Josie has learned to wave bye-bye! Sometimes one handed, sometimes two handed, but often at the right time. Most recently she was so excited to see Ginny, one of my parent’s cats (and sister to Fred and George) that she waved at her. Ginny took the greeting unfortunately instead as a threat and went and hid.

This new talent works well with the fact that she can just get up and leave now. The photo below is awful, but it’s the only one you can see teeth in! Or tooth in. She has two teeth, both on the bottom center but you can only really see one.

Josie and her tooth (and hands)

One of our favorite restaurants since we came to Cambridge post-CMU has been Border Cafe. While I like to eat a lot of different foods, I often find one thing per restaurant that I just love to get again and again. At the Border Cafe my favorite was the corn and black bean empanada. Now this dish really wasn’t an empanada, it was more what Americans would call a chimichanga, it was a deep fried burrito covered in red pepper sauce. It was delicious and was the same for the last 8 years that we’ve been going there.

Now for some reason they’ve changed the dish to make it more like real empanadas, four little pouches of flakey pastry. Problem is that they just aren’t as good, it’s too much dough, not enough beans and cheese and veggies. It’s just ruined for me, and it’s not that they don’t have good chips, salsa, quesadillas, and fajitas still, but they just removed my favorite food.

And, I have asked previously for the recipe and they refused it. Now I can’t even enjoy it at the restaurant! So Border Cafe is dead to me.

It’s been a very busy few weeks chasing after Josie because on her 8 month birthday she decided she was going to get up and walk. The previous Friday she had learned how to get to her feet from her belly and so she put it all together and now walks about. It has taken a while to get a video as she loves to fall down immediately when I take out the camera for some reason, and she doesn’t give me any time online anymore as she just gets up and leaves when she wants to. For instance she got up and left my lap in the middle of my rendition of “the noble duke of york” this morning.

Our babyproofing efforts have gone into super high gear to finish up things as they become problems. For instance now Jordi’s guitars are hanging on the wall up very high and the TV cabinet has a new latch. George and Josie repeatedly test out all the babyproofing for us to make sure it holds. I think they will be working together in the future to foil us. (Note: the stuff on the floor in the video is snow in case you were worried!)

Now that Josie has mastered the pincher grasp (grab small things between two fingers) she likes to pick up every little piece of anything like rug, catfur, etc, off of the floor of the house. And put it in her mouth. Argh…

With the new round of gifts comes a new round of toy confusion. Ezzy loves to just put herself in the middle of the pile of toys and see which ones look like fun. The top ball of her stacking tower is much coveted by all!

It’s hard to get shoveling done with a baby because now we can only have one person working at once really. The other needs to be watching or playing with the baby because it’s just too cold outside. Although, the following can work for about ten minutes.

Jen and Josie shoveling

This year we went to my dad’s family in Harrisburg. It was a long car ride both there and back but Josie did relatively well. Unfortunately on the first morning it took us a long time to get going, everything takes forever when packing for an extra person who also demands tons of attention! We stopped at a new favorite, Reins Deli in Vernon CT:

Rein's Deli in CT

We had a wonderful meal at Cousin Sue and Jeff’s house on Christmas Eve. Josie got to meet the huge dog Zeke, she tried to kiss him, but they weren’t too sure about one another.

Josie playing with the dog toy

Jordi and Josie by the tree on Christmas Eve

Josie and Jen on Christmas Eve

Karen, Jen and Josie on Christmas Eve waiting to leave for church

As always it was a bountiful Christmas morning, although since we had opened a lot of gifts the previous weekend, gift unwrapping didn’t take all morning into the afternoon. Josie did a good job walking into the room to amazement at the gifts being , which is a family tradition that I have thankfully outgrown having to do.

Walking in on Christmas morning

Christmas morning unwrapping

As usualy Josie was initially shy with everyone, but after a day or two she started to warm up and really enjoy everyones company. Phoebe the cat was very friendly too and Josie kissed her frequently. The other cats made themselves scarce.

Cousin Ally and Abby with Josie

Josie and Abby

Sadly all good things must end and Saturday morning we packed up and went home. The trip home was shorter but not particularly easier. We had a lot of toys to amuse Josie with in the car but we still stopped frequently for changes and leg stretches. We stopped at McD’s for a potty break rather than BK so Josie could enjoy her first playplace. We sent Jordi up in the climbing structure with her, she did seem to really enjoy it. The fries would have been much better at BK, but we made the sacrifice.

Aunt Diane, Uncle Todd, Cousin Abby, Cousin Ally, Jordi, Josie, Jen and Grandma

McD's playplace

Check out my dad’s blog for a cool video of Josie tickling the ivories.

Now that we and a lot of our friends are getting the hang of being parents, some of the party traditions are reemerging, like pumping carving and holidays. We enjoyed the hospitality of Saru, Justin and Ryan and got to watch the kids have a ball and quibble over toys. We bought Josie’s new push cart and Rody over because she had just gotten them that afternoon and so we wanted to share. Worked out well as there was lots of excitement for both Ryan’s and Josie’s push and ride vehicles. Josie even gave Lilia a nice ride on the cart. Josie repeatedly seemed to want the same toys as Jace who is over a year older than her, she seemed to give as good as she got at least and neither were worse for wear. It is so neat to watch the different ages and developmental stages of each of the little ones!