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We celebrated Josiah's first birthday last Sunday. We invited lots of Josiah's friends as well as some of Mommy's friends! Grandma Walker got him this cute little crown that says "Birthday Boy" which he only wore for this picture, as he then proceeded to remove it afterward.
Josiah quickly found the big blue ball that was given to him as a gift long before the gifts were opened and played with it. I have taught him how to bounce a ball and so he was practicing that skill.
Daddy got to celebrate with us too, but then had to drive back to Seattle at about 2pm, so as to be there the next morning for work.
We had a nice BBQ with all our friends and got to visit with them a bit as well. We had it in the Clubhouse of our apartment complex so that there would be more room for all the guests. When we brought the cake out, we sang for Josiah and I could tell that he knew he was the center of attention. I let him taste the corner of the cake and at first he just took a tiny bit of frosting to taste. When he realized what it was he started to eat more of it until he looked like the picture below!
Josiah got lots of nice gifts that he has been thoroughly enjoying playing with since the party. Thanks to all for making this a fun event for our little pumpkin! We will miss you all when we move! Please keep in touch!
Today we went to my brother Brent and his bride Katie's wedding. It was held in Prosser, WA at this bed and breakfast location called the 4 Seasons. The ceremony was held under the shade of some trees on the site.
I played my flute accompanied by my Aunt Debby for the prelude music. It was nice to see family and friends that we hadn't seen in a while as well as of course see my brother get married.
The colors were pink and white (pink is Katie's favorite color). We had a catered buffet dinner afterward, which was really good. A friend from Benton City (who used to go to our church there) volunteered to feed Josiah some dinner, which I gladly accepted. She was impressed that he would sit with her for so long away from his Mommy.
Not many people got to witness the cake being cut as the cake was melting in the sun and had to be moved inside the air conditioned house. Brent was the "nice guy" and fed Katie a small little piece that she ate without getting anything on her. Katie then took a nice big piece and got it all over Brent's face. It was pretty funny.
David and I have committed to pray for the new couple, that their marriage will be a good one. We will pray that in all things they might seek the Lord's counsel and that as they grow older that they might also mature in their walk with Him. We also hope that they know that if they need anything that we are here for them. Congratulations Brent and Katie!
Today I hosted the last recital for my piano students before moving to the west side. It was bittersweet to hear them play knowing I would be leaving them behind soon. I have gotten to know them quite well and have enjoyed hearing them progress over the past year and sincerely hope that they will find a new teacher to continue their studies.
All the students played from memory and did a great job! I was proud of them for getting through their pieces without stopping and playing through their mistakes. I have told them that being a good performer is not about playing perfect, but rather learning how to perform as if they "meant to do that!" It is a tough skill, but all good performers seek do it!
And you know I can't resist posting yet ANOTHER picture of Josiah! This is a shot of him playing with the wheelbarrow at my friend Janeen's house while I was at the recital. She was nice enough to feed us both lunch after church and watch him afterward. She has a portable crib that he was able to take a nice nap in for most of the time, but then he got to explore her back yard which was VERY popular! Soon he will have his own backyard to ex
plore. Our new house where we will be living has a large back yard with a few fruit trees and lots of grass to roam around in.
Whenever Josiah wakes up, is getting ready to sleep, or just needs some extra comfort he likes to have his blankies nearby. If he is playing and wants them, he rescues his blankies from the crib (pulling them through the slats) and then proceeds to drag them everywhere he goes. I tell people that now that he can walk, he likes to take a few laps around the house. He has learned to hold the blankets up so he won't trip on the longer one as much, but it still gets wrapped around his feet at times which makes him fall. He refuses to let go of them though and pulls up on on things with them in his hands which makes the act of pulling up quite clumsy and funny to watch.
I mentioned in the previous blog that Josiah does the "Where's _____?" pose and so today I sought to capture the moment on film. He actually wasn't smiling in this pose until he saw the camera start to flash. He has perfect timing in that way. Some people ask me, "Does he just smile all the time or what?" And I can attest, he does not smile ALL the time, but he is a pretty happy baby for the most part. I am told I am lucky he is so good natured and that I won't get another one like him. Only God knows I guess!
