Josie turns two

Our little girl is growing up so fast. As I mentioned in a recent entry, her language ability is growing by leaps and bounds. She picks up new words and phrases all the time. We still have to do a lot of “decoding,” but she is becoming more and more understandable.

My brother Jon and my parents came over to help us celebrate. We had some Imo’s Pizza and a nice cake to mark the occasion. The Imo’s was good, but pricey. I’ll probably stick with Cecil Whittaker’s or Faraci’s in the future, but Imo’s was nearby and open for lunch.

Check out the photos…

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Snow days in St. Louis

We’ve racked up some pretty big snows this year.

We had a fair snow of a few inches on almost two weeks ago. My brother Jon and I took Jadzia and Ludi to go sledding up on Killer Kill in Florissant next to the Ferguson-Florissant School District administration building. Good times were had.

Then, a little over a week later, we got the biggest snowfall we’ve seen since around 2008. I didn’t put a ruler to it, but we probably got 9-10 inches. Unlike after the earlier snow, our temperatures have remained below freezing so the snow has not yet melted and today and tomorrow we will probably get a little bit more on top.

After the big one, I took the girls outside to play in the yard. After other attempts in previous years, I wasn’t expecting to stay outside long. Usually one of the girls will get snow under a glove or in the face and start screaming and then everyone wants to go in.

Not this year.

Jadzia, Ludi, and Josie stayed outside to throw snowballs, build snow forts, and make snow angels. Jadzia got tired of it after a while, but Josie and Ludi kept with it longer. All told we were out of the house for 45 minutes or an hour. Not bad!

Here are some photos from both snowfalls:

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Josie’s speaking ability

Josie’s speech is growing by leaps and bounds every day. She does a lot of babbling, peppered with real English and Spanish words.

In the last few weeks we have heard her begin to sing a little bit of “A B C,” for example. She begins the song but cuts it off quickly and gives a little smile.

Today while changing her diaper, I was singing the chorus of “Angels We Have Heard on High.” To my surprise, Josie began to sing it after I finished. It wasn’t exact by any means, but I could definitely make it out.

She seems to learn a new word each day. One that she has been using a lot lately is “paper.” She has begun coloring for her own amusement without help.

Here are a few of her more baby-esque words. I want to record these before I forget them — and before she stops saying them.

  • goon-goon: poop
  • ja-ja: Mister Rogers
  • jag-oo: jacket
  • ta: short for mantita, which is Spanish for “blanket”
  • jad-zee: Jadzia
  • loo-ee: Ludi
  • day-day: this is her way of saying bebé, by which she usually means Joseph

Who opens the Advent calendar first?

Last night while I was at work, Yoli told the girls that the following day would be Dec. 1, and we would start our Advent calendar.

This is our third Christmas using this calendar, and it’s pretty neat. It’s a manger scene with a bunch of hooks. Each day, you open a little door and inside is a wooden figure (like an angel, a shepherd, Mary, Joseph, etc). Then you hang the figure somewhere in the scene.

Anyway, Yoli told Jadzia that we would let the girls take turns in reverse birth order. So, Josie would go first, Ludi the next day, and Jadzia last.

Jadzia didn’t take this very well and argued with Yoli, who told her she would ask me for my opinion after work.

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Passport photo collage: Josie

Later this year we are planning to visit Bolivia. It has been two years — and two babies! — since our last trip there.

In the past we have always shot our own photos for passports. Heck, I did my own passport this way even before I met Yoli, sending in a (pretty bad) snapshot taken against a wall that I happened to have two of.

Taking photos of babies and toddlers can be pretty tricky. And each round of photos we took had some problem that made me decide to redo them. So we ended up with almost 100 photos of Joseph and Josie before all was said and done.

For the heck of it, I decided to grab six photos of each child and make a little collage. Josie’s is maybe a little more interesting since she was making all sorts of faces.

Milestones at Renaud Manor

Some recent development milestones:

  • Jadzia can read and write! Last week she made up some valentines that we mailed out to family and handed to our neighbors. I spelled the names, and she wrote them out.
  • Ludi is singing really well, and she has quite a few songs memorized.
  • Josie is walking, and doing some talking and signing. Best of all, she is sleeping through the night — and she has moved into the girls’ room.

Christmas chuckle

This Christmas was a lot of fun. Perhaps the best part was having my Nan in town all week, and my brother’s family for several days. We went over to my mom’s house daily to hang out.

Of all the gifts the girls received this week, this one gave us the biggest laugh. It’s a ladybug toy for Josie:

As Yoli removed it from its packaging today, she found the following warning:

Caution: Please be safe. Always select the correct size toy for the type of breed and chewing habits of your dog. Should any portion of this toy break or tear, please remove from your dog and discard immediately. Vo-Toys, Inc. is not responsible for any pet owner’s neglect or misuse of this toy.

The mysterious Portuguese recipe

Speaking of recipes, Yoli has some recipes she’s been saving for almost 20 years. Many of them are hand-written or cut-and-pasted into a little notebook.

Last night she decided to try a recipe that she had wanted to make for a long time. The recipe was written in Portuguese, and it was called “Torta de Chocolate,” although it really looked more like a pie than a cake. She had found the recipe on the street back in Bolivia and had always wondered how it might taste. Now was her chance to find out.

(And yes, Yoli knows enough Portuguese to be able to prepare this recipe)

But there are always some monkeys to throw wrenches into things. In this case, the monkeys were named Jadzia, Ludi, and Josie.

All the girls wanted to be in the kitchen watching Yoli as she cooked. Ludi was standing on our step ladder, Jadzia brought in a stepstool from the bathroom, and Josie was just crawling and doing whatever.

When Yoli went to fetch a pan from the basement, Ludi sprang into action. She took Yoli’s good vanilla, and poured all of it into the mixture for the torta’s filling. The cap fell to the floor, where Josie eagerly picked it up and began licking it. Jadzia the eager spectator didn’t bother to call for help.

Suffice it to say that Yoli threw all three out of the kitchen, cleaned the mess, and continued cooking.

I got to taste the torta last night. It was very mousse-pie-like, but the crust was like a very firm cake rather than a pie crust. Very tasty, but it had enough vanilla flavor that it almost had an alcohol taste.