a weekend in marysville and some other stuff since then...

mom and i went to marysville with jenn and charli for aunt jenn's 15 -year class reunion!  the car rides are getting more interesting as we grow!  charli and i both always want to drive and want to play with the same toys, so there's a lot of passing back and forth going on...since grammi and papa weren't in town, we had their house to ourselves. mom and i would take morning walks and explore papa's beautiful "grounds" -- here's a pic of me sitting on a tree stump, enjoying a morning bottle and watching the sunrise. also, one on the bench outside the front door. we spent a lot of time with great gram--took her to church and entertained her at her house. here's a pic of us in her living room...oh, and then there's the little table i got for my birthday from annie fannie (bradford).  it was made by our dear cousin jim grauer and it is the PERFECT size for charli and i!  we spent a lit of time sitting there eating snacks.  we also did some sword fighting with mom's old batons, which is kind of funny since mom and aunt jenn used to be baton twirlers together...so sunday night when we returned, we went to our friend allie's house to say goodbye to our friend sarah easton, who's headed to england for 3 months to represent her church.  wow!  we played with the easton offspring and danced a lot. sunday night daddy returned from a bachelor party in vegas where he saw many women wearing things that he says i'll never be allowed to wear...i don't get it--i'm always running around in my diaper...monday, mom, dad and I spent some family time together--went for a walk to the park down the street. here's  a pic of dad pushing me in the swing.  i'm more into slides now and i'm always saying "slide...slide..."  speaking of what i'm saying these days, here's the latest:  today, i mastered "bagel" and "ice". mom let me have a bagel this afternoon and it's all i wanted to say for awhile. BAY-gel.  then, I got SO excited cause she gave me a cup of little tiny ice pebbles and i'd put them in my mouth, get a really surprised look and say ICE!  (don't worry, papa, only one at a time...)  another word today was RAIN!  i kept pointing outside (cause it rained ALL day) and saying RAIN.  mom and dad's favorite by far is what i've started to do when i swat at someone.  mom says, "no hitting josi...be nice...gentle touches" and immediately i start petting the person and saying "niiiiiice".  in fact, mom doesn't even have to correct me anymore.  i'll take a swat at someone and immediately pet them and say "niiiiiiiice". it's pretty hilarious.

End-of-Summer Life With Josi

Just a few little updates...

We went to a party at Grandma Jeanne's house last Thursday.A bunch of ladies were sitting around chatting and buying stuff, but I mostly cared about the snacks and playing with Daddy.

Grammi and Papa came to visit last weekend and we all went to cousin 

Charli's Hello Kitty birthday party. She's two. We had a blast.

On Sunday, we met daddy at Ponak's after the game for a yummy Mexican dinner (I scarfed down

the guacamole dip!) and then Mom and Papa went to a Bruce Springsteen concert

and I went home to bed.  Monday night, I got to see Great Grandma Marge at the Royals game!

She and 2 of her friends and Grandma Jeanne and Aunt Karen met Mom and I there.

It was a beautiful night and we stayed the whole game! Even went up to see Daddy for a bit

and help him in the control room.  Needless to say, I passed out on the way home.

Got a postcard from Grandpa Carl--all the way from Hawaii!  He said the sunsets were lovely.

Maybe I'll go there someday! Tonight Mom took me to the community center pool and we had a lot of fun together.

I especially like the little water slide. Yep, I'm a thrill-seeker in the making...

a few things i really like...

-corn on the cob (see photo :0) 

-black olives 

-pretending i'm driving the car. passenger must sit beside me and keep door closed or i will express my displeasure.

-my fuzzy elmo chair where i lounge and drink my bottle every morning

-watching the olympics with dad

swimming, shooing, playing, pooping

mom insists that we write this blog right now so she can take a break from "work writing". So, here goes...

