Thanksgiving

We had a really nice time at my parent's house for Thanksgiving this year. My brother Brent and his wife Katie came as well and we had a wonderful feast of food as well as some sweet times of fellowship together. We played "Cranium" after dinner, girls against the guys, and the girls won! Brent was miffed because "Mom never really tries to win at games, but she was the one answering all the questions!" I guess she just needed the right motivation to win against the guys! Ha ha! Anyway, we laughed and laughed and laughed at the various things that came up during the game. I can tell you a more detailed story if you would like a real belly laugh sometime.

As usual, Josiah knew he was the center of attention! He has been into hugging everyone lately and my parent's dog Torrie was no exception to that rule. He attempted to hug their cat (used to be my cat) Callie, but she would have none of it. David and Brent call her the "Evil" cat, but really, she is only friendly to "her people" who know how she likes things. I know some people like that too, but I don't call them evil! Anyway!

Then later Josiah had my Dad's cell phone and was walking around the kitchen holding it with his head onto his shoulder (like I do sometimes). I didn't quite catch that moment, but I got a similar moment in its place on camera. For some reason he likes to hold phones backwards. We give him the phone the right way and he turns it over to "talk" into it. He babbles things into the phone like Mommy does. Although, hopefully Mommy's babbling makes more sense to the person on the other line!

This was also the weekend that we got my Dad and my brother hooked on World of Warcraft (an online computer game). I let them try out a character on my account and now they have their own accounts and are enjoying the game. It is fun to see them online now once in a while and it gives us a fun thing to do with my brother and Dad as well.

Another Trip to the Mall

As a family, we have started the tradition of taking Josiah to the mall once in a while to let him roam around and see all the neat things there. We go to the play area (as previously pictured in another blog entry) and we walk around with him and he likes to sit in all the little toddler "machines" like this Bob the Builder deal. We don't actually pay the money to make them go, he doesn't know any better...he just likes to sit in them and press the buttons and turn the steering wheels.

He especially likes it when Daddy takes him into the arcade and sits down at the car racing games and lets him turn the wheel. They usually have some simulation of the game running to entice you to play and so Josiah thinks he is really steering!

It is important to get in all the little toys though and so here is another shot of him in the little race car. He looks like he knows what he is doing in there. I guess we had better watch out when he turns 16!

Happy Mess

Every so often now I find things for Josiah to eat with a spoon. He prefers to pick things up with his hands still however. Having him use a spoon and bowl requires much more supervision of course, so that he doesn't end up covered in whatever food he happens to have in his bowl and/or dump the bowl over onto the ground! Really he likes to take the spoon and move the food around in the bowl rather than eat it, but it is fun to watch anyway. He doesn't seem to want to put the spoon in with the food on top, but will turn it over and then all the food ends up on his bib instead of in his mouth. As you can plainly see though, Mr. Josiah doesn't mind being covered in food gunk.

Our Curtains Are Finished TOO!!

When we first arrived at our new place in July, I decided to make some curtains for our bedroom sliding glass doors since there was no window covering for them at the time. For the longest time we have had one of our blankets to block out the morning sun and heat of the day, but FINALLY the curtains I set out to make are finished! I got the material on sale at Jo-Ann's and made them using the rough design of the shower curtains that we have. It was fun to create them from scratch and I think they turned out pretty well considering.

For those of you with a discerning eye, I know they need to be ironed, but I was too exited to get them up to iron them! Maybe when my Mom comes over I will let her do it. She likes that sort of thing! :) She says that cleaning & helping is how she shows us she loves us! I say, "More power to you Mom...clean away!"

Josiah's Whiny Face

Josiah has taken to whining for things these past few months to which Mommy and Daddy are not very sympathetic. This is his "whiny face" (pictured above). He loves to be pushed on this little toy that he got from our friend's in Spokane (the Grahams) for his birthday. Sometimes he tries to push himself on it by moving his feet, but he hasn't gotten that down yet and sometimes manages to push himself off of the little car. It is funnier yet though to watch him try to get on it. He rides side saddle at first and can't quite get his other leg over. This usually ends in him tipping over the car and falling on the floor. He doesn't hurt himself, but cries for Mommy comfort anyway. He also likes to get behind this toy and push it around the house to scare Echo away. She doesn't like it coming toward her and runs the opposite direction when Josiah is using it. He gets a big kick out of seeing her avoid it and tries to run after her with it.

