Courtesy of Kelly

Kelly took some cute shots of Josiah on the playground, so I've stolen them for the blog. She and Mom and Jonathan took him there while I got a professional (aka non-Great Clips) haircut. It was a birthday present from Mom and Dad - I loved it!

"BA" as Josiah calls it.

Family Pictures

We also took advantage of the weekend to take some family pictures.

And I nabbed some of just me and the boy, since we have so many of him with his Dad.

One-Year Portraits

Even though he's not a year quite yet, I went ahead and did some portraits of him this weekend. This is my favorite. What you don't see if Kelly doing a tap dance behind me to get him to laugh.

A close second.
And I just want to smooch him!

Some fish-face outtakes:

Josiah and Kayla's Play Date

As seen in the previous post, Josiah met our friends' little girl Kayla last week. She's about four months older than Josiah, so he was really trying out his best moves to impress her. We sat them next to each other with their matching place mats.

"Do you come here often?"

"My Cheerios are especially good tonight. How are yours?"

The play date was going well, but then Josiah got a little too friendly. Thankfully, sweet Kayla was polite about it!

"Don't you want a hug?"

Reunions

This was weekend for reunions. My 10-year high school reunion was this weekend, and although I didn't attend the official shindig, I had the opportunity to visit with lots of old friends.

Kelly (Gregorio) Pfeiffer, who I've been friends with since the fourth grade (almost 20 years!), came in town from Colorado for the reunion. She stayed with us at Mom and Dad's house. It was so wonderful and heart-warming to spend time with her and have her get to meet Josiah. Between Josiah-chasing sessions, we got to have some really wonderful talks.

Kelly bonding with Jo-Mo.

Thursday night, a bunch of RUMC youth peeps came over to visit: Katie, Lindsay, Kelly, me, Carrie-Anne and the munchkin at the bottom is Selah. Lindsay had recently returned from the far-off land of North Dakota, where she was attending linguistics "camp," so we got to hear about her exotic travels. Kim and Richard Lowenthal, and Ryan and Susan came over to visit too.

Friday night we had "first dinner" with Matt and Michelle Parker, and their cutie little girl, Kayla. Matt's a buddy from the youth group days too, and we never get a chance to hang out. Kayla and Josiah had a great first date, but I'll post more on that later.
Out of the blue, we also bumped into the Gordons and the Whaleys - a fun surprise!

For our "second dinner," we headed downtown and met some high school friends: Katie, Kristin, Valerie and Melissa. Kelly was taking this picture, but she was there. Valerie even brought me a birthday cake! How nice is she? It was awesome to get to catch up with gals and reminisce about our Milton days.
(Mom and Dad watched Josiah a ton during the weekend. I felt very footloose!)

Saturday afternoon, we met up with more Milton alums: Janet, Nadine, Anna and Amy. More memories and laughing. We had a pretty jam-packed schedule, but it was worth it!

More Steps

After Josiah's first few steps, he skipped a day and refused to acknowledge his accomplishment. His memory came back to him when we got to Atlanta, and he had the incentive of Mom and Dad's dog and cat. Now he is off! He's very steady and fast; he consistently goes across the room and turns around. It's really quite amazing to see the transformation.

Walking

Yes, walking...
Silly Mommy forgot to turn the camera the right direction, but the video is still pretty exciting.

As you can see, Josiah really walked yesterday for the first time. Not just a few accidental steps, but several intentional steps in a row. I was totally not expecting it because we were at the Mountain Brook Library, and I had in my mind that he would start walking at home. Luckily I took my camera because I wanted to blog about how great a library it is.

I can see why he was motivated to walk here. One, there were lots of other little kids around to set the example. Two, there were lots of toys that he has to stand to play with, and they're spaced just the right the distance to encourage a short walk, not too close where he wouldn't have to move or too far that it was hopeless.

Unfortunately, Jonathan was on-call yesterday, so Josiah couldn't show him his new moves. I was exploding, so the poor moms surrounding me were getting the full blast of my excitement. Hopefully we'll get some better shots when I have another set of hands to help me.

Brushing that Blond Hair

Jonathan started brushing Josiah's hair the other day, but Josiah decided he could do it himself.

For those curious about the blond hair, Jonathan was blond as a baby, and I was very light brown.

Snuggling with the Grandparents

Mimi and GP came over for a visit this weekend. They brought Josiah his own little Adirondack chair. He's so cute in it! He happens to be modeling his fish face in this one.

Dad got some cute shots of Mimi's snuggles.

Mom and Dad watched Josiah while Jonathan and I went out to celebrate our sixth wedding anniversary.

On the Brink of Toddlerhood

Josiah is on the verge of being a full-blown tot, and I’m a little stunned. I knew it was coming, but it’s still very shocking. First, on Sunday, he took a few independent steps. Completely by accident, we still have to trick him into doing it, but he did it all the same. I started yelling for Jonathan and scared him, so he stopped. I couldn’t believe how big he looked doing it.

He’s also started saying “ball.” And he pushes his toy truck around the floor like a little boy.

