Christmas in and 4th of July

We had our4th with some friends of Jeff's parents. They live on a lake and we loaded up the boat to watch fire works . It was one of the best shows I have ever seen! Josie loved it til she passed out cold in my arms during the final bang! We had Christmas in July with the Johnson's and also celebrated my pop's finishing his PHD! He's the old guy in the pic =)

Josie and her 2nd cousin Presley both received pink and purple trikes, they look really excited huh? =) I LOVE it and can't wait for Josie to figure out the peddles.

She said ohhhhh when she saw it! WE LOVE PINK!

THANK YOU GG! (great grandma)

TODAY

Jeff: Josie what did you learn at church today?

Josie: blank stare

Jeff: did you share your toys?

Josie: grabs what Jeff had in his hands and says, "MINE!"

Story time with Josie Jackson

She loves to play and I can't believe how much she copies me. Today she picked up her pink purse, tinkerbell keys, and baby doll said bye bye and headed for the door. She stood by the door for a few minutes before running back to the living room saying hi-o hi-o (hello) So I asked her, "Josie, where did you go?" She said, "bool,bool!" Which means pool, guess we go to the pool alot =)

Then later she brought me her tu tu to tie around her waist and when I was finished I asked to to ballet dance, she held her hands up above her head and stood on her tip toes. She learned that from Sesame Street, Zoe was teaching Abby how to do it.

She also loves animal nosies and can do doggie, lambie, and cow. Today she was eating animal crackers and started a walking a cat on my shoulder saying mow mow!

She also likes to pick up my cell phone and jabber really loud into it. Oh man do I really talk that loud? =)

She likes to look for birds in the sky or bir and ky!

In her broken baby talk she can repeat almost everything we ask her to........ well it depends on who you ask!

I can't belive she is growing up so fast, her mind anyway. She still wears size 3 shoes (or 3-6 months) and today she found a 0-3 size jacket she wore home from the hospital and it fit her as a cute little 3/4 sleeve jacket! I love watching all of this happen, WOW!

a little list

Of things we did this summer.......

My younger bro was here for just about two months and I want to remember some of the things we did, so that someday when we look back and say, "what did we do that summer?" we will have a record =)

~ We went to the playground and Drew helped Josie climb and slide. (josie loved to slide and called them lides) he pushed her in the swings for what seemed like hours.

~ We went swimming almost everyday and Drew always watched Josie for a bit so I could go down the big slide (lide)

~ We cooked ALOT! Drew and both love veggies and trying new things so we ate well! He baked every week. Cakes, cookies, lemon bars.

~ On the topic of food and eating, we both love doughunts and coffee and so we tried a new doughnut place every week.

~ We left Josie for her first weekend at G-mas and headed to KC for some baseball and waterpark fun. We stayed in a crappy hotel where the lock on the door pulled off when Jeff shut it too hard. A little scary but mostly funny. Drew and I had fun at the water park while Jeff layed out. (really he did, no slides for him)

~ Drew helped me take Josie on her first airplane ride to see grandpa for fathers day.

~ We did a week long gymnastics camp for kids. They loved Drew and one told him he was the coolest guy he ever met!

~Drew babysat a few times, put Josie to bed twice and watched alot of sesame street. He will never know how helpful he was!

~ Oh and to have a few nights off in the kitchen was amazing! (he even did the dishes)

~ We watched Burn Notice and Locked Up Abroad!

~ We waited in the theater for three hours to see Harry Potter.

~ Drew was always down for eating lunch out every once in a while, and even paid a few times =)

We had a lot of fun, and I know the summer is not over but Drew leaves tomorow and I am sad. I will miss having family around. (mine lives in Colorado) I will miss his friendship and company. I will really his willingness to eat dessert with me any time day or night! I moved away to go to college when Drew was in 1st grade and feel like I got to know him this summer. I have a ton of pictures from the two months he was here but you will have to see them on the facebook page for now due to a computer issue. Thanks Drew (or Doo if you ask Josie) for spending the summer with us and everything you did for me!

josie's one year (ok 14 month) pics

http://themoffats.blogspot.com/2009/07/josie.html

GO SEE JOSIE'S WAY CUTE PICS!!!!!

Today.......

i was cleaning Josie's room, Jeff was sorting laundry in our room and Drew was down stairs watching T.V. Sounds like someone is missing right? Josie walked, by HERSELF, all the way down the stairs. I thought she was with Jeff, Jeff was sure she was with me! Thank God He protected her!

LATER........

She said, "eye" while pointing to Jeff's eye. Then out came,"nose" while pointing to Jeff's nose. Finally we got to hear mou (mouth) while puckering up lips and pointing to them!

WOW, I know I know all babies grow, learn to talk and grow but watching your own do these things is just awesome.

MUSIC

When we lived in Breckenridge I listened to a Reliant K CD over and over. I'm sure I'm not the only person out there who stores memories by music. It had been a while since I put that CD in my car and I was thinking about it. A few days later there was an upside down CD on the backseat of my car. I picked it up to find my Reliant K CD. I popped it in and wow did a lot of memories come flooding back to me. A lot of those songs helped me though some of my miscarriage grief, some reminded me of day camp and the kids I worked with, mostly just of our time in the Mountains. I am really thankful that God gives people the gift of song writing, instrument playing and singing. Music is such a great part of life, and so many musicians help people though life with out ever even knowing it. One song that that is on the miscarriage list hit me pretty hard this time around. I had not heard it since having Josie in my life and was able to process some of the words for the first time. Part of the song is this :

and you said I know that this will hurt

but if I don't break your heart then things will just get
worse

If the burden seems too much to bear

Remember the end will justify the pain it took to get us
there

and I'll let it be known at times I have shown

signs of all my weakness

but somewhere in me

there is strength

and you promise me that you believe

in time I will defeat this

cause somewhere in me there is strength

and today I will trust you with the confidence

of a man who's never known defeat

and I'll try my best to just forget

that that man isn't me

It was a few hours after listening to this song again that it popped into my head: hummm...... I remember wondering as I was trying again to get pregnant would the end justify the pain it took to get us there. And I just stopped what I was doing, WoW I thought now I can answer that question. So I thought about it, I know I love Josie more than I could ever explain to anyone, but is that pain justified now. I had to think about it for awhile honestly! I will always be sad about losing that first baby, that baby is not Josie, Josie is a different person. But I decided that yes I would go though ALL of it again, all of the pain to get Josie. So yes it was worth it.

The rest of the song made me sad because I was not strong enough to trust God and rely on that strength instead of focusing on my weaknesses. In the middle of it I used to think yes I know that somewhere in me is strength. I was so hurt that everything I did and said was negative,that's all my friends knew. I don't know why it was so hard for me. I wanted so badly to let everyone know that somewhere in me was this strength but I couldn't let it out.

So two years and a baby later I have a lot to reflect on for sure. How did I handle things then? How have I grown? And most important to me how can I use it to help someone else?