Josie is very proud these days of anything she can help with. One of her favorites is helping Jordi make his lunch in the morning for work. She often helps by reminding him of what goes in it (cheese, spinach, etc) and then taking the spinach they put in the sandwich and putting it on the floor or her tower. Mio likes spinach, and so does George. But of course, so does Daddy.

A few weeks ago my cousin Will came up for the holiday weekend and Josie got to meet him again for the first time since she was 2 months old. Things have certainly changed since then! We celebrated Will’s birthday a little late by all going out to dinner on Valentine’s day, so maybe not the most romantic, but we certainly weren’t in the minority being people dining with a toddler that evening! (ok so we had dinner at 6, that might change the clientele at Not Your Average Joes)

We also bought ourselves a vacuum cleaner for valentine’s day too (as a pre-agreed upon thing). Nothing says loving like a quickly but effectively cleaned house.

J

To celebrate Jordi’s birthday (and Chanh’s) we packed up this weekend and went back to the Cape Codder Resort with our neighbors and friends Christina, Chanh, Zach and Ethan.

Jordi, Josie and I drove up early Friday afternoon and Jordi crashed for some much needed sleep after burning the midnight oil several days in a row. I took Josie to the wave pool which she loved just like last year. Each time we went she was more and more ready to get into the pool immediately. She liked to kick and hit the waves.

Later in the afternoon Christina and family joined us. Our two families had connecting rooms and the kids were crazy just running back and forth and all around. It worked out really well to have the extra space to move and playmates to have fun with.

Our rooms were also really well located just upstairs from the wave pool, as demonstrated by the photo from our room!

We had cupcakes, which made me Ethan and Zach’s best friend for a few minutes. It was tough keeping their hands out of the cup cakes while trying to light them on fire though! I slightly surprised Christina by getting her name on a cup cake too since her birthday was only the weekend before!

We did a tiny bit of sight seeing around Hyannis, but mostly everything is closed this time of year except for restaurants. Jordi was especially disappointed in all the closed ice cream shops. Looking at this picture of the beach I took you almost can’t even tell it’s winter, it looks downright inviting if I couldn’t still imagine the freezing winter beach breeze while I took it!

Finally, I’m getting to Christmas! We went down to Miami to enjoy the nice weather and family. We had a great time at Jungle Island and just spending our time visiting family.

As usual Josie charmed everyone and learned all the pets names within 5 minutes of meeting them, can’t quite say the same for all the people. She still asks about Simba and Jasmine. Ana and Carlos hosted us again for a yummy breakfast where we got this great group shot with the new camera.

Here’s the traditional entry video/photo that we always take in my family of the kids seeing the whole Christmas loot for the first time.

Josie had a fun time playing with Bubie. They had tea and played a little on the floor, here’s some videos and photos!

Josie ran over to the door to race and Bubie followed,

Then Josie came closer for a photo,

Then the silliness begins,

Josie likes to be upside down. Perhaps attempting to display a forward roll.

abort abort, somersault failed. Run away!

We went to visit my grandmother at her new independent living facility. Her view isn’t quite what it was while living on the beach, but it’s still very sweet. It looks like a nice place with a lot of life to it. We even went to see the aviary and hopped a ride on a golf cart. Josie pretended to drive off the back.

This Thanksgiving we celebrated with my dad’s sister and family.

We even did an early Christmas present exchange so we could see people open their gifts! Here’s Josie playing with her airplane. Maybe she shouldn’t be a pilot.

We had a nice calm visit even if the drive down there was a little rough. Josie doesn’t sleep like she did last year anymore and so we had to have a 3 ring circus to entertain her through all the driving. We also saw our cousin Sue and Jeff and their daughter Erin, and Josie’s favorite, their dog Zeke. Josie was awestruck by Zeke, he’s huge, over 100 lbs. She thought he was great, but Josie is so short that she got bowled over once when she went running and Zeke went after her.

One of Josie’s favorite aspects of the holidays has been delivering gifts. Here she is, again lifting heavy objects, with Zeke in the background too.

On the way home we left later and stayed overnight in a hotel just into Connecticut. It had the warmest pool I think I’ve ever been in, just shy of being a gigantic hot tub. Josie loved it and we ignored bedtime to get in two swims on our quick trip. Her favorite game is jumping into the pool and watching us all pretend to drown ourselves.

Just a nice photo from the pre-Thanksgiving Miami trip.

Sadly, in late November, Jordi’s grandfather, Juan, lost his battle with cancer. We got the call on Thursday at noon that he had taken a serious turn for the worse, we flew down that afternoon at 4:30, and he got to see us and Josie again the next morning. Josie gave him some stickers and he joked about cute Josie’s pouting face. He passed on Sunday evening after several more visits. His funny stories, warm encouragement, enthusiasm for life will be missed.