That’s the precious side of standing at this precipice. The not-so-cute side happened on Monday night. We were at a cookout and one of his little friends, who is sixth months older than him, walked over and tried to grab the car he was playing with. I don’t remember all the details, but I think I tried to give her his cups, and then he wanted them too. He swiped for them and made a mad face at her.

I was caught so off-guard. He’s never shown possessiveness or selfishness before. I suppose this shouldn’t surprise me; his sinful nature was bound to reveal itself someday. I guess I was just hoping it would remain dormant or something. Or that sin would just rear it's ugly head in a polite way - ha! I also didn’t know how to discipline/correct it. There was a program going on so I couldn’t give a forceful “no” or say, “Josiah, share your toys.” Sharing is not a concept he understands yet, but I still need to attempt to teach it.

Then today, I was at a moms group and offered to hold a baby for one of the gals there for minute. Josiah started crying and got really clingy when he saw me holding the baby. Sweet in a way, but also showing that possessiveness. We're entering into new territory for sure.

Pool Time

We got a free week pass at our local community center. I must admit that after taking the tour, I'm drooling to join the place. For now, I'm trying to milk the most out of our week. It has a great pool and baby pool and free babysitting while I enjoy the cardio machines with individual televisions, classes or weight rooms.

We met up with the Stewart family today for some swimming. The girls floated Josiah around the baby pool a bit. Later on, we watched Kate go off the diving board!

Path of Destruction

I'm sure all the experienced parents out there giggled at me when I set up one set of drawers as a "Josiah area" in the kitchen. Well, he quickly moved on to other areas, all of which I've been childproofing, but it's always a disaster afterward.

My logic is that it's no different than cleaning up after his toys, so as long as everything is safe and not too messy, then I'd rather not fight a battle. I do have "no" zones too: the baker's rack, the oven, the refrigerator, and our bookshelves. I do let him take down his own books from his shelves though, which he does probably at least once a day.

The problem now is he's gotten taller or more ambitious because he can reach that third shelf.
Are the parents still laughing at my naivety? Is this going to come back to bite me?

Peekaboo and Raspberries

Rock the Block

Here are some pictures from my week at Rock the Block. We had an awesome time!

Tickle fight with Reagan, Trey and Maddie.

Our group leaders. We had just had water day, so I'm a little wet.
God provided in so many ways throughout the week. We had 10-14 kids each day, ranging from age 2 to rising fourth grade, and they all participated and listened well. The really young ones played separately during the lesson, but that was understandable. I enjoyed learning how to communicate biblical truths to children - something I need to practice for my own little one. Plus it's always good to repeat the Gospel!

Let me share a story about how I saw God's provision on the first day:
The last few days I had been having feelings that Satan was going to put up some obstacle for me. (Although I'd be praying, I didn't recall praying specifically against this. Bad decision!)
Sure enough, a few minutes after starting my drive to the church the first morning, I had a flat tire that turned into a complete blow out. I had my Josiah in the car with me and pulled safely into the parking lot of a lab testing site. I used Lab Corp's phone to call the church and pass on the word that I would be late.
While I was inside making the call, one of the patients in the waiting room heard that I had a flat and called a tire place two blocks away. His company is a regular customer, so although they didn't normally provide roadside service, they made an exception and came to help. The mechanic put on my spare tire and inflated the rest of tires to ensure my safety. He said I would be fine to travel to church and back, but not to push it much more than that. They didn't charge me anything, just my word that I would come to them for the new tires.
So despite the delay, I managed to get to church, drop off Josiah and get to the host home just a few minutes after 9:00 (the start time). My teammates were scrambling to cover for me because it was my day to do the lesson!
Another amazing way I saw God's provision was the attitude He gave me. I never felt worried or anxious. Even afterward, when Josiah had been in the nursery for several hours and then he had to be in the auto repair shop for two hours, he did wonderfully and I didn't feel hassled - I felt blessed instead. That is completely from God!

11 months

I'm nearly a week late, but here is Josiah's 11-month post.

For the memory bank:

• Says mama and dada (distinctively to Jonathan now). Signs milk, more and "all done."
  
• Has fallen into a few steps and can stand independently, but doesn't want to let go of our finger
• Is doing much better in the nursery. The ladies in there now always say how sweet he is
  
• Hates it when Mom puts him on the changing table. Most everyone else is fine.
• Recognizes dogs and barking (real and stuffed) and makes a barking noise back. He also has this toy that says things like "Yippee" and he imitates the sound
  
• Loves being outside, even when it's really hot
• Random food he likes: jarred roasted red peppers. Really easy to prepare, so Mom likes them too.
  

Visit from the Horners

It was quite a treat this week to get a visit from Jeff, Elizabeth and Michael Horner! They were stopping through Birmingham on their cross-country voyage back to the South. We're excited that they'll only be a few hours away in Georgia now.

Michael is too cute! One of the most smiley babies I've ever met. I was a little worried I'd never get to meet him since they were out in California. The boys were really cute playing together; Josiah is about three months older and was on his home-turf, so he showed Michael how the toys worked.

See you guys soon!