Needless to say we are thankful for our happy go-lucky little boy! Another fun thing he did today was he saw Kim and I drinking water (after walking with the boys in the strollers about 3 miles) and decided he too wanted a swig from the glass. I eventually had to give him his own glass to play with because he was having so much fun. The result is the picture below I call "Glass Tasting." He gets a big kick out of trying to use "big people" stuff.
We have discovered that Josiah loves to turn things over to look at the bottoms of his toys, and when finding new toys at friend's houses (such as here at Colton's house), he makes no exception to this rule. Here he has on what we call his "thinking face" with his lips pursed and he is spinning the wheels on this push toy.
For those of you who don't know yet, we are moving to the Seattle area on July 1st. David got a job there and has been working over there since June 12th. This means that a little pumpkin has been missing his Daddy and Mommy has been missing her husband these past few days! I have been informed by the Daddy that I have been neglect in my posts and so I am trying to make up for it today by making 2 new posts for him.
Today when Olivia came over to visit I was trying to show Renie (her mom) how Josiah does the "where?" pose whenever I ask a "where?" question. It is when he puts his hands out to the side (palms up) like I do when I ask something like "Where is Dada?" So I said just that today to see if he would do it, and rather than doing the pose, he immediately started crawling as fast as he could to our bedroom (where David has his computer set up) to find Dada. The door was slightly ajar and so he pushed it open only to find that Dada wasn't there. I immediately felt really bad that I asked that question and got him so excited. It did prove however, that Josiah knows where Dada is and that he indeed misses his Papa!!
Tonight, we went over to Chris and Kim's house for dinner and Josiah and Colton played together as they often do. Josiah was getting pretty sleepy though around 7:30pm, so we left and he fell asleep in the car. I transferred him to his crib when we got home with no trouble, but then later I went in to check on him before I went to bed and found him in the following position. It was too funny! If you look back in the November 2005 archives, there is a shot of him in the same spot only with his head on the opposite side. You can see how much he has grown now that his feet stick out the slats. He is soon to be one on the 27th!
Josiah says, "I love you Dada...can't wait to see you next Tuesday!!!" Mommy seconds that motion, but substitutes David for Dada!!
My friend Renie brought her daughter Olivia over for a little bit today while she went to a job interview, so Josiah got to play with one of his girlfriends today! Olivia is a bit shy, but Josiah isn't and was constantly coming up to touch her and smile at her. Olivia waved him away as if to say, "Ewwww boys!!" It was really funny. It was nice to visit with Renie a little bit too as they live quite a ways away and we don't often get to see each other. There are couple more photos in the snapfish album "Josiah's Friends" for those of you who have access to that one. If you want me to send you an invite to view those, let me know.
Today as I was doing a puzzle (taking a break from packing), Mr. Josiah went exploring . He found the box of packing materials and found a way to open the hutch door even with the box in front. Once the door was opened he attempted to shimmey around the box to the other side but got stuck. So he decided to climb over the box instead, but upon attempting to climb over the box he got stuck in it. This is great boy stuff don't you know! So far, I don't think Josiah suspects anything weird is going on (in regards to the move) because his room is still in tact! Oh and by the way...for those that don't know yet--we are moving back to the west side of Washington on July 1st. We are still working on where we will be, but we are pretty certain at this time and we just have to sign the papers. Once we do that, then I will send out our new address to all of you via email.
Once again I have found a way to make a non-baby post! It is rare, but it does happen on occasion! My friend (Ann) pictured on the left asked me and this other gal (Valerie) to play in a flute trio for the Idaho Music Teacher's Meeting. Every year, they have a combined meeting with the Spokane chapter and ask lots of people to play and then they have a lunch following.
All three of us teach piano and flute in the area and it was fun to talk shop as well as play together! We played "The Song of the Lark" by Tchaikovsky, "Allegro" by Johann Joachim Quantz, and "Scherzetto" by John T. Chrissey. We discovered after some research the The Song of the Lark was originally a piano piece, but it works much better for piccolo and two flutes. Ann so graciously loaned me her piccolo, which plays MUCH nicer than mine! Both Valerie and I researched John T. Crissey, but couldn't find anything due the fact that he was a contemporary composer. I found some guy by that name that wrote a book on dermatology and Valerie found some guy by that name that was born in the 1700's. Before we played it we told the audience to decide if he was the dermatologist or the guy born in the 1700's as a joke. Afterwards, a guy responded, "I think he was the dermatologist." It was pretty funny.