I FINISHED MY QUILT!!!!!

Yes, you read correctly, I FINALLY finished my quilt! Now granted, it is only a wall hanging quilt, but it still took a long time! I got the supplies for it and my sewing machine on my birthday of last year, so I managed to finish it before my next birthday! Lots of thanks to my friend Carrie who came over to get me motivated to do the actual quilting part. She and her mom Dawn have done some hand quilting and showed me how to get started on that. Originally, I was going to do machine quilting, but changed my mind as that means I am at my machine more and I like the hand work that I can do while I am hanging out with the family in the living room.

Since this is my first piece of work and there are many, many mistakes, I decided to keep it and hang it over our bed since it matches our comforter. It makes a nice center piece and it is very satisfying to know I made it. My next idea is to make a quilt for Josiah. I hope to make a square for each year of his life up to age 18 and then put them all together to give to him as a graduation gift. This may be a lofty goal, but it would be something special I could do for him. We will see if I can keep it up!

Picking Up Chicks

David took a personal day today in order to spend some quality time with the family as well as to give Mommy a break! The day started off by him letting me sleep in a little bit while he tended to the pumpkin head and then allowed me to have some “alone” time (are Mommy's allowed to have this?) in the morning as well just to do computer stuff and hang out in my room without a baby coming to turn off my computer while I was working. This was a very popular day for me and it got better as it went on.

Then we went to the mall and brought the baby to the play area to play with the other children. At first, he was just too tired to play (he was on the verge of naptime when we left the house) and one of the kids screamed loudly (in playful glee) and it scared Josiah and he started crying. There was some Daddy and Mommy comfort to be found though of course and he soon stopped crying. He then stood still looking at all the planes hanging above the play area and to also take in his surroundings a bit. After he felt completely sure of what he was getting into, he proceeded to play with the other children. I captured a cute moment when he and another little girl were standing on the fried eggs together (pictured above) as well as some shots of him climbing the bacon strips. Another funny thing happened when Josiah pushed a “shy” little boy out of his way (this boy wouldn’t play with the other kids at all) and then the shy boy poked him in the eye. Josiah didn’t get hurt, but apparently the shy boy wasn’t shy about defending himself!

After play time, we went and had lunch at Johnny Rockets (a neo 50’s burger joint) and then went home. Little Josiah was VERY tired by this point and took a nice nap when he came home.

To top the day off, David gave me some time to do some sewing and got most of the curtains finished that I was working on for our bedroom. My Mom came that night to visit with my Dad and she helped me put the finishing touches on the last curtain. The next day I got my quilt done, so I was quite pleased that I knocked out my 2 looming sewing projects in one weekend! While I was sewing, David did a “deep clean” of the kitchen, getting all the crumbs off the counters and doing a nice thorough job if it. I was very thankful for his help! It was a really nice day!

Fall Fun & The Food Stealer

Echo (our dog) has taken to playing in the piles of leaves now that we have lots of them. She brings her ball over to the pile and drops it in so that she can then sniff it out again. Josiah gets a big kick out of her rustling around in there and has to come over and check out what is so interesting about the leaf pile. He periodically picks up the big leaves and chews on the stems of them. It is important to taste test them apparently!

Echo and Josiah are learning to get along in the back yard. Echo is still a puppy (about 8 or 9 months old) and so she sometimes gets a little too playful with Josiah and knocks him over. They fight over who gets to play with the basketball in the yard too. Josiah likes to either kick it around or pick it up and throw it and Echo will sometimes come by and knock it out of his hands or nose it away from him. This is VERY unpopular with Mr. Josiah. It is good “boy stuff” though for Josiah to play with the doggie.

