Happy Birthday, Grammy!

Thanks for being such a great Grammy. I love you!

Oh Baby!

I've been organizing the one of the moms groups for JCRMA (Jefferson County Resident Medical Alliance, aka resident wives support group). This group is four babies 18 months and younger. We had a great turnout with four little girls under six months and Josiah, the older boy chaperon for the morning.

Bailey, Margaret, Ellie and Anna

Josiah wondering what in the world to do with all these cute chicks in his play space.

We busted out the playmat since I knew we had little bitties coming over. It's so great to get to "talk shop" with other moms, especially moms with busy medical husbands.

He Looks Like...

I know we've already played this game, but Josiah has changed a lot in the last year. So here are some more comparison shots...

Josiah around a year

Jonathan at one year, posing with a nice-looking pair of teenagers.

Haircut picture posted previously

Mom mentioned her comment the similarity to this picture of me, which we fondly call, "Jock on a Rock." It helps I look like a boy in this picture.

Words, Words, Words

It's been fascinating to watch Josiah's development over the last few weeks. I've been keeping a running list of the words he's picked up. Disclaimer: Many of these are not perfect by any stretch, but we know what he's saying. It's also amazing to me to see him respond to questions and commands such as "Do you want to go outside?" "Give Mom a kiss." "Do you want more?" "Find your shoes."
I'm sure most people aren't too interested, but I want to remember these. I've included a few memories/comments too.

• Mama. If I am more than 5 feet away or out of his vision, he starts calling "Mama." Melts my heart everytime.
• Dada
• Hot. It amazes me what he knows is hot. The microwave, stove, my coffee cup. If we put something on his plate that has the possibility of being hot, he puts his hand on it and looks up very seriously. "Hooo..t." Sometimes he blows on it like we do to cool it off.
• No no. Very popular right now. He also has a hilarious head shake to confirm a no. It's more like a whole body shake.
  
• Book, Ball, Bear. All sound very similar.
• Cheese, Please. Again, very similar.
• Car/Truck=Tackum. Not sure if this counts. Went on a walk around the neighborhood, and he was saying "tackum" every other second.
• Llama. Seriously. In one of his books, L is for "Llama." At first I thought he was saying Mama for the kangaroo with the pouch baby. Jonathan is convinced it's really llama. He also has the Is Your Mama a Llama? book, so he might gotten it in his brain from that.
• Apple, Rock. I have these on the list, but don't recall hearing them recently.
• Toothbrush. He really likes brushing his teeth.
  
• Banana=Nana, Hair, On/Off, Eye, Drink, Shoes, Hat, Dirt, Trees, Fish, Done
• Animal Noises: Meow, Woof/Arf, Roar (lions, tigers and bears), Baa (Sheep)
• Uh-Oh
  

Josiah's First Haircut

We've been going back and forth about whether we should cut Josiah's hair. It was getting a little long, but not too long. I was a little sentimental about it, not wanting to "let go", but knew that it was about time. Jonathan said he didn't think it was necessary.
So I was a little surprised today when I came home from running errands. Jonathan had been watching Josiah, and when I came up I noticed his hair looked combed and he was wearing a different shirt.

I asked why he was wearing a different shirt. "Because the other one had hair on it."
Jonathan had cut Josiah's hair while I was gone! The King of Non-Sentimentality trimmed it without me being there to document it.

It turned out really cute, but I was a little bummed to have missed my son's first haircut. Seems like a right of passage I should have been there for. Oh well, now it's a fun story.

Crazy About Books

Josiah has just gone crazy about books lately. He's always going over to his shelf, saying "ba, ba" (translate "book" or "ball" depending on what's closer) and picking out his favorites. And it occupies him for a really long time.

He knows certain books have animals he knows or can make the noises for, or they have pictures he recognizes: banana, eyes, shoes. I've been keeping a running list of his words. The funniest one is his word for cars or trucks (he has a fire truck book he loves): tackum. We correct him every time, but he's really consistent about it. He uses it for pictures of cars/trucks, as well as real ones and toy ones.
Here he's bringing Jonathan one to read.

Here he found his dog ("woof, woof") and cat ("meow").
I hope this fondness for books keeps up! It's a little tiring to read the same books over and over, but we don't want to do anything to discourage it.

Happy Birthday, Granddaddy!

Can't wait to play in the dirt with you soon!
Love,
Your little buddy

Oh the Weather Outside Is Frightful

But this little bundle is delightful!

We finally got a cold snap down here in Alabama. Saturday was particularly chilly and overcast, but we went out anyways.