Our little guy is SOOOOO close to walking these days! He can take a few steps here and there but then wobbles back down to the ground. We are encouraging him though by clapping and saying "Good Job" even when he falls down. He is so trained to this now that even if David or I say "Good Job" in just a normal tone of voice, he recognizes the words and starts clapping for himself. It is very cute! We call him the Gorilla Walker because he waves his hands up in the air (as pictured) when he tries to walk.
Josiah periodically likes to help Mommy "prewash" the dishes similar to how Grandma's dog Torry does as well, however Mommy limits the baby to which dishes he gets to prewash making sure they aren't sharp knives and the like. I figured he would be OK with the wooden spoon and it kept him occupied for a bit while I was cleaning the kitchen, so that was good.
Another fun pastime for baby is "helping" Daddy or Mommy brush their teeth. David and I both have Sonicare toothbrushes that vibrate real fast to brush our teeth and Josiah also likes the vibrations as well and attaches himself to the opposite end of the brush to join in on the fun (as pictured below).
Today Liz and I hosted a baby shower for Joyanne's newest son Nathan Robert. He was born on April 27th, 2006 and weighed 6 pounds 8 ounces at birth.
We had a great time at the shower playing a few games and then of course having cake and opening presents for the little one. Joyanne started off with Nathan in her lap, but later it was easier to let another one of the ladies hold him while she opened the presents for him.
One of the games we played was where I gave the participants a box that was wrapped 3 times and asked them to pass it around until the music stopped. When the music stopped the person stuck with the box would open one layer of the wrapping paper. The catch was that the person who got to the last layer would open the box to discover bloomers that they would wear the rest of the time during the shower. So of course, no one wanted the gift and shoved it around the circle as fast as possible. At the end, the lady that got the gift discovered it was a pair of blooming flowers. I got this picture of her though with a look like, "These aren't bloomers?!" which was precious!
The next game was "Check Out" from "The Price Is Right" where all the ladies had the guess the exact price of 7 baby items including diapers, wipes, bibs, teether, links, pacifiers & nail clippers. The person closest to the real price without going over would win a prize. Only one person guessed under, which was Liz (she didn't help me design the game incidentally) and so she won. Most people guessed over not realizing I got the stuff at Walmart which had cheaper prices than normal places.
Then we played "Guess that Baby Food" where the ladies had to look at closed jars of baby food and guess what was in it. The labels were of course removed and they weren't allowed to open them and smell them. And at the end of both of the last two games, Joyanne got to keep all the items for Nathan.
The last game was "Name that Nursery Rhyme" and we had 20 different tunes that I played on the piano for them to guess. Carolyn (the pastor's wife of our church) won the game. Some of the tunes noone had ever heard of...I tried to pick some obscure pieces and succeeded apparently!
Anyway, it was a lot of fun and Joyanne gots lots of "loot" to take home for her newest little addition to their family!
Josiah is making the first attempts at trying to walk now as mentioned in a previous blog entry. My friend Mary gave us this little push toy for Josiah to practice with at home. He absolutely LOVES tooling around the house with it. When he runs into a wall or some furniture, I hear this very unhappy baby noise as if to say, "Why did this thing stop?"
The little bear on the toy squeaks when you squeeze it and at first it sort of scared Josiah. He didn't like how it let out this long SQUEEEEEK when you squeezed it really hard. He is used to it now though and tries to squeek it himself as well. He also likes to turn the toy over and play with the wheels (a favorite pastime with all toys that have wheels).
Josiah attended another birthday party today for a little girl named Mercedes. Tricia (her mom) is a friend of Kim's and I was introduced to them briefly at this Baby Fair a while back and then again on Bloomsday. We also saw them at Colton's birthday party (of which we have lots of pictures for those who would like to see them). When we saw them there, Tricia invited us to Mercedes big day as well, which was very nice of her! Josiah and I had a good time at the party. He took to crawling around exploring the house right away and managed to knock over an item off a shelf, which I thought had broken, but instead had just spilled some contents on the floor. We were at Tricia's Mom's house which she admittingly told us, "was not baby proof," as Josiah aforementioned proved. However, she did have baby toys and Josiah managed to find those straight away as well as grabbed a hold of the balloons tied to the coffee table as well.
