josie turned 2

January 12 was a momentous day! Josie turned two, can you believe it? She's growing up and leaving behind the baby stage. It's always sad to say goodbye to the baby stage, but oh so fun to explore what lies ahead as kids develop into their own little people.

Her birthday started out with a magical dusting of snow! It was very pretty, though it seemed to throw all of St. Louis to a halt. We didn't mind one bit.

Because Josie had an outpatient procedure scheduled, she wasn't able to eat anything but she could have clear fluids till 9:30 am. So she had all the apple juice she could possibly handle! Fortunately, she tends to be a light eater in general, so she really didn't complain much. I just kept her distracted and her crazy sagging diapers changed.

After all the hospital stuff I mentioned in the previous post, which was an unfortunate part of the birthday extravaganza, we were pretty pooped out. Josie had a mega nap (she had partial anesthesia and pain meds that made her sleepy.)

At dinnertime, we celebrated with Grandma and Grandpa as well as Dillon Neely (who is living with us until he and Rebekah get married in March...Josie is nuts about Dillon and actually says his name which, in my opinion, gives him rockstar status) and ate some of Josie's favorite foods (and when I say favorite, I mean, stuff that she'll actually ingest. It had to involve ketchup.) We had mac and cheese, hot dogs, and salad, the ultimate kid meal. I couldn't stand to feed this meal to the grown ups, so we had a slightly "higher brow" version...browned apple chicken sausage with kraut to dress it up. (I don't know why, but I just love sauerkraut and took this as an opportunity to inflict it upon others.) Topping it all off were chocolate cupcakes with chocolate butter cream frosting and ice cream. (I can hardly bear to think of how many calories were in these little suckers, but I'm glad they're finally out of my fridge!) This year, she loved the cake. Last year, she didn't bother. So that was definitely a step in the right direction!

 

We sang the birthday song to her and she surprised me by getting a bit quivery in the lip. Not sure if it was because the lights were turned way down or if she got overwhelmed and confused. But she's not usually very shy about being the star of the show. Regardless, she totally knew what to do about the candles!

Then she opened presents which, again, she knew exactly what was expected of her coming directly off of Christmas just weeks ago. She got some cute clothes and shoes from us and a great kitty cat piano with a microphone and the most wonderful meowing sound effects! Of course, we all know that anything musical will thrill Josie.

All in all, it was a wonderful day, a real success I think. I just can't believe she's two. But I think two will be a very good year for her. I'm looking forward to getting to know more about her as she reveals more of who she is!

Not much else to say, but just feast your eyes on this sweet little girl who thinks she's so big, she should wear lipstick now!