November

Early on in the month, Chip and I went over to Max and Leigh's to babysit while they went down to MSU with my Dad and Winnie to watch the Alabama/MSU football game. We had a fun time with the four girls. They play VERY well together and they are SO easy!

Lilly Grace had recently lost her front tooth - she was VERY proud of that hole!
All 3 of the little girls LOVE Curious George - they would PLAY PLAY PLAY and then one would sit to watch George, and then the others would migrate over that way soon enough.
Here they are - entranced! I took SEVERAL pictures and the flash didn't even phase them!
Emmie watching George - the other three were downstairs with Uncle Chip (see below...)

Here they are putting together a puzzle. Jo LOVES LOVES LOVES puzzles and she and Annie can do them pretty well, but they really need Lilly Grace's help - Jo's daddy decided to step in and help out too!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving at my brother's house. They have an awesome swing set / play set in their backyard and Josephine calls it their "playground". She told us that morning she wanted to go to "Uncle John's playground". It was really cute! She LOVES it on their slide and swings.
First slide of the day! A few days later, she got to go over for the WHOLE day while her Aunt Leigh babysat - Jo said she had a GREAT time playing, but she got a "boo boo" on her "booty" from the slide - so now she says she likes the swings better. Funny girl.
It's hard to get good shots of kids - especially when they're swinging! In this shot, you can REALLY tell how much Jo loves to swing! :)
Annie with her Nana.
Grandma and Grandpa getting some pictures of the children...
Max / Uncle John - FIRST time carving a turkey! He did a great job - although I know he was skeptical being as it seems everyone makes it out to be such a difficult task. No sweat!
My Uncle David brought goodies for the family - one of the treats he brought with him was malted milk balls. The girls got in to them right after dinner. Up until the candy, they had been playing and laughing (and squealing/screaming) and then, all of a sudden, they got really quiet. When we went to go see what they were up to - this was the scene! Two girls stuffing their faces with CANDY!
Annie and Emmie have a hot wheels race track in their room and they were all 3 taking turns and shooting the cars across the room - can you tell Jo enjoyed it?
Annie taking her turn as Emily watches to make sure she does it correctly!
Emmie really wanted to take a picture - she loves looking at herself in photos. What girl doesn't!?

Pumpkin Patch

On Saturday we went up to Olive Branch to visit Matt and Aimee and their two children, Mikaiyah and Camden. We stayed in during the afternoon to watch the MSU vs. South Carolina game (ugh...) and then decided to go out for the early evening to a pumpkin patch and corn maze which was in between Olive Branch and Collierville. Here are the kids who just got out of the car. They were very excited...
Kaiyah showing Jo how to throw grass and dirt. Fun!
This was such a cute little area for pictures - they kids obliged!
Matt, Aimee, and Camden (you can barely see his little head, but he hung with us the whole time - albeit asleep). We're on the tractor ride to the corn maze here. It was not very far from the house, so this part was fun enough for the kids, but not uncomfortably long. Jo didn't even flinch about the tractor or the hay or anything. Jo's really good about doing EVERYTHING if Kaiyah does it...
Here is a picture of the corn maze. We decided - being the intelligent people we are - to solve the maze BEFORE we went in AS WELL as take a picture of it to have on our camera. This SAVED us.

We had a map of the maze which could only be revealed by red glasses - and certain parts of the maze had "checkpoints" where you could look at the map under red plastic. At one point, we got to a checkpoint - and since we were there, we decided to check ourselves. We knew we were mostly through the maze, but wanted to go ahead and see what the map said. Turns out - the map they printed to give to people was WRONG. Like, VERY wrong. We kept trying and trying to figure it out. Up until this point, I had been navigating using the picture on the camera. I eventually told our group we were just going to keep going using OUR own picture, not the one on the paper. LUCKILY, the picture we took was correct and we got in and out of the maze in about 45 minutes - only going the wrong way ONCE. (The maze isn't small - it was 8 acres - but certainly didn't feel that big when we were in there.)
Here are our brave warriors entering the corn maze.

We kept passing a large family (in numbers, not size) who had been in the maze for untold amounts of time. In fact, they were attempting to exit the entrance when we were coming in and then turned around. When we passed this family AGAIN near the end (they were a row over, but could see us through the corn), we heard a comment from one of the adults, "Let's follow the Mississippi State people..." I didn't really realize until later that his comment was probably a backhanded insult - being that we were in a corn maze and apparently Mississippi State people are comfortable there.... (maybe it's true - we did get through the maze quickly...). Anyway - those people cut through the corn and followed us out. Cheaters. We're pretty sure they were Ole Miss fans as well - being as one of their sons was wearing a Giants jersey and named "Eli". Perfect.
Dancing... they STILL had energy even after all the romping through the corn.
Look how BIG they are!

Family!
There were several "cornhole" games laid out at the fun zone. There was also a place to grind corn, play in the sand, there was a slide into a huge trough of corn, saddles on bales of hay, a place where you could practice "roping" hay cows, an area where you pumped water and raced little ducks, and a pumpkin patch behind all of that. There was SO much to do - and most of it would have been appropriate for the girls to both do. We really enjoyed our time there.
Teaching Jo how to play the game, she wanted to climb up the board and drop it in. Cheater!
They got their pumpkins! Jo also picked out a pumpkin for Camden... Sweet girls! :)

August 2011

Sorry - these pictures are a bit out of order, but they'll tell the story just the same...

