Josie's 1 Year Stats

I took Josie to the doctor's on Monday for her 1 year check up and she is a tiny little thing. So without further ado here are her stats:


Weight: 18 lb 4 oz - 5%
Height: 28 1/2" - 25%
Head: 17" - 5%


She started walking really well right around her birthday and she does everything she can to keep up with Peter. Josie has started to say quite a few words I have heard her repeat what Peter says, like stuck, and then not say that word again. Here is a list of some of the words she says regularly: Mommy, Daddy, please, thank you, cheese (there's more that I can't remember right now). She does the sign for all done, please, more, milk. She is such a climber. Whenever she can she climbs up and sits on our entertainment center, the sofa table behind the couch, the stairs at friends' houses, up and down on chairs and couches and really anything that she deems "climbable," which is everything. :) She babbles a lot and laughs and smiles and is just a happy baby. We were at the park the other day playing and this little boy asked Andrew why Josie was so happy. It was cute. Josie is such a girly girl and SO dramatic. An example of the drama: she refuses to drink cold milk, if I try to give her cold milk she takes a sip and throws her sippy cup on the ground. Then when the cup is empty and she was not done drinking milk she wails like she's dying because it's all gone. She is a really good eater, she'll eat pretty much anything that we put in front of her and she'll even beg for what I'm eating if it's not the same as her food. Josie is a thumb sucker she stopped using a pacifier quite a few months ago and will just use her thumb to comfort herself and to go to sleep. Josie does this thing where she will try to wear something and she knows that it needs to go over her head but more often than not she will pull it over her head and drape it, whatever it may be, around the back of her neck. She will also find clothes or anything soft and carry it around. She is amazingly good at understanding directions, even if she doesn't always listen, I will tell her to go put what's in her hand back where she got it and she'll turn around and put it back, sometimes, other times she'll pretend to put it back but keep it in her hand and try to walk away with it. Josie has 3 teeth with possibly 2 more on their way. It's kind of funny because she has her 2 bottom front teeth and the other tooth is not a front tooth it's the one next to the front teeth. I just can't believe how big she's getting and what a big girl she's turning into. I also can't believe that in 5 short months she will be in nursery!

Climbing

She liked to climb into this and just play

Being cute

Happy girl

Josie loves books

Chilling on a box

Chilling on the couch

She's so proud of herself

"There's so many interesting things to play with up here"

This little girl is fearless

Looking cool with a duck on her head

Trying to "wear" the bucket

Squishing her face into the office

Peter Likes Tangled

We got Tangled from Netflix the other day and we've been watching it quite often and today while we were watching it Peter got up and started singing and dancing to the I've Got a Dream song. It was so cute that I rewound the movie so it would play again so I could get the video below. Enjoy!

(Peter is not wearing pants but is wearing his big boy underwear. He even put them on himself all by himself).

Monkeying Around

The other day (about a month ago) I was doing laundry and Peter came into the laundry room and saw his monkey costume from Halloween hanging up and he got really excited and started saying "gunkey, gunkey!!" It took me a minute to figure out what he was talking about, but I finally did and I asked him if he wanted to wear his monkey costume and he emphatically said, "Yeah!" So I got the costume down and took it into the living room and got him all dressed up in it. He was SO stinking excited and super CUTE. It was really funny to watch. I got a few pictures and a couple videos (please ignore the mess we were still recovering from our road trip to Wyoming).

Merry Christmas!!!

We enjoyed a nice quite Christmas at home with just our little family. Peter came running out of his room with nothing but his diaper on. It was a lot of fun to see Peter actually open presents this year. He was super excited about everything he got and he even decided to play with Josie's presents too (lower left picture).

Josie got two dolls and the rocker stacker from us. Her stocking was full of the bath toy letters (for Peter) just so there was something actually in her stocking. She's posing with her new book from Grandma Thatcher.

In Andrew's family it is a tradition to get your own box of cereal wrapped as a present under the Christmas tree. A few years ago I didn't do the cereal and Andrew was sad. So this year I made sure to do it. Everyone got cereal except for Josie, she'll get some next year though. :)

Peter's Paparazzi

Lately when I pull out the camera to take a picture of Peter he will either shake his head at me and give me a deadpan look or he will quickly scamper out of the picture. The pictures below will explain why I feel like I'm Peter's personal Paparazzi. :) I guess I should be grateful that he doesn't try to touch the camera quite as often anymore. 

I could have sworn he was just there.

Christmas is Coming

At the beginning of the month I put up our Christmas tree because I had to have it up for the ornament exchange I hosted. The angel won't stand up straight, but I like her anyway. Also if I took a picture of the tree now there's a big bald spot in the front where Peter likes to take ornaments off the tree. 

These are all the ornaments from the exchange. I love handmade ornaments!

This is my ornament. It's a melted snowman!

Last week we really started to get into Christmas festivities. On Wednesday Peter's play group decorated cookies. He was much more interested in eating the mini M&M's than decorating the cookies. 

The cookie started out with more frosting and a bunch more M&M's.

Then on Saturday we went to the Train Museum with my friend Amanda and her family. Her boys were totally into it and Peter was done after 15 minutes of being there. It was actually really cool. It's a bunch of retired old men that bring their trains together to display for the public. The main reason Peter had issues was there was a no running, no touching rule which is really hard for him. 

This was the only picture that I got just before Peter was done. :)

Saturday was our ward Christmas party and Santa was there. :) The primary kids performed Jingle Bells on the kazoo and Peter managed to steal a kazoo he had it in his hand when he went to see Santa and quickly traded it for the candy cane. He wasn't too impressed with him but at least he didn't cry like last year. 