We had a fun weekend together hanging out as a family.  went to the pool down the street yesterday (it was a little bit nippy!) but we got used to the water pretty quickly. (daddy said our lower extremities just went numb, but whatever...)  when we got out, i had a bottle and lounged in the pool chair with my sunglasses on. check me out. a future "phelps" for sure! i've been cracking the parents up with my new words and actions. probably everyone's favorite right now is "fly". when i hear the word, I repeat it excitedly--"FLY!" as I wave my hand around vigorously in a shoo-ing fashion. today, daddy taught me how to kill the little suckers with a swatter.  i found it quite amusing indeed. i've also been into writing with a pen. the funny thing is, i hold it just like you're supposed to hold a pen!  i scribbled several things today to send to the great grandparents. works of art for sure!  we've been watching the olympics in the evening.  tonight we took a little family drive to see where i may go to school in 2010 -- highlawn montessori. it's right up the street!

hmm...oh, yes. one more amusing thing that happened today. mom was chattering on the phone and i was entertaining myself on the kitchen floor. daddy came in and said, "what's this?" and pointed to a brown pile of poop on the floor.  the cats, maybe?  no. it was me. they turned to see me crawling away happily, leaving a brown trail behind...ah, the life of a one-year-old...eating, pooping, playing and letting someone else clean it all up!

the stuff of my life

mommy and daddy have been working quite a bit lately, so i've gotten to hang out with miss peggy and the g-parents! yesterday grammi fran stayed with me all day. we had fun, as usual and grammi did lots of laundry (as usual :0)  today, dad took the day off and we all had some bonding time.  mom and i went to hallmark this morning for a friend's 30th anniversary...then, we went to the morrises for a little play date. izabella and isaiah love showing me stuff.  isaiah was teaching me how to share.  tonight, the deruyschers 3 went to legends to the jazz restaurant for some yummy cajun food. dad's been craving jumbalaya!  mom and i shared some chicken, veggies and rice. I danced in my high chair to the live jazz music.  afterward, we walked around and i played in the fountain with my new friend sanai.  (her name means marvelous--we thought that was pretty cool...)  check out this pic of us.  she's 20 months and i'm 13 months...can you tell?  ha!  time for nigh nigh...

alpine slides, gma and gpa d time, royals suite

mom can't BELIEVE i forgot to tell you that i went with her on the alpine slides in colorado!

i was definitely the youngest one in the lift line...i loved it!  papa and grammi went down the mountain in the slide next to us and we all laughed the whole way down!  while i have your ear...i'll tell you that grandma and grandpa d. took me to nebraska furniture mart yesterday and i quite enjoyed it! then, today they joined us (along with emily rand, the morrises, the millers, the wolfs, sarah easton and allie kistner) for our royals suite.  it was a lovely day with a nice breeze and after 12 innings, we beat the twins!!!  i munched all day on the buffet and was so good, even though i hadn't had much of a nap.  when we got in the car to go home it took me 2 minutes (seriously...120 seconds...) to fall asleep!  my favorite part of the day was that daddy got to spend some quality time with us and let the other guys take over. oh, and they put us all up on the video board! this time i was awake, though. (last year, i slept through most of the game...i was a bit smaller then...)

colorado and camp quality - our latest adventures...

it has been a busy few weeks!  (what's new?) all good stuff though...most recently a trip to colorado for great uncle dick and aunt nancy's 50th wedding anniversary. it went quite well considering i was a one-year-old on a very long car trip. we stayed in a really cool hotel in golden, co right by clear creek.  there were people floating down the creek in their kayaks and lounging lazily on innertubes.  2 weddings happened while we were there!  mom decided she wants to come back and bring daddy someday.  thankfully, we had a very safe trip with no tire blowouts or anything, however i provided several blowouts of a different nature--one in particular at the hotel was almost more stink than papa could handle--ha! he and grammi took such good care of me and helped mom a bunch!  (as usual)

we saw most of the cohorst family, cousins rick, mike, and tami and their kids, and other family friends who came to celebrate. we made some great memories together--one cool thing that happened is that mom, papa, and grammi discovered i can point to my eyes, ears, mouth, head, nose, hair, hands and feet!  apparently, miss peggy has been working with me on those things.  they had no idea how much i can understand! probably mom's favorite memory from the trip was this trucker named Joe who befriended us and was DETERMINED to contribute to my future college fund.  It reminded her of that verse:

"Do not be afraid to entertain strangers, for in doing so, many have entertained angels unawares..."

we won't forget joe and we pray for him whenever he comes to mind...

Last night, mom had over 50 people over for the annual camp quality barbeque!  I had fun socializing as usual (although I've been going through a bit of a momma's girl stage recently...it just takes me awhile to warm up to strangers...) I met my new friend Jackson (Jack-Jack) Bailey. i had my first boy baby kiss right on the lips. mom hopes to add that pic here soon. it was SO cute!  this morning, grandma and grandpa d came over to babysit while mom did a little work...thank God for helpful gmas and gpas!!!!