Today, as my Dad was eating his lunch, Josiah kept stealing the fries right out of his mouth. My Dad would take one bite of the fry and Josiah would pull it away and eat it himself. Grandpa was laughing pretty hard as it tickled his funny bone when Josiah did this.

Something fun to mention too…in the morning while I do my Bible study, Josiah likes to climb up onto the chair where I am sitting and “help” me turn the pages and/or tweek my nose or poke me in the eye while I am reading. This is supposed to help me read more easily I suppose (according to Josiah). He will also grab one of his books which are usually close by and he will babble as he turns the pages (reading out loud I guess). He is very good at identifying most anything in his books now. He is a little sponge and keeps sponging it all up!

Truck Face

Lately, Josiah has been pushing his truck all around the house as one of his favorite activities. Before, he would do this, but he wasn't able to manuever around corners and such. Now he is an old pro at turning and making his truck zoom all around the house. I got this shot of him pushing his truck as he was coming up the hallway towards me. I have also been working with him on eating with a spoon and bowl. Today he had some yogurt to eat with his spoon. He is getting the idea, but he isn't quite coordinated to do it yet. We will continue to practice this of course though and he will be good at it in no time.

Rocks, Blocks, & Slides

Josiah has learned how to go down the slide in the back yard now. However, his first few attempts were interesting at best. When he is at the top of the slide, he puts his left leg down, but neglects to put his right down at the same time and so manages to do the splits down the slide sometimes. Recently though, he has figured out how to manuever the right leg around as if he was going down stairs and just heads down the slide as you see pictured here. When we were at a playground the other day, he saw a little girl going down the slide (the normal way) and he followed her (I was on the big toy with him) going down in this same style. It worked well for him and incidentally it is safer, so I am not complaining! In the above picture he is saying, "Oooooo" which he does from time to time when he thinks something is really neat.

Today, Josiah had a "rock sandwich" during our play outside, to which I say at least 3 or 4 times "no eating" and then he throws it on the ground. We also played with the blocks and when we started putting them back in the box, Josiah thought that he would get in the box as well. He discovered towards the end that all the blocks wouldn't fit in the box while he was still in it!

Uncle Jon's Visit

Uncle Jon came to visit us for the weekend and so Josiah had an additional playmate for a few days. Jon brought some clothes and things from Grandparents Carpenter including this cute pair of pajamas he is wearing in the picture. Thank you for the clothes Grandpa and Grandma! While Jon was here, Josiah took every opportunity he could to point out all the "duhguchs" in the house. "Duhguch" is his word for all the cars and trucks he sees. He is very emphatic about how he says it too! I think Jon enjoyed playing with Josiah and feeding him "kaw" otherwise known around here as crackers. Daddy got Josiah to do the sign language sign for "more" a few times for Jon to see as well. We had a nice time visiting with him and he also got to stroll around Seattle to take in all the sites one of the days as well. Thank you Uncle Jon for coming to visit!

Eating the "BALL"

One of the ladies from church brought some apples for all of us to take. Josiah took the liberty of taking one of his own. He saw the box of them and picked one up and showed it too me and said, "BAH" which is his version of "ball." We figured with all his teeth now that he could handle an apple, and so when he started knawing on it, we just let him have at it. He was so proud of himself, as you can see here! In the background is Uncle Jon (David's brother) who came to visit us this weekend.

First Train Ride

Today, my parents and I took Josiah on his first train ride! They live near the town of Elbe, where they run some old trains up to Mineral Lake and back as a tourist attraction. It was the kind of train that makes you sea-sick, rocking back and forth. By the end of the ride, I was thankful for the shocks in my car!

Josiah was pretty bored at first while we were waiting for the train to start moving. Then he heard the whistle! This face you see is his "uncertain about this situaiton" face. I was holding him once when the whistle tooted again and could feel his body tense up. He settled in pretty well once we started moving. Before it started though, I let him walk up and down the aisles to get his wiggles out. He stopped at every young child to look at them and sometimes said, "UH" to get their attention. Everyone thought he was very cute as he toddled up and down the aisle a few times.