Mercedes was very cute and as Josiah was crawling all over the place, she many times followed him around (though she walks rather than crawls) to see what he was up to. There were two other babies there as well; Josiah's buddy Colton and his new friend Garrett.
Josiah was in love with the balloons and would let out an emphatic, "AHHHHHHH" to tell us. Colton would chime back with an "AHHHHH" as well and it was clear they were communicating with each other on some level. Josiah, Mercedes and Colton were eating crackers and would try to steal them from one another unless a new one was given in time. Mercedes loved her talking Elmo doll the best and gave a delighted squeal when he sang and danced around. She also enjoyed her toy that was a magnet for the fridge that made all sorts of sound
s and played songs.
Mercedes wore a cute little hat that said, "I'm ONE!" and Colton decided (picture on the right) that he would take that for himself...because you know, he is ONE too! Mercedes really liked the candle on her cake and rather than blowing it out she tried to grab it. She wasn't too happy that she couldn't have it until it was blown out, but then proceeded to suck on the opposite end of the candle. She really liked the frosting on the cake as well, but left the cake on her tray.
Overall it was a fun time and I was glad we went. It was really nice of Tricia's mom to host the party (after she just had surgery and was recovering) and Tricia made a YUMMY potato salad as well as provided some BBQ'd meat and chips for dinner. Thank you Tricia and family!
So as you can see, before Josiah is actually walking we are teaching him how to drive! Ha ha ha! And note that he also totes his own diaper bag around too...yeah right! Let's review again, why does Mommy have an aching back? Hmmm...a close to 23 pound baby, lugging all his garb and her garb all around Spokane. Oh yeah, that it is it! Incidentally, I have been going to the chiropractor for those of you concerned folk out there and am feeling much better now that I am doing the stretches he taught me each day and getting my back adjusted once a week.
OK...enough health rambling! So Josiah and I were waiting for Kim, Chris and Colton to meet us at the Fred Meyer so that we could go to Mercedes birthday party (a little girl he just met recently through Kim). He was bored in his carseat, so I let him play around with the wheel and buttons in the car. He figured out how to turn on the windshield wipers and had a grand time turning the radio on and off and I narrated his actions as he went along, which he loves. It was VERY unpopular to be put back in his seat when we had to go.
Yesterday, Josiah became interested in the big stuffed Tigger. Tigger has a feature where you can press his belly and he will say things to you like, "That's Tiggerific," or "You just made my heart bounce." Anyway, Josiah got a big smile and a giggle when he heard Tigger talk.
Today I had them pose in a hug much to Josiah's delight. Josiah seems to be getting a cold, so you can all pray that it won't turn into something more serious. He was overly cranky today for no apparent reason except for the fact that his nose is dripping like a faucet and he is sneezing a whole lot. If you want to see more pictures of Josiah and Tigger, check out the album in snapfish called "Josiah--9 months and beyond." If you don't have access to that one yet, let me know and I will send you an invite for that one.
Today it was VERY hot!! Into the 80's actually and it is only May! We all hope this is not a warning that July will be in the 100's the whole month or something! However, the fun part about warm weather is that the boys could try out Colton's new pool!
Josiah was a little hesitant at first mainly I think because he was a little cold, but as he got to playing with the balls and things he seemed to enjoy himself more. Colton spent no more than 5 minutes in the pool and then decided it was time to do something else. We had to trick him to stay in there for a while so that Kim could get some video footage of this event.
It is fun to watch these two play together. They usually steal each other's toys and/or tackle each other or push each other aside to get each other's toys. It is pretty cute, but later we will teach them to share when they are able to get it!
This photo to the left was my favorite of the bunch of Josiah. I call it "Water Babe."
Oh...fun update! Today, Josiah was pulling the drawer by my desk in and out and managed to learn (after pinching his fingers yesterday and earlier today) how to close the drawers without pinching his fingers. He was so enthralled with working on this skill that at one point (with both David and I watching) he took 3 non-assisted steps forward to push the drawer shut. Yeah for first steps, however tenuous!
