of the cake!

Now onto the decorations! If it hadn't been for Aunt Emily coming to help me during Josie's naptime it wouldn't have all gotten done. So THANK YOU Aunt Emily!!!

(The monkey cookies Mikey & I decorated)

As far as presents she got alot of clothes and toys. She got a Build a Bear gift certificate from the Hudoff's which we are going to go spend this weekend.

While she was napping Monday afternoon I opened up all of her toys and got them out of the package. When she woke up from her nap and saw the toys she wanted off of my lap. There was no cuddling to be had from her until she played with her toys. That was quite funny because she always has to cuddle after naps.

On Monday, August 3rd, Her BIRTHDAY!!! she and I went to Kohl's, Michaels and then we went and picked up lunch for us and Papa, Mama & Granny. Josie had her first mashed potatoes, biscuit and green beans from KFC. She ate all of it really good. That night when Daddy got home we opened up what we got her and then we went out to play on the swing set. She had a blast on the slide. She especially liked going down the slide head first on her belly. I figured it would scare her and told Daddy so but then she laughed!

And the little terd is trying to climb the slide already!

Tuesday, August 4th, we went for our first year check up. She weighs 24 lbs 10 oz and is 31.25 inches tall. She is 75 % in weight and 97% in height. Developmentally she is 17 months & 1 week. Smart little booger!

Wednesday, August 5th, she stayed home with Grandma Jones and Aunt Brandy all day and when we got home and Daddy went outside she went to the door after him. This is what I found!

So we may be then next parents on the news! with an escaped kid!!! :-)

Well I think I've bored everyone enough plus I'm tired of typing!!!

Bad Bad!

Wow I have been a really bad girl this time.

I just can't keep up on it all. I know, Excuses, Excuses.

Anyway, what's been going on!

June 18th- Josie stood all by herself while at Grandma's. Grandma said she was in the floor playing with a ball and just stood straight up. Grandma said she started yelling to get every one's attention and by the time they turned around Josie sat down. She is really good now standing on her own.

June 30th- Mom fell and broke her leg and shattered her ankle while holding Josie and taking her to swing. She ended up with a rod, plates and screws in her leg and ankle and will be down for 4-6 months. Currently, she is healing well. She's getting tired of being stuck in the chair, bed and couch. I went yesterday and bought her a card kit that she can make some cards while she is stuck. After she gets that done I'm going to go put some scrapbook kits together for her. Told her she might as well take advantage of it and get some scrapping done!

June 30th- I took Kodi and had her put to sleep. She was getting to where she couldn't climb the stairs. She was confused and running into things. And she would just lay and whine. I decided it was time. She'd had a good life and I will greatly miss her!

July 15th- Josie started walking with her walking toy we bought her a while back. She can cruise on it pretty good now but when she goes, she goes and what she hits, she hits and then she fusses because she is stuck. So you have to go turn it for her or listen to her whine.

July 17th- Started taking more steps by herself and now will walk with you only holding one of her hands. Makes me sad our little girl is growing so quickly but I also enjoy every minute of it and all the new things she is learning.

July 21st- She walked from the bedroom door into the living room to the end table by herself. She was quite excited, the whole time she was walking, hands were in the air and she was squealing and giggling.

Words- She currently says: Thank You, See Ya, Levi (dog), Giggles (stuffed dog), Eat, Ba Ba (Bottle), Bath, Good Girl, Big Girl, Mom, DaDa, Kayla, Riley, Mama, Papa, All Gone, All Done

She will kiss you and come at you with mouth wide open and tongue sticking out. So it is one slobbery kiss. She is also blowing kisses and giving you hugs. She pats Mommy when she gives her a hug. :-)

I began taking Fridays off this past Friday to help out with the babysitting. Now all I have is Michelle and Angalene, so they are each taking two days a week and then I take Friday. I plan on doing that until Mom is back up and able to take care of Josie again.

Aunt Emily came and watched her one morning, and it was so nice to leave the house and Josie not be crying for Mommy. Makes it much easier to leave! Thank you Aunt Emily!

I will be glad when Mom is up and at them because Josie is a Big Mama Girl! When Mom stands up on her walker and Josie is around, her arms go straight up wanting Mama to pick her up. So I'm sure Josie will be happy to have her Mama back too!

But since Mama isn't watching her right now, I decided it was time to break her from being rocked during naps. She was only rocked by me and Mama. Michelle always put her in the crib and had trouble doing it because she was used to being rocked. Well I decided since I was home all weekend that it was a good time to start. Talk about boring! Friday morning I put her down and got all my cleaning done other than sweeping and then I had nothing to do! So the afternoon nap I was extremely bored! I miss holding her and staring at her while she sleeps but she does sleep better in her bed.

I've been planning her 1st birthday party and having a great time doing it. It is a monkey theme!!! I made sugar cookies in monkey faces and Mike and I decorated them at night after she went to sleep. So we have neon pink and purple monkeys. I took some pictures, I'll have to bring them and put them on here. Sherry Eller is making her cakes for us. I figured I wouldn't have the time to do it. Here's a pic of her plates:

Aren't they cute?! I made bananas as her invitations.

Well I'll have to post again later.

Here's some random pics:

06-03-09 This is Giggles! (Build a Bear)

06-08-09 Riley's Baseball Game

06-13-09 Nathan & Emily

07-05-09 11 months (I love this picture!)

07-05-09

07-10-09 (Josie had her clothes off so Kayla had to take hers off too)

07-12-09 ( Mommy & Josie)

07-12-09 (Playing Peek A Boo with her Kitchen)