Cardboard box

Auntie Suz made this awesome cardboard box house for Josie when we were in Sacramento, and we got to take it home to play with. Josie and Uli used it to it's full potential that week, until it lost all structural integrity and we had to retire it to the recycling bin.

Happy Birthday Elena!

We celebrated our friend's daughter Elena's 2 year birthday today. She and Josie are just about the same size, and so cute together. Elena was a sport about sharing her toys and balloons. Josie went crazy, trying to hold as many balloons as possible while crawling through a tunnel, riding the rocking horse, and running around the room. She pretty much had to be doing everything at once... as if she might turn into a pumpkin at any moment and lose her chance to play with the blocks or the bubbles, or the chalk, etc.

Friday in Sacramento

Josie and I took advantage of my Friday off and went to visit Gma, Papa and Auntie Suz in Sacramento. We played at the park with Gma until it got too hot, ate lunch back at the house, and explored the backyard. Josie had fun hiding in the big cardboard box Auntie had made into a playhouse. We had a great time!

Garden Bounty

Teaching a 1 1/2 yr old which vegetables are ripe and ready to pick and which need more time is a tricky task. Josie gets a kick out of picking the ripe tomatoes and green beans, but she tends to eat whatever she harvests (or, more accurately chew and spit out). She still sneaks a taste of dirt from time to time... so we're working on the garden etiquette.

Someday, she'll be weeding and watering for her allowance and tending her own little veggie patch.

Yummy tomato!


Last carrots - we have to wait for the next round to mature.

Our Favorite Hangout

Tilden Park is definitely our go-to place to hang out. There is always something new happening at the Little Farm: a baby calf was born just over a week ago (which means live milking demonstrations!), the mama pig just gave birth, and the summer camp kids are around showing animals and cleaning pens, etc.

Here is the calf, only a few days old. So cute!


Josie got to pet the rabbits.


At the nature center nearby, Josie loves climbing on the wooden "kitty" sculpture in the lobby.


We also went to the merry-go-round in the park for the first time recently. Josie wanted to ride it over and over again, and she loved pointing out all the different animal figures. She wanted to get on a different one each time- just too many good choices! Among her favorites were the frog ("srog"), dog, cat ("kitty"), and giraffe (she doesn't attempt to say giraffe yet).

It's an Obsession

Josie is pretty much obsessed with feeding celery to cows. We can't mention the word celery, cow or farm unless we're minutes away from actually going to the Little Farm in Tilden to feed the cows there. Otherwise, she'll bang on the refrigerator yelling, "cow... seh-wee... cow... seh-wee" and cannot be distracted. In the grocery story yesterday, she saw the celery and just had to hold it for the rest of the shopping trip.

She gets a little scared feeding the real cows, but the stuffed animal cows are much less intimidating.

Visit with Grandma

Josie had a great time with her Grandma last week. They played "hand on top," "here's the church, and here's the steeple" and "ring around the rosie." She just couldn't get enough!


Carolyn joined us on Josie's first BART train ride. Very exciting! We took the F train once we arrived in the city and went to Pier 39 to meet up with Kathryn and Justin. We watched the sea lions (live and in-person, not on YouTube!) and pretend we were tourists.

Laura's Photos

Laura is a great photographer, and she took some awesome shots during her stay over the weekend. Check out the sampling below.
You can see some of her other work on her website: www.laurajohnsonphoto.com. She's based in LA now, so if you know of anyone who needs a photographer, send them her way!

Visit with Auntie Laura

Laura came to town this past weekend for a visit. Josie had fun waking her up in the morning and showing her all of her books and tricks (like yoga!). We're happy Laura will be coming back next month to play more.

Shock! Shalk!

Josie really enjoys drawing with chalk on the driveway. When we ask her what she wants to draw, she almost always replies "cow" or "cogu" (which is her word for Boppa and Zizi's dog "Cody"). On this day, she got pretty into it and rolled around all over the chalk to really experience the art in a new way.





After every surface was dusted (including her hair) she moved on to helping her dad water the plants. Thankfully, she likes taking baths, now...