Here’s one we were pretty amused by yesterday:

tabi-yogurt = tapioca (pudding)

In the new year we sat down with my parents and the super-cool gingerbread kit that my dad’s company gave him and made a house. My parents constructed the actual house, we all did the decorating down on Josie’s table. Thankfully Josie, like the rest of us Type A nerds, likes symmetry and precision. I just love the look of concentration on her face in this shot.

One of Josie’s holiday gifts I made her is her very own mei-tie style baby carrier. Hers has a buckle on the waist instead of ties like mine. She’ll carry baby and cat around in it for up to half an hour, guess I made it comfortable! It’s great not to have to tie her up in mine anymore.

We’ve been taking  ‘gymnastics’ lessons at our local rec department now for two sessions. Josie really enjoys them, lots of run around time, not a lot of structure. Today the teacher helped Josie spin herself up over the bar and told me that she had ‘great body control’ and that I should sign her up for ‘real gymnastics’. I remarked on how yes Josie has always been very strong and physically aware. But real gymnastics for the under two set? Maybe when someone else wants to pay for the lessons!

She also made friends with one of the boys in class today named Alexander, a blond 2.5 year old. They hugged and held hands, then Alexander followed us around for the rest of the class.

Last week we took Josie to the doc to followup on her ear infection (all clear!) and weighed her. She’s tipping the scales at 24 lbs now, it really just all added on in one chunk last week I swear. And now her diapers are popping open at the velcro when she bends over. I kept thinking she was messing with them, but as I thought about it more, she’s way past the expected weight limit of those diapers since she’s tall and thin. She has finally outgrown them! I put in a new order over the weekend for BumGenius 3.0 Onesize diapers which will grow with her and shrink way down again, cause hopefully Josie learn how to use the potty before too much longer and won’t wear them out. She’s having a lot of success, but it’s a slow process.

Lately I’ve found some time to do some cooking and have picked out some new recipes. Some have been good, some have not. Here’s what’s gone down:

• Chili Cheese Corn Muffin from Rachael Ray. These were edible but that’s about it, they made a regular non-sweet muffin and added chili and corn and Parmesan cheese to it which we’ve decided is just wrong. Plus mayonnaise in muffins? Kinda ick. We’ve been trying to work our way through them, but it’s been rough. Previously Josie and I made corn muffin’s from the Magnolia Bakery cookbook, those were good. Jordi says to next time take those corn muffins and add cheese and chili’s.
• Cake Balls! Yum yum, but somewhat a pain to make. They take a lot of time for cooling, it was helpful that it’s winter because I just stuck the cake out in the snow to cool down. They are delicious, especially keeping them in the freezer. We used chocolate my brother in law just sent us from Brazil which was a nice added touch! Jordi thought they went nicely with a chocolate martini.
• 17 bean soup from Trader Joes. I added in some cheese rind from some old cheese which I keep around for this purpose, adds salt and flavor. It was nice, nothing inspirational. Feels good on a cold winter’s day and very healthy.
• Sweet potato Gnocchi. Sweet potatoes were cheap cheap cheap a few weeks ago and so I had to find a way to make them in into something more interesting than just baked sweet potato. Here comes the gnocchi. I got a lot of help from the toddler set in mashing the potatoes, both Zach and Josie. These took a lot of physical labor to mix it all up, but they were exceedingly tasty and I have several bags of them in my freezer. When made with the accompanying sauce of brown butter with sage (and maple syrup) they were decadent.
• and tonight, Tapioca pudding from non-instant tapioca. Let’s hope it’s good!

Close blog readers might have noticed the improved picture quality of some photos (I’m still clearing some from the old camera though too) and HD-video that showed up. Jordi and I were the lucky recipients of a Nikon D90 camera and a sweet 18-200mm lens for Christmas from our parents. We’ve been having a lot of fun taking tons of pictures and playing around with the camera in general with video and all the different modes. I even signed up for a dinky adult ed class to learn a little bit more about how to take better pictures because there’s lots of room for improvement. If you have any suggestions for online info on how to take better pictures I’d love to read those too.

I’ve been enjoying following Josie on our normal daily adventures and taking pictures. It adds a little more excitement in for me on a mundane neighborhood walk trying to take some interesting shots, making sure she doesn’t do anything dangerous while I’m not entirely paying attention.

Josie got a couple of chances to make cookies this holiday season and with each attempt she got better at lasting longer and longer before destroying the rolled out piece of dough by grabbing it up and squeezing it. It’s hard to explain how that’s ok with playdoh but not with cookie dough, at least when you’re trying to actually get the cookies made. Here is Josie cutting and picking up pieces of gingerbread men cookies in Florida on Christmas day.

Josie loves singing and hearing us sing too. We go every week to the sing-a-long at the local library! In this video, see Josie demonstrating her knowledge of how things go on the bus.

Josie has become a bit of a help in the kitchen, she can wash fruits and vegetables, take grapes off the stem, and measure and pour with a small bit of help (like making sure she actually fills said measuring cup). Here she does a great job rolling out some scallion pancakes. Thanks to Alice for teaching me back at Zeta how to make them!