During the trip, Josiah did his usual ritual with Grandpa in taking on and off his hat. They also play peek-a-boo with the hat as well. Josiah can say hat, but it sounds more like "AAAATUH" with a very pronounced "T" at the end.

Grandma & Grandpa bought Josiah a little toy train that was tight in his grip nearly the entire journey. He seems to treat toy cars/trains like they are his security blanket these days. I have a tractor that remains in the the car that he holds on to and chews on during every car ride we take. At the end of the car ride, he throws the tractor on the seat when he realizes I am coming to get him out of the car.

The train runs to Mineral Lake as I mentioned earlier, and we had about 15 minutes to wander around the area before re-boarding the train. They had a Blues Band playing live music there near the lake and some old engines and historical paraphernalia around to view. Josiah liked looking at the water pumps (that were displayed running as they would be normally though of course not pumping water) and the steam engine as well as the myriad of rocks all over the ground.

On the way back, it was obvious that Josiah was getting pretty sleepy. Grandma was holding him in such a way that he was able to sleep, but Grandma wasn't in the most comfortable position and decided to stay that way so that he wouldn't wake up. Later she commented, "Man he is sure a ton of bricks when he is asleep!" She took him off the train asleep and I got this sweet picture of them. It was a fun trip, but we had a very tuckered baby on our hands afterward. He woke up when we put him in his car seat and of course didn't fall back asleep on the way home, but I got these excited "AHH" sounds off and on and he played quietly with some toys.

Doggie Dilemma

I came outside to play with Echo today and I found her in this state. She found these cones in the backyard and decided they were doggie toys. She carried it around like this for some time but of course when I got the camera out she dropped it. I managed to get her to pick it up again for the picture though.

Echo has a funny habit too. Whenever there are two toys in her line of vision at once she can't decide which one to play with. She will try desperately to bring BOTH toys back to you. She has this one rag doll toy with a ball on the end and she will shove that one back far in her mouth and also retrieve the ball in the front of her mouth and bring them both back to me. She is a multi-tasking doggie I guess!

Fair Frenzy!!

Today we took Josiah to the fair. Along for the ride were Grandma and Grandpa Walker, Uncle Brent and Aunt Katie, and 2nd Cousin Suzie as well as Momma of course. Daddy stayed home to do some work and have some alone time while we were out.

It was REALLY crowded, so much so that it was hard to enjoy much of anything at the fair. Usually, I like to look around at things and have the ability to peruse various stands where things are sold and also to see the dogs in the 4H building. However, this year it was all we could do just to walk through the buildings with the booths and in the dog area we had to move with the crowd and couldn't really stop to look at the dogs. I hope to go again this coming Friday, and maybe then I can see more at the fair.

Some of the highlights of the trip though were as follows: showing Josiah the firetruck where he immediately ran to the big "TAR" (tire) of the truck and touched and looked at it quite a bit; going to the petting zoo where he got to pet a goat, a sheep, and a little baby bunny. He also got to see some little chicks as well and he particularly liked looking at the geese. I made sure to take a picture of my little pumpkin head near the huge pumpkins again this year (look back at the blog in October of 2005 for a shot of him at 3 months). And we also took him on the Carousel! I took him on one at the mall a while back and he was scared of it then, but this time he seemed to enjoy it. Grandma and Grandpa waved at him everytime he came around to where they were sitting and he smiled really big at them each time around as well.

For most of the time, he rode in the stroller, confined by the straps. But when that became too much for him, he tried walking a bit and Grandma and I held his hands as he walked. I have found that if only one hand is held that he tries to sit down to avoid going in the direction you want him to go. So the two-handed trick works because we can keep him from sitting down! Towards the end of the fair trip he was getting pretty tired and do you know what entertained him for almost an hour? Grandpa got a free sample of a Go-Tart that he chewed on the outside wrapper (with the product inside) until he chewed a hole in the top and then began to squeeze the Go-Tart out little by little. And you buy all these expensive toys, right? Well, not really...around here the toys are given to us or we get them at a great discount. :)

Lastly, we all went to dinner (away from the crowded fair) at Famous Dave's, a really yummy BBQ place nearby. In his usual style, Josiah wanted to check out the lemons that everyone had in their waters. Suzie, Brent and I had our hand at trying to get Josiah's best lemon face. My favorite is pictured below. If you would like to see more fair pictures, let me know and I will send you the link to the album.

