Josie now seems to reliably understand one word and what a sweet word that is! She knows what a kiss is. We tell her to kiss her friends and she quickly gives them a smooch. She also kisses all cats, dogs, pictures of the above, and the koala in her book because it is also fuzzy.

Josie on her racing cart

I’ve gotten a bit behind in the food photos department, although they’re all starting to look the same so it’s not so much fun. We’ve been trying lots of new foods and basically Josie still is preferring the old standby of broccoli, rice cakes, and potatoes and seems moderately eager about carrots and sweet potatoes. From the title you can see we’ve tried a bunch of new foods and pretty much all of the fruit was summarily sent to the floor after trying it. The blueberries did a pretty good job of painting her face. The oatmeal was fairly interesting to her although the spoon concept was thrown to the floor. Instead I just make the oatmeal thick and put it in a pile in front of her and she dug in. She seems to have my food preferences quite a bit, man the peach was sour. Can’t wait until we get back to some new vegetables rather than all these fruits although I am doing a good job trying new fruits this way too.

Josie eating blueberries and rice cake

Final results of the blueberries - note the eyebrow

Josie and the peach

Josie has learned to play peek-a-boo herself! She actually first demonstrated the skill while in the car on the way to Pennsylvania. She previously would pull the blanket down from herself or you to ‘find’ you, but now she pulls the blanket up herself to hide.

Today she also played a fun game of ‘find the daddy’ or as I apparently incorrectly called it according to the daddy, hide and seek. Since she can walk she can follow your voice and come find you, which is great because separation anxiety is kicking in big time! She’s doing the typical shy kid pose of literally grabbing your pants and hanging on. Here’s just a cute video of her from a month ago laughing and walking. Somehow I swear George always gets himself in the background of the videos.

As promised by previous posts, we took Josie out sledding when it snowed before. We bought two sleds as we weren’t sure which one would work best while holding her, and so we could have races. Josie seemed to enjoy herself but was a little shy about it. She basically just becomes a passive ball of goo whenever we put her in her snowsuit. First video is of a race which Jordi won for speed, Josie and I won for distance and accuracy. Neither one of my parents were as brave as the baby as refused to go down the mini-hill.

Actually one of my favorite embarrassing stories (for Jordi) I like to tell is the first time he went sledding. We were at CMU and went down the hill together. We were headed directly at a tree and I was in front so I threw one arm out to the side to get us to turn. Jordi sensed us turning and panicked and put his opposite arm out to straighten us out! Then I of course wasn’t going to collide with the tree if I could help it and had to throw all four of my limbs overboard to just stop us. So Jordi, sledding, and steering seem to have been an issue from day one.

What did I say yesterday about Josie having two teeth? because today she has three. Top right one came in overnight, what a fun fun night we had!

I caught a rare glimpse of this odd creature that is occasionally crawling like a crab now. I just happened to have the camera on to see Josie do this funny trick to get herself onto the rug so she could stand up easier.

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)

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…

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