The Birthday Girl and Other Happenings

The biggest thing that has happened with our family of late is our baby is now one! She is still very small (as our doctor confirmed this week), but is so much fun and getting more personality all of the time. For her big day we decided to celebrate with Chinese food so that she could enjoy one of her favorite foods - noodles. The rest of us didn't mind too much either.

We then went on a fun walk in a little nature area in Sugarhouse. Ian loves to push his baby sister in the stroller.

We then had a fun little party with some family. She couldn't quite figure out opening presents, but...

she certainly loved them once they were unwrapped. One of the cutest things that Josie does is cuddle her dolls and animals like this and pat them on the back. It is so sweet.

She gave her new Raggedy Ann some love as well. She got some really fun toys this year and one of the highlights was Lily, a LeapFrog interactive purple puppy that we programmed with her favorite things and name so it sings songs just for her. Pretty fun.

The celebration continued with this cute and delicious cake decorated by Grandma.

The birthday girl with her cake.

Our Josie was a little unsure of everything, but enjoyed being sung to and checking out the cake some more.

We put some on her tray and she ate a little more than our other kids did, but not really any digging in. The rest of us certainly enjoyed it, though!

At one year Josie can do quite a few signs: please, more, drink, food, and dog.

She can also walk about 20 steps now (she began taking her first steps right around her big day) and is crawling/climbing into everything.

Her favorite foods are watermelon, strawberries, frozen peas, lunch meat, peanut butter, noodles, and soy yogurt. We have also been able to introduce dairy in the last couple of weeks and she is loving cheese and a few other dairy products. Bridget is delighted to be able to eat all food again!

She is still waking up a couple of times a night, but we are working on getting her to sleep longer.

Her favorite book is Baby Boo!

She gives the greatest smiles and has an infectious belly laugh.

At her one year doctor's appointment she was in the 0% for weight (16 lbs), 13% for height (28 in.), and 84% for head (46 1/2 cm). Since she is on target developmentally, our doctor thinks she is just going to be very petite, but did suggest doing a follow-up formula which we have yet to be able to get her to actually drink. Ian went to the doctor's appointment and brought her one of her stuffed animals to hold. He was so concerned about her shots and made sure right when she was finished with them she had her giraffe to cuddle.
We love our Josie so much and can't believe a year has already gone by. She is such a sweet, good natured baby and we love having her in our family.

On Rachel's first day of school by herself Ian, Bridget, and Josie headed to a bakery for a treat. We weren't sure how Ian would feel about having Rachel gone, but he has been loving the extra attention and freedom.

Even though she didn't get too messy on her birthday, she does love digging into some things. Here she was after some bread with jam. Yummy!

One day for her snack she held her little doll the whole time.

Rachel is not the only one with unique fashion around here. Ian comes up with some fun outfits sometime and here he is modeling his favorite hat that his Irish Great Grandma gave him from Egypt.

Our other big news is that Ian is potty trained! Well, mostly. He still has some accidents, but he is doing pretty well and in underwear full-time now. Ian was so funny about his chart and had to help design it to say, "Ian's Robot Potty Chart" with depicted robot underneath. The prize he chose when he finished his chart was this fun horn for his bike that we're sure the neighbors love.

Other than that Justin is now officially busy, busy, busy. He got a temporary job working overtime for the Salt Lake County Elections Office until after the election and is also writing/defending his thesis this semester. We're just planning on staying with his parents for a while until he finds a permanent job, but it is probably better because for this semester we might be too busy to move! We are just thankful that they are so easy to live with and the kids are so happy here. Rachel is absolutely loving school and has a really sweet teacher, so we might just live here forever. Okay, probably not forever, but for right now things are just fine.