5 yrs 8 months

Josie is getting closer to 6 yrs old! She's thriving in kindergarten which is so fun to see. Here's a glimpse of her life in the last month. It's pretty long.

A couple funny things she's said recently that I managed to write down. 

J: Mom do you know the secret to falling asleep?

Me: No what?

J: It's lying down and closing your eyes. the older you get the longer you can close your eyes. When I was a little kid I couldn't close my eyes for very long. 

Another day she said, "I actually think I would look better with short hair if I had freckles."

She wrote this sometime in the summer at Gahaus' house but I forgot post it. It's the first time I've seen her write something on her own sounding it out. (It has to do with Scooby Doo which she has been fixated with for months). Since she's been in school she's been doing a little more writing on her own. So cool to watch the process of her learning to write as she sounds out words.

One morning Josie came running out to tell me about her scary dream. This was also from the summer before hair cut.
Video of scary dream.

She asked for my phone while we were driving around and this is what I found.

 Video of funny faces to herself.

She's moved up to Hot Shots in gymnastics and now goes 2x/wk.  Some of the girls in Hot Shots can do really good cartwheels and handstands and back bends. Josie's not quite there yet but maybe eventually.

Two videos of gymnastics.

One of the teachers subbed her class and is a stickler for proper form.

Josie pointed out this Monarch at the library parking lot and wanted a picture.

Stanford Cantor Arts - family day
We went on a cool tour of ancient jewelry and then got to do a craft project. They have family day every Sunday with a different theme but this was our first time going. We sat outside and ate our picnic lunch before going it to view some art work before the tour started.

 Pensive moment after the tour in the outdoor Rodin sculpture garden

Random climbing
Give this girl a huge rock in the church parking lot or a wall and a sink and she'll climb it.

Janet's 60th bday party in Palo Alto. What a warm gorgeous Sept evening. No sweater ever needed even at 9pm. Such a lovely evening to celebrate Janet and to see cousins like Kurt and Luke along with Stephen and Janet. On the way to the car we saw this cool sculpture lit up by hundreds of LED lights that changed color.

One Saturday morning I was invited to a brunch in SF to honor my dear friend and mentor Pat who has since moved to North Carolina. What a joy and inspiration for the 20 of us sitting around the table listening to her share what God has been doing in her life and then she shared about her connection with each one of us. Love this lady.

Josie is so excited that she can "whistle". A tiny whistle came out amidst all her blowing. She's been working on that and finger snapping. Two hard things.
 Video of whistling practice.
 
Josie and Eric are so ready for a real live sled dog like Eric's old dog Snowshoe. In the mean time Eric built a sled for Josie's pet Snowshoe. Kit and Stella are ready but I think Snowshoe was napping. Notice the craftsmanship on this piece with the rounded frame.

 

We are cheering hard for the Cubbies and especially the homerun hitter #17. Go Bryant!

Face painting at the ministry fair at church.

Cousins, Grant & Wyatt turned one, Kelly & Rod's sons and Paige's little brothers.
Josie has been writing for awhile, with me spelling the words, and more often than not now she's writing her letters backwards. I guess that's par for the course. I think her little drawings are so cute for the bday card. She got the ideas from her drawing book.

 S'mores for the big kids and adults.

We got invited to a rollerskating leukemia fund raiser party for Pat, Theresa's husband. This was Josie's first time in a roller rink and my first time in 30 years, I'm guessing. It's just like riding a bike, you never forget. It was so much fun. Josie loved it except for falling which she did a lot of at the beginning. Only one hard fall that brought tears. There weren't many people skating, maybe 20 at any one time so it seemed really empty and you didn't have to worry about crashing into anyone or being crashed into. Josie wants her next bday party here. Eric used to go to bday parties here when he was little and I don't think they've changed a thing. Same skates.

At first the wall/ledge was her friend. Several times we went around holding hands with Theresa and had Josie in the middle and that was super fun.

 Theresa and Pat showing off their skating moves.

Sorry for all the rollerskating videos

Finally she made it to the middle which was her goal, to skate under the disco ball by herself.

Olivia, who was in preschool and now Kindergarten with Josie came over for a play date. Their kinder rooms have a shared door and the two classes do a lot of things together. She's a fun friend. She wanted to wear Josie's Elsa dress. Josie is the dog.

 

A few sped up videos. 

 Here they are at lunch recess on a Friday. Some Fridays I volunteer during lunch and after on the playground. Kinders still need help opening containers and reminders to eat and stay in their seats. Then they get to go play with all the big kids on the playground. It's kinda choatic to say the least. Notice the nice view from the playground.

 

I love how they count 1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi etc to 10 and then it's the next kid's turn.

We invited ourselves over to Dave and Tia's and brought pizzas and had fun watching a movie in their outdoor theater. Josie loves going over there and being in the middle of all the kid commotion.

 

Video of bouncing and setting up movie night and their vast backyard.

The next day after church we went to watch Rocco's soccer game. They won 4-2.

We gathered with many others at the top of Crestview to watch the lunar eclipse but it was too cloudy and we didn't see a thing except for a pretty sky.

 Josie got to bring Corduroy home for a night and had to document what she did with Corduroy. Since I didn't realize we only had it for one day we had to scramble right before bed to get it done. She wrote in the journal "I swung on the swing with corduroy".  I thought her picture came out really cute.