Josie has learned how to make it very clear that it is time to leave. She goes to the exit, points, does her ‘i want’ sign, and waves goodbye to the place. There is no convincing her otherwise, she’s ready and that’s it. Alternatively, getting her to leave a place she’s happy with is a trial in persuasiveness. Here’s a video of her getting her point across at Don Pan, our favorite bakery down in Florida.

As previously mentioned, we went to Florida in May for Mother’s Day. We saw lots of relatives, including my grandmother and most of Jordi’s family. We had a lot of fun, even if Josie isn’t a fan of the heat. Playing on the beach and in the water was a blast. Josie loved getting to pet and chase new cats, including a 2 month old kitten, and dogs and didn’t do any lasting damage to the house so far as we saw 🙂

I don’t know why I don’t have any photos from the beach, maybe someone else does?

We are living in a great neighborhood and are really lucky to have such lovely neighbors on all sides of us! There are 4 kids within 4 months of Josie’s age plus a couple of older ones just in the few houses right around us. Next door though are some of Josie’s (and my) favorite playmates. Zach is just a couple of weeks younger than Josie. He thinks Josie is ‘da bomb’ if I interpret his frequent attempts at hugging her and giving her flowers (i.e. grass). Josie tries not to recoil too much when Zach (who out-weighs her by over 5 lbs and isn’t quite as steady on his feet) comes in for a big hug. Josie loves to follow Zach’s older brother Ethan (age 3.5) around and copy him much to Ethan’s frustration. She even copies him when he yells, although the words come out a little differently. We’re just really lucky to have them around and we’re all gonna be pretty sad when Christina (mom) goes back to teaching in the fall.

Some of Josie’s favorite games are her playing in bed because it’s way better than sleeping! Here’s a demo:

And another!

I really hope this video doesn’t reflect on the way she feels that I stroller her around.

For mothers day we surprised my mother in law and flew down to Florida to visit Jordi’s family and my grandmother! Here’s a video of her playing around with the ball, it’s rather long, so I only expect grandparents to actually watch the entire thing.

I’ve fallen behind, Josie is trying to crawl and climb in her sleep rather than lay still and sleep, which hasn’t provided a great sleep for any of us! Here’s some cute photos generally from her 12th month.

Hey blog readers who haven’t responded to Josie’s birthday party invite, please drop us a line!

Plus if there are other adults that don’t have kids, that we didn’t invite because we weren’t sure you’d want to hang out with a bunch of 1 year olds, but you do want to hang out with their parents, let us know and we’d be happy to extend an invitation.

Here’s a pretty photo of Josie from Alyssa’s bridal shower, we need a big camera like this!