Soooo pretty!!!!

Yesterday morning, Josie and I were dressed and ready for church a little bit early. (Don't ask me how that happened!) She looked soooo pretty in a beautiful dress handed down from her friend Audrey. On a whim, I thought "Let's go outside and take your picture in front of Mommy's flowers!" I was so proud of how they turned out! I am not much of a photographer at all. It's just not my thing. But I guess the sunlight was just right, because these look great! I had been putting off going to get her 2-year pictures taken professionally, but I think I may just make copies of these to hand out to family.

Children's Ice Cream Social

On Saturday, we had a get-together for the kids at church. We made cards to take to the nursing home, played games, and had ice cream. Well, some of us had ice cream. Josie refuses to try it---I guess the coldness and texture just isn't for her yet. But she did have a cookie.
Oh, and the kids dressed up in costumes, too!

Angel Babies

Last week we finally had the official dedication of our new babies' classroom at church. We ordered this transparency kit from creativeforkids.com. It's basically a paint-by-number system. You use the transparencies to draw the images wherever you want and whatever size you want. Then, they've already assigned what Folk Art paint colors you need for each image. It's soooooo easy!!!! We came up with the verses ourselves and I just found a font I liked and typed them up. It took us about 2 months to finally finish--working an hour or two whenever we could. But now it's finished and it looks fantastic! Now our babies have a clean, bright and welcoming place to learn about Jesus' love for them!
We dedicated the room in memory of Wyatt and Eloise Deaver, the twins our friends lost earlier this year.

Josie and Ginger Go for a Walk

The kids I keep have a dog named Ginger. Ginger is really old....17 years, I think. She's completely deaf and "hobbles" when she attempts to get around at all. She's very quiet and low key---I almost forget she's around!---quite the opposite of how our pug, Chloe, used to be!
Ginger used to stay outside, but they've recently brought her inside due to some health concerns. So, this morning while the twins were napping, Josie and I took Ginger outside to go "potty."
Josie absolutely LOVED leading Ginger around! Josie was so sweet to her and they only got tangled up in the leash once! It was a very cute scene to see them together!
No, she didn't ask for a dog of her own. And no, we are not getting one. :-)

Our Not-So-Big Backyard o' Fun!

So, we finally got around to spending Josie's birthday money on some outside toys. We ended up getting a great deal on walmart.com. We got the swing set for $99 and the water/sand table for $57....both with free shipping!
When Josie walked outside for the first time to see the swing set, she said "I see side!!!! I see sing!!!!" She was very excited. She can already climb up the slide ladder all by herself. Of course, I still stand behind her to make sure she doesn't fall. And she LOVES to swing! It kind of surprised me, but she prefers the normal blue toddler swing to the car shaped one. Go figure...
Lane put together the sand/water table inside and it was a day or so before we got sand to go in it. Josie had the best time playing and running her boats around the dry table right in the middle of the living room! It was tempting to just leave it there.....
But we moved it outside to the deck, got some sand and water in it and she had the best time! She got soaking wet, but I couldn't have cared less. She wasn't the biggest fan of the wet sand on her skin. I think right now she's definitely a bigger fan of the water side than the sand side.

Happy Birthday USA!!!!

Busy, Busy, Busy!!!

Sorry I've neglected writing for a while, but June was a very busy month!

We moved Josie's planted sunflowers out to the backyard. I made a special little flower bed for them in the corner of our yard. Unfortunately, we are surrounded by neighbors with roaming cats. The sunflowers only lasted a few days before something dug them up. I haven't told Josie, and she hasn't asked about them.....
The second week of June I decided it was time to try potty training again. We tried a couple of months ago, and she just wasn't quite ready yet. So, I made her a sticker chart and told her if she put some "tee-tee" in the potty, she got a sticker. Well, it worked! She really wanted that sticker! The first couple of days were just about timing it right. She "tried" about every 30 minutes. It really was exhausting! But by Wednesday, she was telling me when she needed to go! We even went "out" and experienced our first public potty at dinner on Friday night. She has done absolutely fantastic!!!! I guess when they're ready, they're just ready. The sticker chart is a little off for Wednesday and Sunday. She went more than that, but with church going on we just didn't have time to do the sticker thing those days.
Josie loves wearing her Dora and Elmo panties! I keep extras in the car now, and she decided to put them on her arms like bracelets. The third week of June we had VBS. Our theme was "Survivor" and it was so much fun! It was a very long, exhausting week, but definitely worth it! I taught the 4 year olds, and had the best co-teacher ever! Ms. Diana did an excellent job of making our classroom look like a jungle. In fact, it was so cool, the mother's day out teacher asked us to leave it up for her "go Green" theme next school year. Josie was very excited about VBS. Every day she repeatedly asked me, "Go church? Go class??" She also LOVED Ollie the orangutan puppet who is still "napping" now.

Last weekend we finally made it to the pool for the first time this summer! Josie looked so cute in her new swimsuit. She's such a big girl now! The whole time we were in the pool, she kept asking if we could go swimming and we kept telling her that we were swimming.


And that's what we've been up to! Hopefully we can rest some in July!