There were also some awesome musical performances that Peter really enjoyed. I got video of Peter dancing to the music. So a funny story, originally the cello was set up to the left of the piano, right in front of where we were sitting. I had to tell Peter not to touch it and thankfully he moved to up on the stage. I didn't start taking video until part way into the song so I missed some of his cute dancing.

I also put up the lights on our house. They pretty much look like last year, except with a bit of flair by the door. 

A Day of Peter Cuteness

In no specific order here are the super cute things Peter did today:

- Josie was sleeping in the swing and Peter decided that he was going to share the baby toys I just got out. So he took the bear soft rattle and put it in the swing with her. The swing was swinging so the picture's blurry.

- Josie was laying on her blanket on the floor and she started crying so Peter knelt by her head put the pacifier in her mouth and got up and kept on playing.

- Josie was sleeping in her bassinet and Peter runs into her and starts pushing buttons on the alarm clock (he was trying to turn her nature noises on just like Mommy does for him) then when I told him it was time to go he reaches into the bassinet and pats her belly and says something that sounds like "nigh" for goodnight. Then he lets me take his hand and walk him out of my room.

- We were watching Veggie Tales and I'm laying on my side on the couch and Peter climbs up on the couch with me and sits in the space between my legs and the couch then pulls my feet closer to him so he was snuggled up with me and then he laid his head on my leg and just stayed that way the whole movie.

- Peter was playing in the stroller which was sitting next to one of those plastic 3 drawer carts when he pushes out the top drawer and climbs into the middle drawer. I'm not sure what he was trying to accomplish but in he went. It was quite entertaining to watch and luckily I had the camera nearby. I couldn't do more than take pictures since he decided to do this while I was nursing Josie.

- I was nursing Josie and Peter walks over to me and double checks that she is in fact eating then he turns around and runs towards my bedroom door and goes in and starts playing. Normally that door is locked and he was so excited that he could actually get in. Thankfully he decided to play on Dad's side of the room so my makeup was safe. :)

As I was writing these I recalled a few others that weren't today but are still really cute:

- We play "Where's Peter?" which involves Peter covering his eyes and uncovering them when we say, "There he is!" So were were doing this when Peter comes up to me and holds out his hands and covers my eyes; he wanted to play "Where's Mommy?" We all take our turns to cover our eyes and ask "Where's Mommy, Daddy, etc." We have also developed a new variation of this game which comes in most handy right after bath. Daddy will cover his eyes and say, "Where's Peter?" over and over again until Peter, usually wearing his hooded towel or his birthday suit, comes up to him and tries to move his hands away from his eyes to show Daddy that he's right there, but Daddy is usually ready and waiting with a diaper and pajamas.

- Andrew was looking for his keys the other day and couldn't find them anywhere so he had to take my set of keys so he could go to work. During the day Peter and I were putting his clothes back in his dresser and as we were finishing up I notice something under his bed. Lo and behold there were Andrew's keys. So I run and grab the camera and take a picture and when Andrew gets home I give him the camera and have him look at the cute pictures of the kids I took today (I actually did take cute pictures) and he scrolls through the pictures and finds his keys. :)

- Peter likes to say bye and wave when we're leaving or if someone else is leaving. He will even close the door behind you/him. A few weeks ago I was picking Peter up from a friends house (from yet another doctor's appointment) and pretty much the instant I walked into her house he was waving bye to her. It was really funny. He waves and says hi too. He did this the other day while watching Blue's Clues (his favorite show) Steve was coming out of his house and Peter waved and said hi. Speaking of Blue's Clues, Peter will specifically request to watch it and when he does he put both his hands in the air and while flashing them (like Steve does) says "Boos Coos." He will also wave his hands in the air and wail "mail" too. :)

Welcome Home Baby Josie

Josephine "Josie" Adelle Gardner

November 5, 2010 2:24am

8 pounds 4 ounces

20 inches

Everyone is happy and healthy and home. :)

Birth story to come soon...

Please excuse the poor picture quality as some pictures were taken with my cell phone and the others were taken with a Peter enhanced lens on our camera.

Peter's New Bedroom

I finally finished hanging the pictures on the wall in Peter's new room so I thought that I would share pictures of the completed room. It is painted the same color as the nursery and I decorated everything with this awesome cobalt blue. I got the toddler bed from a friend that just happens to match his dresser. The room feels huge with so little furniture in it. Peter really seems to love it. The first night we put him in his new room was also the first night that he slept in the toddler bed. At first he laid right down in the bed and was okay but when he realized that he was supposed to stay there he freaked out a bit, Andrew comforted him and he fell asleep and has been fine ever since. One thing about having him in a toddler bed is that he gets out of bed in the morning when he wakes up and comes into our room and wakes us up. Most of the time it's around 6:30 which isn't too bad but a few days he's come in at 5:30 which isn't okay and so we get him his milk and a new diaper and have him walk with us back to his bedroom to go back to sleep. 

Nap time is a bit different than bed time. In the beginning it was a bit of a fight to get him to go to his room and stay in there and sleep so we had to lock the door. Some days he'll just sleep on the floor behind the door and others he'll stay napping in his bed. Most days now we don't need to lock the door and he stays in bed. One way that I get him to go to his room to take a nap is I ask him where his doggy and kitty are and he runs to his room finds them and climbs into bed and cuddles his stuffed animals. 

The bay windows with curtains. They don't keep out all the light but they really help with keeping the temperature down. Darn west facing windows. 

I put up the letters and Andrew asked why I named another room Peter. 

The closet. :)

Peter loves having a mirror in his room and I love that he can't knock it over anymore. 

He kept his dresser and the pictures on his wall. 

Peter napping in his bed. 

This is a frequent sight after nap time even if he sleeps in his bed.