Fun with Doggie

We went over to stay with our friend Lana in Kirkland before we headed out on the plane for South Carolina and she had a little dog named Roxi. Roxi just LOVED the baby and was always trying to kiss Josiah. We have some fun photos of the doggie nearly tackling the baby. He liked Roxi when she was running around, but was a little taken aback when she tried to tackle him. It was really nice of Lana and Jerry to have us and we will be staying with them again the night we come back before we drive back to Spokane. More posts will come soon of baby J and his cousin Anna Grace.

Baby Reading List

As Josiah has grown and I have been reading to him, I have found there are only a FEW books that he enjoys thus far. When I attempt to try new books I get a very disinterested baby on my hands! I am sure he will like the newer books eventually, but for now he likes familiarity.

Here is a picture of him with his favorite books. The list is as follows:
1) Elmo's Lift & Look Book: A nice book I got for a deal at a garage sale. He loves to rip the flaps off the pages and then proceeds to suck on them. One time I found him with the "oval" shape in his mouth.
2) Green Eggs & Ham--by Dr. Seuss: Usually he will tolerate this one all the way through unless I read it last. It has a lot of words, but I think he likes the meter and cadence of the words.
3) Head, Shoulders, Knees & Toes: Where I will sing to him and he turns the big pages back and forth.
4) Choo, Choo--Dora the Explorer: Another board/sound book about a train that wins its whistle in a race. It has lots of buttons to push on the side with various sounds to go with the story.
5) Dr. Seuss' ABC Book: I can get to about the letter "S" or so until he starts to get bored, especially if I read it last. He likes the "M" page because it has a yellow sun like the one in his Elmo book. He tries to lift the flap, but of course there isn't one there.
6) Hand, Hand, Fingers Thumb: He likes it when Mommy taps the book in rhythm to the words and sometimes he pounds on the book too.
7) Ernie & Bert Board Book: He likes to turn the pages and tries to push the buttons that make sounds like-- "Goodnight Bert," Bert snoring, and an alarm clock.
8) Baby's Book--Ready for Fun: This one has one picture and one word on each page. His favorite pages are the telephone (brrring, brrring) and the car (rrrrrr, rrrrrrr, rrrrr).

Meeting Olivia at the Mall

Back in October Josiah met Olivia, the daughter of our friend's Aaron and Renie. Both Josiah and Olivia have grown considerably since then (see previous post) and now are both crawling all around and look much more "mature." Olivia wanted to give Josiah a hug and/or a kiss, but Josiah was much too fast for her and avoided getting girl cooties at least for today!

It was nice to catch up with Renie as well! We had postponed our meeting for a couple of weeks due to illness on both sides, but we managed to make it today though both of us are dealing with the effects of the latest cold.

Rearranging the Kitchen

Mr. Josiah has just recently become quite interested in the kitchen cupboards and what is inside of them. He is fascinated when they open and tries to get in them before they close. I guess it is time to go buy some cupboard locks. He can only open the cupboards that have towels hanging on them and of course I am always in the kitchen when he is playing there, so for now at this moment we are safe.

He played for a good 20 minutes this morning with these ziplock tops...great fun don't you know! But then he eventually got bored and started heading for the computer cords again and/or trying to pull up on my computer chair. He wants to do what the people do! Anyway, gotta go...bored baby alert!

Feeding Myself

Today Josiah consistently was able to pick up little crackers and feed himself!! Of course, as you can see he also gets a taste of his fist in the process, but still I gave him at least 7 crackers (the baby star shaped kind) and he fed himself with all of them! I could tell he was pretty pleased with himself that he figured it out. Every time I set new crackers down he right away snatched them up and stuffed them in his mouth! This is amazing to me because it was just the other day I was saying to someone how he wasn't quite able to feed himself yet.

Our baby is growing up!!

Checking for Change

Chris and Kim came over today with their son Colton to play some board games with us and the Daddy's decided to "check for change" as they call it! We had a nice time fellowshipping with them and Josiah is getting to know his new buddy better.

It is still so funny to me that Josiah tries to steal whatever toy Colton is playing with and also they imitate each other. Colton began banging his hands on the sliding glass door and Josiah promptly followed suit and came over to do the same. It is also pretty humorous that Josiah normally could care less about his own pacifiers, but insists on taking Colton's pacifier and played with it for quite some time; chewing, sucking, and looking at it.