Reorganizing the Pantry

I went to the gym to workout a little earlier than usual today for logistical reasons and so David watched the little pumpkin head for me while I was gone. Baby J took an interest in the "usually restricted" pantry and showed Daddy how to stack the cans. As you can see this was a popular activity for Josiah. David said that he kept trying to call them "blocks" or "BLAH" as Josiah calls them. He is definitely trying out new words each day. He doesn't always use the words he knows, but many times I have caught him repeating a word I have said. He loves to accomplish something new and is very proud of himself when he does.

Baby Visits Daddy's Work

Today we went to visit Daddy at work and our first stop was to meet his "foreign exchange sister, " Jee, (her quote). Josiah went around adjusting all the name tags on the cubicles and tried to rearrange some paper as well. Jee got a big kick out of Josiah's funny stutter laugh that he did when he was visiting some more of Daddy's co-workers upstairs.

Our next stop was to visit Jeff & Kathryn, the people that work right near Daddy everyday. Josiah took the liberty of inspecting their work areas as well.

Then we went to visit Corrine and attempted to reorganize her folders and such. When we went to see Valerie, she gave Josiah two matchbox cars, which was VERY popular! Valerie decided she was the winner for being the best baby entertainer! However, Stuart also gave Josiah a car as well, so he took a close second. :) Right across from Valerie, we chatted with Sylvia. Sylvia attempted to one up Vivian by offering a ball as a toy to play with, but Josiah had a death grip on the cars and told us by his actions that cars are more interesting than balls. Then we went over and saw Sandra. Sandra has a 17-month old and was happy to see another baby at work. She loved his blonde hair and blue eyes and gave him big hugs.


Lastly, we visited with Steve. Steve was popular because he gave Josiah a ride on his desk. He has this desk that can adjust from a sitting position to a standing position and so put Josiah on the desk and made it go up. Josiah had the funniest look on his face as he ascended (as you can see in the picture).

And for those of you who are very astute, you may notice a nice bruiser on his cheek. That is a boy war wound that came from when he fell on the leg of the piano. He was trying to get to me as I was teaching piano and missed. Whoops!!

Bedtime Routine

I found out pretty quickly that Josiah needs to “wind down” like his Papa at night, and so like other mothers do, I established a more regimented routine for him at night so that he knew we were getting him ready for bed. And now we have a fun routine that I think he really looks forward to. I sing, “Bath time for babies, bather bather time….” And he runs over to the bathroom door and sometimes the closet door (they look the same when closed) and waits for me to come open it. He plays in his little tub inside the bathtub (although now he has graduated to the big tub) with his Ernie, Big Bird, Cookie Monster, & Elmo floating toys as well as his bath tub letters and numbers set. He will pick up a letter and say, “Say” to me and I will sound out the letter and make it hop on the ledge of the tub and give some examples of words that start with that letter. For the numbers, I count them out on my fingers and he watches very intently. He can find his four friends (mentioned above) at any time during the bath tub play and is very delighted with himself that he can find them. He has just learned how to use the bucket for himself and likes to fill it up and dump the water out. A couple of times he got himself in the face and was surprised. For a while there, he thought it was funny to “drink” the bath water, but I quickly put a stop to that practice! Ick! Yesterday, he stood up in the bath for some reason and I said, “standing up” and he got a smile and sat down and I said, “sitting down.” Following this discovery that Mommy says things when he stood up and sat down he proceeded to do it over and over. He almost slipped though a few times and so I had to help steady him. Luckily with the plastic tub in the tub, he didn’t bonk his head or get hurt from slipping down!

