Disney World, Part 3

Here are some photos from Epcot yesterday.

One of the worst family pictures ever. The one taken before this is even worse. We were looking into the sun.

Josephine "in" the shark at the Nemo aquarium.

Josephine at the entrance at Epcot.

This morning we went to the Magic Kingdom again, just the 3 of us. Josephine wanted to ride the horses first (the carousel). We rode the carousel, Dumbo, the teacups, race cars, and the train. We also played in Pooh's Yard for awhile -- it had slides and small fountains.

Josephine and Nathan riding Dumbo. It's really hard to get decent pictures of people on Dumbo.

Josephine coming down the slide. I love this picture!!

Josephine looking out Pooh's window.

New words for this week: Disney World, Epcot, Dumbo, Randolph's, Perfect (from a book), and round (merry-go-round). I think there are more, but I can't think of them now. When we're not at an amusement park, Josephine is still enoying reading her books. She loves one of the books we got at the library on planes. She wants to read it all the time. I think we're going to play miniature golf with the Randolph's later this afternoon and maybe go swimming.

Disney World, Part 2

Josephine eating her first ice cream cone. Nathan and I had one lick each. She had the rest. She wouldn't let you touch the ice cream cone.

Josephine driving the car. She laughed the whole ride (both times). She would "steer" the car and when it ran into the rail she would laugh and laugh.

We had a great time at The Magic Kingdom on Friday. We got there about 9 and left at 7 when they closed. I'm going to try to remember what rides we did. "It's a Small World" was her first ride, which she enjoyed. She also rode Dumbo, Whinnie the Pooh, carousel, Tiki Bird Show, Jungle Cruise, the tram that runs on magnets, race cars, teacups, and the Monster's Inc. show. There must have more than that but I can't think of them right now. Josephine cried after getting off most of them because she wanted to ride it longer. Her favorites were the race cars and the carousel. We rode the carousel a couple times before we left. Nathan and I rode the Buzz Lightyear interactive ride where you try to shoot all the targets as you passed by them. It was alot of fun. We also watched the afternoon parade, which she liked, but she was having her first ice cream cone at that time, so she was a bit preoccupied. They brought out hula-hoops for the kids to play with before the parade started. Josephine went and picked out the orange one. She was very proud of it. Luckily, Josephine took a nap in her stroller after lunch.

Saturday we went to Epcot, which wasn't nearly as fun. The Nemo ride was okay. It wasn't supposed to be scary, but it still scared 3 of the 4 kids with us. There is an aquarium with the Nemo ride, which was nice. Josephine got to see sea turtles, dolphins, sharks, and all sorts of other fish. She enjoyed until she decided that she was too hungry to enjoy anything. She watched her first big screen movie. The Lion King Circle of Life movie was only 13 minutes long, so we tried it out. She loved all the animals on the screen. We rode through the biosphere/greenhouse which was pretty cool. Lunch was a combo of great and disaster. Emily and Elizabeth got to meet the princesses at lunch -- they were thrilled. The wait and prices were about 5 times what they should have been despite having reservations. We even overheard one Disney worker saying that the restaurant manager was going to get fired. : ) None of us jumped in to save his/her job. We left after lunch (it was 3:30) and Nathan and Jo are taking a nap. I don't know what we'll do tonight.

The videos take forever to upload. I'll post more later.

Disney, Part 1

I'm too tired to write anything. I'll just add pictures for now.

Josephine on her first plane ride.

Josephine at the entrance to the Magic Kingdom.

Josephine and Elizabeth on Dumbo.

Josephine and Nathan on the carousel.

Beach, Part 5 -- Videos

Josephine, Papaw, and Elizabeth playing in the sand.

Josephine answering questions.

Josephine swimming in the tidal pools.

Beach, Part 5

Here are some pictures from our last day at the beach. Josephine actually went into the ocean with me. She didn't like it very much, but she jumped the waves with me.

Josephine swimming in a tidal pool. Yes, those are her pajamas. I never knew if she'd stay on the beach, let alone swim, so I didn't bother to change her clothes.

Papaw leading Josephine to the beach. She would get nervous walking through the walkway so she needed a hand to hold.

Josephine in her "beach jacket". When I want her to smile for a picture I tell her to show me her teeth. It didn't work very well in this case. It was bright outside.

Beach, Part 4

It rained all day today so Josephine and I went to Ripley's Aquarium in Myrtle Beach. Josephine's favorites were the sharks (sometimes she called them dolphins or whales) and the jellyfish. She finally saw an octupus -- she's been looking for one since we got to the beach. I didn't take my digital camera to the aquarium, I took my video camera instead, so I don't have any pictures from that. Here are a few more pictures from earlier this week.

Out of focus, but I still like this picture.

Josephine and her book obsession.

Josephine making sure she knows where the waves are.

Josephine looking at her shadow.

Beach, Part 3

Low Tide Kind of Girl

Josephine is scared of the waves, but she has a blast at low tide when there's water to play in but no waves. She likes to run into the shallow pools of water. We went for a walk this morning. The only way I could get her away from her books is to tell her we were going to go look for dogs on the beach. She loves looking for the dogs.

Josephine 9-18-07

"One, two, three, go!"

Jo running through the water at low tide.

Jo running in the water at sunset.