By the way...check out the blog entry on May 7th about Bloomsday if you haven't already. I had to post it before other posts even though it was new because of the date of Bloomsday.
Josiah's hair is growing, but mainly in the back of his head. So now it is thicker and longer in the back, but the front is still pretty thin and short. As you can see he gets these very cute "Alfalfa" like hairdos now and then and this one was just too cute to bypass the camera!
Mr. Josiah is getting more and more adept at learning language, or at least understanding it for sure. He retrieves balls when we ask him, he goes to find "Da Da" when I say, "Where's Da Da?" and various other things.
He also loves music and will move back and forth whenever we sing to him (not to mention pulling himself up to play the upper or lower keys when I am teaching piano lessons). David plays this game where he starts singing the tune to "Dixieland" and claps to the beat and he will stop in the middle and Josiah will stop moving and then start to laugh in anticipation knowing that David will finish the song. It is very cute.
As for his motor skills, at least 3 times now I have seen him pull himself up and stand unassisted for about 2-3 seconds. It is not much I know, but it is still fun to see him do it. And by the way, I am told that to "motate" around is not a word, though I thought it was for a long time. Not sure where I got that, but David "Meriam-Webstered" me the other day on that one. Ha ha ha!
Soon I will post some pictures from Bloosmday, but I forgot my camera so our friend Kim took the pictures and I am waiting to get them from her before I can post them. Check back to a previous post on May 7th to see it at some point as that was the day of Bloomsday.
This was our first Bloomsday walk together as Carpenter Family + a little one! The day started out pretty cold as you may be able to tell by all the layered clothing and gloomy skies. There was a cold wind blowing too, so standing at the start line for about 1 hour and a half was pretty chill. Luckily being in a crowd of people helped generate some heat and block from the wind, but little Josiah's nose was still Rudolph red despite that.
We walked the race with our friends Kim, Chris & their son Colton, which was a lot of fun. At the beginning of the race, we saw this guy who had rigged a beach umbrella to his stroller to shield them from the drizzling rain. A couple of times throughout the race we saw his umbrella get blown inside out and finally he took it down on Doomsday Hill when the wind kept getting it. Kim also got a kick out of the fact that when they played some rockin' music at the beginning that I broke out into dance, pulling out the goofiest moves I could think of. She was busting up laughing at me. It was fun!
There were lots of entertainers along the way, of which included: an old man impersonating Elvis playing the accordian, a country rock band, a couple of punk bands, an aspiring 12 year old (probably wants to be an American Idol), an older couple playing according and bass (very cute), a mother's playing upside-down buckets band, a Blue-Grass band, a cover band and a few others. We also saw a group of people dressed in Star Wars get-up as well which was pretty funny. A funny point in the journey was when we went by these people holding signs that said, "There is no justice in the war on drugs," to which everyone who was talking before the sign was quiet and many whispered, "what does that mean?" and later we discovered it was some people who wanted to legalize marijuana usage for medical purposes. It was interesting to David & I that none of them looked like sick patients, ahem.
Little Josiah slept for about the first 2 miles, which was nice and we endured the rain that pelted us for the first part, but then it eased up mid-way or so. Doomsday Hill was tough, but we all made it up and didn't get eaten by the Buzzard (see photo in Snapfish). We saw a funny sign along the way, it said "Drive Safely" and it was sponsored by "Heritage Funeral Home."
I must admit...it was a tough journey for me, but as long as I kept moving I was able to keep going. At the end, we tried to go back and find where our church was having the BBQ, but it was too far away and we were really hungry. We had to wait about 30 minutes in line to get our shirts, which I was told was way longer than previous years. We ended up driving out of downtown Spokane and had lunch at the Red Robin in the Valley as a treat. Afterward, I could barely walk the rest of the day. I was limping around like an old lady! However, the next day I was doing better though I was afraid I would be worse.
Overall, we had a great time and hope to do it again next year!
We celebrated Josiah's first birthday last Sunday. We invited lots of Josiah's friends as well as some of Mommy's friends! Grandma Walker got him this cute little crown that says "Birthday Boy" which he only wore for this picture, as he then proceeded to remove it afterward.