After the bath, I go and get him dressed in his pajamas and then I set him down and sing, “Story time, it’s story time, story, story time!” and then he clods off down the hall to find the story books. He will sometimes get some books himself and put them on the chair where we read and he makes this cute little noise (like he does when he is hungry) to let me know that he is ready to read (like a stuttering sound…hu, hu, hu, hu, hu). I will read the books to him, but many times he won’t let me finish them and grabs for another book when I am only halfway through. He especially likes the book with lots of different shapes, objects, people, and things in it and just wants me to go through naming them over and over. If I close this one too soon, he will find it again and want to point things out to me. He finds all the balls, cats (he says “meow” to them), and cars on all the pages that have them. Our last book is always the “Goodnight Blessings” book that has little flaps to open and shut. If he is really tired, I read the first words, “It’s time for bed. It’s time to say Goodnight!” and he flips the book out of my hands and turns over to sleep. Other times, he takes all the books and throws them on the floor and then wants to read them himself down there.

When it is time to sleep, we go and visit Daddy and he gives Josiah a kiss and a goodnight cuddle, and then either Daddy or Mommy sings, “Sleeper time, Sleepy, sleeper time” very softly as we bring him to bed. Sometimes he fusses a little when going to sleep, but mostly he just cuddles up with blankie bear and blanket and nods off to dream land.

Mariners vs. the Yankees

I was listening to the classical station one day and there was an advertisment for the Mariners/Yankees games at Safeco and so I suggested to David that we go to one of them since he is such a big Yankees fan. At first, he was reluctant thinking that he couldn't get off of work to go, but then he called me 3 days later from work saying that there was someone there who was selling tickets and that he wanted to go. It had been a long time since he had seen the Yankees in person, so it was a fun outing for him! A funny thing that happened was when the seating host took our picture. I said, "Would you take our picture?" and he motioned to David and said, "Well, you are going to have to take off that hat..." and David said, "I can't." And that was the end of that! :)

It was a packed house for the game and there were a lot more Yankee fans there than I had expected. We had planned to eat food at the game knowing full well that they severely overcharge for food and drinks, but oh well. David had a $4 water and I drank my $3.75 Diet Pepsi and for small ice creams we paid $4 each. Yikes! I won't even mention how much the food cost, it was ridiculous. I think it is LAME that you can't bring in your own food when the prices are so high. Maybe it would make some competition for the vendors inside to bring down their prices a bit.


David and I had a nice date though, enjoying the game until the very last out. We came on a night where the Yankees won, so that made for a happy husband as we left! It just so happened that the night before they lost and the night after they lost, so we came on the right night!

My parents stayed at our house to watch the pumpkin head and we didn't get home until real late because we rode the bus back to David's work to where our car was parked. (I had taken the bus into the game to meet him.) We missed one of the busses by a little bit and had to wait over 20 minutes for the next one. I was really tired and should have had something to eat because I was feeling a litle sick and light headed the more we walked and stayed awake. We got to see Seattle "at night" which was a little interesting at times. When we got home, my parents had their tall coffees "to go" as they left to drive back to their place. I told them they could stay over (as it was near midnight when we got home), but they wanted to go sleep in their own bed.

Baby's First Parade

Today we went to the local parade and picnic with some new friends from our church. Josiah was infatuated with all the different floats and big trucks passing by.

Before the parade started, Daddy had him out of the stoller and he tried wandering wherever he could with a Daddy close by letting him explore his surroundings. He went and introduced himself to all the people nearby and a few times tried to cross the road as well, but was soon scooped up and brought back to the stroller where he could be confined. Later, when we went to the park for the rest of the festivities, Josiah fell asleep in the stroller and I put the seat down for him to take a quick cat nap. It wasn't the greatest of naps, but it took the edge off for him apparently because then he was able to stay awake on the ride home. While asleep though, a clown made a lion balloon for him, which was a very popular memento when we got home.

It was fun to visit with our new friends. Their names are Bill & Melissa. They have two kids aged 5 (Hailey) and 4 (Isaac). I have already asked Melissa some advice about Josiah since she has been through this age with her young ones. They also like computer games like us and so that is a fun interest we all share. They told us that they had been praying for more couples with children in their church and that we were an answer to that prayer. I am excited to find some new friends so quickly since we moved. That is an answer to my prayer!