Saturday before Christmas and Hanukkah we opened gifts from people who weren’t at our holiday destination. There just wasn’t room in the car for all the loot. Josie had gotten some practice unwrapping gifts at my birthday and so she started to really get the hang of it. Unfortunately the time between pulling paper off and putting it in her mouth was still very short.

Jordi enjoyed making a fort out of Josie’s presents before she opened them. He remarked how he used to do it with his presents and realized it’s not that he got fewer now, it’s that they’re just generally smaller. Baby toys are big!

Apparently Josie has not heard the old addage that — you can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose, but you can’t pick your friend’s nose — because she is imitating me cleaning her congested nose and sticking her fingers up her friends’ noses. Ewww

Last weekend we got some major snow. Some fun photos with the dramatic light! It’s rough staying inside for so many days in a row. Sadly, we were so busy getting ready for the holiday we didn’t manage to take Josie outside to play in it. We won’t miss the next opportunity.

My baby girl turns 8 months old today, two thirds of her first year! Any moment now she’s going to realize that she can indeed walk without holding onto us and just take off. She let’s go all the time and walks where she wants to and can easily make tracks using one of her push carts. She’s accross the room before I can even blink already. I pretty much know I need to check on her when things get quiet, as she’s probably trying to eat the couch stuffing or something. She is definitely not going to crawl anytime soon. She has learned how to push herself up to a standing position from her belly or sitting, so there’s nothing stopping her except confidence and maybe some more strength.

Josie isn’t making particularly clear sounds but she likes to talk and sing with us. She especially loves when we mimic her sounds and motions right back to her. It can turn a whine into a big smile!

She is improving on her fine motor skills in her play and eating. She can pick things up very accurately and she likes to play with the small parts of her toys. She’s got some other cute habits now as well, but I’ll leave those as a surprise for some other posts!

One great thing that has changed is that she doesn’t completely hate her new car seat, and she will actually fall asleep in it relatively peacefully at times. It’s not perfect, but it’s a major improvement.

• Size/weight: size 12 month one pieces, size 9 month separates; Probably about 28 inches tall and 16.5 lbs
• Favorite food: breastmilk, really enjoying sweet potatoes, potatoes and carrots
• Favorite toy: rody the jumping horse and her push and ride cart; egg maraca
• Favorite book: baby cakes
• Favorite activity: pushing her cart around the house; kissing cats and babies
• Sleeping: bedtime ~7:30; two or three half hour naps unless we’re in the car and then they’ll last an hour; wakes up 6am
• New skill: pushing up to standing from her tummy
• Teeth: 1!!! front bottom right; crazy tons of drooling, wouldn’t be surprised if more come in very soon
• Vocalizations: lots of grrrr, especially at her food

We are lucky enough to have a real baby boom on our home street. Accross the street are a pair of twins (boy and girl) who are three months older than Josie. As they all get older, the three month difference seems to matter less and less. They had an initial meet and greet and then pretty much played separately with Josie’s toys. Josie did give them a greeting kiss though!

A week ago Friday Josie started on a new fruit, pears! I was warned that they have the opposite effect on digestion that things like rice have and so I was prepared by offering her a bit more rice than usual. Things seemed to have all worked out well in the end. She liked them more than most fruits! The second time she had them was even better when the pear was more ripe (cooked anyway both times), but it sure is hard shopping and then preparing the pears just exactly when they are ripe!

Josie coyly eating her pears

Josie has sprouted her first tooth through the gums, it’s on the center bottom right. We found it yesterday and man is it sharp. We’ve been betting they would show up any day now for months!

She also has some other cute habits, she now nods ‘yes’ frequently. Often at an appropriate time, like after she’s been asked a question!

A week ago, Sunday night Josie started on green beans or more accurately haricot vert. She grabbed at them right away and started chomping. You could tell precisely when she broke through the outer shell of the bean because she suddenly made quite an ewww face. Of course that didn’t stop our determined little girl though. She meticulously tasted all of the beans in front of her and still wasn’t too thrilled. She has continued to eat them though all week!

Josie eating green beans

Some covert photos at my parents house on my birthday. Ginny is the cat in the foreground (sister of Fred and George). Playing with grandpa:

Oooh the cat’s water bowl:

Doh! Cleaning up the spilled water:

Josie gets her own water!

Oh no we’ve been spotted!

The weekend before last I started to feel older as I am now 30 years old. We had a fun weekend. On the day of I got some fun presents, Josie helped me open them, but she needs to work on not eating the paper. She’s got to train for the holidays you know. Then I spent the afternoon at a party for our little friend Ryan which was a nice distraction to hang around the really young people, Josie had a blast! The next day we went to the aquarium because I like it and we thought Josie would too!

Josie has a real obcession with kissing babies. We brought out my baby photos and she kissed them (see photo below). She kisses the babies in her books (and the cats). She kisses the boys at the mom’s group too! Mostly on the forehead. Most of them look sincerely shocked when she does it. Our friend Luke (of Catherine and Jamie) though at this past mom’s group was ready and waiting though with his tongue waaay out for his kiss. He got a few on the forehead.