We took Josephine to her 4th football game ever - she has been to at least one each year since she was born and this was the first year where she really enjoyed the experience. She LOVED the fly over and the fireworks. She also enjoyed the bugs in the lights at the stadium. We got to campus around 4:00 pm (for a 6 pm kickoff) and we got home around 9:30 (we left early...) and she STILL wanted to stay up and play. She's a bit of a night owl!

Here's a pic of us from the LA Tech game:

Neither of these pictures are especially great - oh the joys of taking a photo of a 2 year old. You either get THESE faces - or you get that really fake smile where they squish up their face and just show their teeth. It's cute, but not as cute as their REAL smiles!
Caught in the middle of something - I actually got a cute smirk out of her. We had to go "walk" around campus before the game so she could DO something. She was not fond of sitting and watching football on TV when there were SO many places to go. Here we are at the Vietnam Memorial on MSU's campus. It is also the "free speech" zone on campus - there's some history for ya...
Here we are - probably playing with leaves or sticks or something equally exciting. How cute is she in her little jeans and her maroon shirt? ("JUST like MOMMY," she says...)
Josephine and Daddy outside the Union.
A few weekends ago we took Jo to a local park. It's a really nice area - the playground is used by the elementary school next door - there are also tennis courts, softball fields, and the community pool. As of yet, we've only utilized the playground. Josephine LOVES it - not only does it have slides and stairs and ladders, but it has SWINGS! She could swing for HOURS it we'd let her.
Getting ready to slide...
What a BIG girl! :)
Sliding!
SEE? The squished-my-face-so-I-just-show-my-teeth smile. Cute, but not AS cute as her real smile...
Her school photos were last Friday. I'll be QUITE interested in seeing how they turned out. We dressed her in such a cute little jumper with a white long sleeve t-shirt underneath and had plans to put on her nice brown shoes. NOPE. She wore her Dora tennis shoes with her dress. Oh well. I hope the photos are from the waist up... :)

How Big!

Here we are at LG's dance recital (back in April/May). It's been a while since we've had a pic of all three of us... decided to share...
Some of our best friends, Matt and Aimee, had a NEW baby boy last Wednesday. We went up to visit them and meet little Camden. Jo and Matt & Aimee's oldest daughter, Mikaiya, played the WHOLE time. Mikaiya is 6 and Jo is 2 and although they're very far apart in age, their personalities are very similar. They played with blocks, colored, and Mikaiya read Jo books on top of her very cool lofted bed. We stopped afterwards for dinner before heading back.

A tired 2 year old with a full belly is a 2 year old who will sleep during the trip home!

Here she is enjoying her chips and salsa. She LOVES chips and salsa - heat does not bother her. Wonder where she gets that from? :)
Jo and Daddy...
She has recently discovered painting. We have recently discovered that this is an activity which will sustain her for hours and she's actually pretty good at it. Below she's telling me, "gentle, gentle Mommy - you have to tap tap tap..." We're working on watercolor skills - she's actually a pretty good little artist. I should take some pics of her painting book, but my camera died today - it's charging...
She also LOVES getting everything off her bed and bringing it to us. Here she is getting her blanket... See how BIG she is in her little girl jeans? I couldn't believe how OLD she looked this morning when Chip dressed her. What a BIG little girl! :)
This last picture is a photo of her right after surgery on her right eye. She had surgery on Tuesday and stayed home (with her Nana) on Wednesday and half of Thursday - she went back to school on Friday. She was really a trooper - had no idea why she wasn't at school. I am very thankful for all the thoughts and prayers for her that day. It is definitely a scary situation when your child goes in for surgery - even if it is a minor one. We are especially grateful for the doctors and nurses at LeBonheur East. Her doctor is Dr. Pandya-Lipman who is a pediatric opthamologist in Southaven. She is wonderful! She's quite knowledgeable and is great at explaining all the little details. We are lucky to have such wonderful doctors!
ALL BETTER!

Yesterday, Chip asked Jo how old she was. Her response - "Too old." Yes, Jo - you are two YEARS old. We'll work on that! :)

July 4th...

Josephine has grown so much recently - not just UP but matured a lot. She is quite the talker and comes up with her own ideas which she willingly shares. We're working on learning names of people (i.e. Mommy is Wendy, Daddy is Chip, etc...). The other day, I asked her what Papa's name is (John). She thought for a minute and said, "His naaaaaammmme...... BIG BOY." Haha! I have NO idea where she got that from, but it did not seem out of the realm of possibilities for that to be my dad's name. Funny kid!

Speaking of "Big Boy", he and Winnie bought Jo a toy golf set. One afternoon, we put her down for her nap and when we went back in to check on her, this is what we found:

I guess she just had such a good time playing, she fell asleep right in the middle of the action! :)

Jo's Self Portrait.

We went out to the Tupelo Country Club to watch fireworks the Friday before July 4th. These were Jo's 1st fireworks to go and watch. I was nervous because I thought she might be scared - they are quite loud! She LOVED them. Above is my brother's family watching the fireworks. All 3 of his girls were quite entertained by the show.
Another picture of my brother holding (I think) Lilly Grace, his oldest.
Jo watched the fireworks with her "sunglassies" on. I guess she's so cool she wears sunglasses at night.... (Note the glow necklace around her neck. My dad supplies these to the country club every year. When the cracked them and gave them out to all the kids, I was with Lilly Grace. She got so excited when she saw all the necklaces, she turned to me and exclaimed, "WHERE did they GET all those NECKLACES?!?" To which I laughed and replied, "I have no idea... maybe you should ask your daddy. ")

Jo and Daddy before July 4th.
Jo showing off for the camera.
I was showing her how to show her teeth. I like this photo!
Jo and Mommy.