Josiah has a little "track" he runs when he goes outside. Out the front door, down the stairs with Mom's hand, down the walk, say hi to the purple flowers, bang on the drainpipe, knock on the basement door, careful negotiate the doorway, find toys, get mom to bring them out, play with them a bit, run to the street (but not into), back up the stairs to the front door, play with the dirt in the pot, rap on front door, repeat cycle.

Potato Soup

I made potato soup last night, one of our favorites. The first time I gave it to him, it burned his mouth (bad mommy, bad mommy). The second time, well, I think he liked it.

I guess the better way to feed soup to a toddler is for me to feed him myself. But I didn't because: 1) I'm lazy. 2) He's going to have to learn to use a spoon sometime. 3) He's just getting in the bath anyway, and the clothes are going in the wash.

I know this blog has seen enough high chair, covered in food pictures, but I heard some requests for a blog update, so this is what you get.

A Great Sense of Style

Josiah's personality is really blossoming lately, and along with it, his sense of style.

The newest fad: his plastic frog bib and a hoodie sweatshirt sans the arm sleeves (that's the cool way to wear it). He finishes the outfit with one of his dad's reflex hammers.
(Jonathan put the frog bib on him once when we just wandering around the house. Ever since, when he finds the bib in the drawer, he brings it to Dad to put on him. Pulls it off, repeat.)

Trying on Daddy's shoes. The shoes are a bit formal for the camo pants, but confidence is the key to pulling off a great outfit.
The best accessory: that adorable smile!

And of course the best thing you can wear on Election Day, an "I Voted" sticker, no matter which candidate you cast your ballot for. And even if you're not constitutionally allowed to vote, like our little model.

I don't have a picture, but he also enjoys putting things on his wrist lately. He likes playing with my bracelets, but also my hair elastics and rubber bands.

Autumn Hike

It's been a while since we had a family hike, so we headed up to Ruffner Mountain again to see the beautiful fall scenery.

Walking a log with Daddy

The boy had fun this time because he could stomp around and explore the trail. He kept finding leaves, holding them up to show to us, not letting us have them, just telling us they were there.

Jonathan informed Josiah that he found a "hiking stick" for him. Josiah was fascinated. Because everything Dad does is cool.

For those who know it, I was trying to recreate the "Jock on a Rock" picture, but he wouldn't sit still.

Beijing

After the Great Wall, we went to the Ming Tombs via a jade factory. I won't bore you with pictures of the tombs, it wasn't that exciting. Briefly, the jade factory was pretty obviously a tourist trap. Maybe we should have told them that we weren't actually rich. Jade is incredibly expensive. It's like carving things out of diamonds. We were baffled.

On the way back to Beijing, our guide took us by a place that might be familiar to you.

The Bird's Nest and the Water Cube from the Olympics. They were really neat structures, although we only got to see them for a moment.


We parked at our lovely hotel and then headed out for some Peking duck. Really yummy, but it was kind of lonely eating a meal just the two of us after so many with wonderful meals with friends. We also had to go to a touristy place with pictures and English on the menu, but it was still really good.

The next morning, we tried to cram as much of Beijing as we could before our 4:00 flight. First stop, the Forbidden City.

The Forbidden City is the former Emperor's Palace filled with all the luxuries of a feudal society. Kind of sad actually. It's called Forbidden because only royalty and their court were allowed to enter.

We took a audio tour, and it was well worth it.

Then we went across the street to Tienanmen Square.

This line is for the Mao Museum. We passed.

Military procession

We hopped on a motorized rickshaw type thing with the hopes of making it to the Temple of Heaven. It was really fun! We made it and took a lovely walk through the gardens, but only got to glimpse at it before we ran out of time. Luckily, our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, and we can look at those anytime.

The Great Wall

On our way back, we went to Beijing a day early to do some site-seeing. Our tour guide said that this was the less crowded section of the wall. I'd hate to see the touristy place because this area was packed!

An apology for the pictures. My camera was having focusing issues, which I resolved when I was taking them, but I didn't think about it when I handed it off to other people. So pretty much all the pictures of Jonathan and I are out of focus. Pooh, pooh.

The Great Wall of Humanity. The crowds tapered off quite a bit by the time we reached the third of the fifth towers we hiked to. It was really fascinating to see all the different nationalities and hear the various languages spoken.

This hike was not for the faint of heart. It was both physically challenging and challenging to my nerves - I was clinging to those rails, when they were available! Jonathan of course had no issues with the height. Given all that, we still saw a variety of ages on this thing, from 2 to 80...seriously.

Two miles down, four thousand to go...

Although we marveled at the Chinese laborers who built the wall on the steep terrain with no modern equipment, we should be more amazed at the God who created those mountains than by mankind struggling to build a structure on them.