Jo refused to eat her banana (even though she had asked for it ) so she had to stay in her chair until she ate it. She fell asleep before that happened. She was in her seat for over 2 1/2 hours. She fell asleep 3 times. I almost felt sorry for her . . . . : )

Beach, Part 2

Josephine just can't stay away from her books! Usually, she'd rather stay in the room and read rather than go to the beach. We had to come up with a compromise. : )

Jo was afraid of the waves at first and wouldn't go near them. But she warmed up to it the next day with Papaw. Half an hour later she was swimming in the small pools on the beach at low tide.

Her highness has awakened from her nap and is ready to go to the beach. I'll post more later.

Beach

Here are some pictures from Sunday at North Myrtle Beach. I didn't take the camera down today (I took the video camera instead). I'll post more pictures later in the week.




Josephine wore her hat and sunglasses for a few minutes.

I'm using someone else's wireless network and the connection is pretty bad. This is the only picture I was able to upload. I'll try again later this week.

Josephine woke up at 4am Sunday morning and 6am Monday morning. I'm hoping she'll make it to 8am tomorrow morning. The light that shines on the building at night to show the name is about 20 feet away from our window. Even though I put aluminum foil on the window, the light still gets in our room and it seems to be 7 or 8 in the morning all night long. Maybe I can teach Josephine to tell time tomorrow . . . . : )

She has been counting alot this week. She was counting in the tub "1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10!" I was impressed. She has learned the words "seagull" and "ocean" too.

I'll post more later this week.

Carter Family Reunion 2007

We went to Nathan's family reunion last weekend near Paris, TN. Josephine and Naomi got plenty of attention (as well they should : ) and got to meet their extended family. We hadn't been to a reunion in 5 years, so it was good to see everyone again. There was some excitement when raccoon's showed up on the back porch. Here is some video of Josephine looking at the raccoons.

Josephine by the lake.

Granna and Naomi.

Josephine riding on Daddy's shoulders.


Josephine and Granna by the lake.


Uncle Brian, Aunt Leah, and Josephine at dinner.


Nathan and Elizabeth at dinner.

Josephine is growing up so fast these days! Her vocabulary increases everyday. Her sentences get longer everyday. She jumps higher everyday. She runs faster (and falls harder) everyday. She and I went to the library this morning. There was an animal magazine (she LOVES magazines) that was all about rhinoceroses. She was so excited. The way she says "rhinoceros" sounds like "nauseous" -- very cute. There was a skeletal drawing of a rhino's foot. Jo pointed to it and said "foot". How did she know that it was it's foot?!? I was very impressed and told her she was a genius. : ) She loves the library. When she says it it sounds like "berry". She asks to go there as much as she asks to go to the zoo.

Josephine asked "why" for the first time yesterday. She wanted to use the glue and I told her "no" and she asked "why?". And it begins. When your child learns to talk, you start to realize what YOU say. I didn't realize that I said "Up you go." when I put her into her booster seat. But Jo says it everytime and she obviously learned it somewhere. She was playing with her food bowls after breakfast this morning. She put one upsidedown on top of the other then put her spoon on top of the bowls. The she started spinning them very carefully said "around, around" over and over again.

Josephine is starting to sing. She doesn't really hit the notes, but she says the words. I hear her in her crib saying "E I E I O" every once in awhile. She loves to sing "Granna Lynda has a Farm". She will also sing (kinda) her abc's, and the first line of "Itsy Bitsy Spider" (with motions). So funny.

Josephine and I will be going to North Myrtle Beach next week with my parents. Nathan won't be able to join us. : ( I will try to put a new blog up after that. We are going to Disney World the following week, so I don't know if I will have time.

Labor Day Weekend 2007

We had a big Labor Day weekend this year! Josephine got to spend the night with Grannie and Papaw on Thursday night. I worked on Friday, which was a blast, and so Josephine stayed with Grannie on Friday too. Saturday night we had a football party for the first game of the season. I think there were about 13 of us here. Josephine loved having Naomi and Thaxton here to play with. Luckily she went to bed at her normal time so she wasn't too cranky. : ) On Sunday we had a baby shower for Jane Myers at Calhoun's. Josephine did really well sitting at the restaurant. After we got home from the shower, the Randolph's called to see if we wanted to go to dinner with them. I had no desire to cook, so we met them at Outback. The kids were wonderful. We were there for 2 hours! They were obviously short-handed and were overwhelmed. Afterwards, we went to the Randolph's. Josephine was impressive climbing the ladder and going down the slide all by herself. She wouldn't have done that two weeks ago. Josephine went to play disc golf with Nathan the next morning, too. We took the rest of the day off on Monday. : )


Josephine and Naomi at the football party.


Touchdown!


Josephine, Thaxton, and Naomi.


Jane at 31 weeks -- 9 weeks to go!

Josephine is becoming such a big kid now! She will go up and down the stairs using the handrail now. She only scared me a couple times doing it, although she's never fallen. She is very proud of herself going up and down the stairs, she'll do it over and over. Climbing onto the side of the couch, then jumping onto it is a new thing for Josephine, too. She can even do a somersault onto the couch cushions.

She's stringing two or more words together more often. It's usually "JoJo's" something or other. It's pretty rare that she uses "I, me, or mine" unless it's "I want ...." : ) She'll repeat almost anything you say, when she's in the mood.

I can't think of any other new developments in the past week. We'll be going to Nathan's family reunion this weekend. Josephine and Noami will be spoiled rotten by the end of it! : )