Josiah and Colton managed to play a duet on the little Mega Blocks piano as well. It was pretty cute to see them playing together! We are looking forward to seeing them as they grow and become best buddies!

Another update for Josiah is that he is really getting good at standing up and sitting down now. He can scale across objects (like the couch) a little bit, but mainly he just likes to pull himself up, bang on the surface where he pulled up to, and then proceed to sit back down by sticking his bottom way out and falling kerplop on the floor. Sometimes he reaches for things and lands headlong on the object, hence he is gaining some more boy badges (bruises) on his head and such. It is fun to watch him figure everything out!

Quilting Update

So...how long has it been since I have made a non-baby post? Not sure, he does consume most of my time! However, at night when he goes down of late I have been working on my first quilting project. I finally managed to get the top done and now all I have to do is attach the backing and do the actual work of quilting. This is a wall hanging quilt which I plan to hang above our bed. It matches our comforter quite nicely!

As you can probably see if you look closer, my lines are NOT straight. My squares all turned out different sizes and so I had to improvise. BUT..it is my first quilting project afterall, so I expected it to be somewhat short of perfection! It has been a lot of fun though and I hope to do many more in the future!

Learning How to Stand

We went over to Colton's house today and he has lots of things Josiah used to try and stand up on his own. He can't of course stand without holding on to something yet, but this was a big step for him to try and pull up onto things. We had seen some signs that he had been trying to do this, but today he made a concerted effort to stand whenever possible! It was very cute.

Josiah loved all of Colton's toys...lots of things to explore! He was crawling all over the place to find all the new things. He especially liked banging the blocks together and playing with all the colorful balls.

It was nice of Colton's parents to invite us over for lunch too! Kim made a great meal and even Josiah had his fill of it as well!

Josiah Has a New Buddy

David goes to Awana every Wednesday to work with some of the kids at our church and he met another guy that helps out there named Chris. Chris and his wife Kim called us on a whim today and we went for a walk with them and their son Colton. Colton is 10 months and he was a big hit with Josiah. Colton had a pacifier in his mouth and first thing Josiah made a grab for it. Even though he doesn't even LIKE pacifiers...it had a dangly thing on it so he HAD to get it right away!

It was funny to watch them play. The minute Colton would find something, Josiah decided he wanted to play with it and vice versa. They were crawling all over each other trying to get at things they wanted. They also had a nice crawling head butt that I caught on camera as well.

It was nice to meet some new friends! They also go to our church so we will get to see them each Sunday and our little ones will see each other in the nursery.

Knitting & Reading: Josiah's New Hobbies

So as many of you may know I taught myself to knit two Christmases ago and now I have been doing it quite often. I was using this blue yarn to try out a new knitting pattern since the yarn I wanted to use was too difficult to use at first (since I couldn't see the stitches in the fancy, floofy yarn I bought). Josiah decided this yarn/knitting deal was for him and came over to "help" me untangle the yarn.

We have also started reading some more books now that Josiah will sit still for some of them. However, if there are too many words than Mr. Josiah is ready to
wriggle out of my arms to find something better to do. His favorite books are the type with things for him to flip open or the kind that have the buttons that you push throughout the story that play a sound that goes with the story. My mom saved all my books from when I was little and so we have those plus some others that we have acquired various ways. Josiah likes to open and close the book and when he does it we will say, "open...close" repeat ad nauseum as he opens and closes the book. He gets a big kick out of us doing it I think and opens and closes the pages faster and faster to hear us say it. This especially works well with those board books with the big pages that he can grab onto easily without ripping.

Also a wonderful answer to prayer to mention. I was once again looking at our closet thinking, "Hmmm...we don't have very many clothes in the 12 month size and he will need them soon." No sooner did I say it did we receive a package from one of David's long time friends and former boss, Larraine, sent us a bunch of clothes that her daughter Robin had for her little boy. And guess what? Most all the clothes were either 12 month or 18 month sizes! God truly does provide for us so nicely! Not to mention the next day David's mom had sent us yet more clothes and some socks and shoes that he desparately needed! A big thanks goes out to those folks as well as a thank you to the ultimate Provider, our Lord!