Josie is six months old!

Wowza!  Have we ever been delinquent with keeping up to date on our blog!  Having a baby is WORK!  I also think I might be a touch dramatic (there, I said it).  It has been a totally life-changing experience and I haven't quite reached a balance between Sarah's life and baby's life.  I'm still struggling to do ANYTHING around the house.  But I feel the winds of change are a-blowin'.  Talking to other moms (especially my Aunt Ashley - who is apparently super-mom to the max...  Cleaning the house and dinner made with a month old baby strapped to you?! Show off *winks*) I realize that it can be done!  So today, I blog, we swim and I vacuum this dump!

Anyhoo...  The purpose of this blog post is not to blah blah blah about my mommy struggles, it's to do a Josie update!  Our little baby is growing!  She's over 14 lbs now (almost twice her birth weight) and is SIX MONTHS OLD!  When did this happen?!  (...in future paragraphs, I promise to tone down the use of excited punctuation)

A picture is worth a thousand words, they say, so how about some photos?  I think I'll do a brief recap of the last six months as captured by my cellphone.  Many of these have been on Facebook but many of you don't have accounts on that life-sucker (good for you!).

Little jellybean!!  Ok, this goes waaaaaaaay back!  Yes, there's a baby in there!!  (clearly I lied about the punctuation) Ok, more like a sac of cells, but this was our first glimpse of little Josette.  Her heartbeat took our breath away.

 Second ultrasound :)  This was the money shot for Remi and I.  Perfect little spine.

 First selfie.  This was hours after Josie was born.  Soooo amazing :)

 Going home outfit!  Thanks again to Kel and Jen for this little number.  She'd NEVER come close to fitting in it now!

 Heading home.  OMG.  So tiny!

 Little ham.  One of the many pictures of her and I sitting on the couch (where we spent the first five weeks of her life - breastfeeding may be natural, but it's not easy!)

 That is a 0-3 onesie!  Did she EVER fit in those?  Wow... she's changed so much!

 Leopard print!  And again, so little!

 Newborn snowsuit.  Cutest outdoor attire EVER.  And she wore it for three months - newborn my foot ;)

Those little cheekies are starting to fill out here.

 Granny and Papy visited in December.  This little outfit was from my parents - so cute but Josie grew out of it in about a week!  Penguin butt!

 Smiles and getting a handle on grabbing toys.  She's likely about 3 months here.

 First trip to the park!!  Thanks to Carol and Kristie for getting us out of the house and into the SUNSHINE!

 I think this was probably at about 4 months... 4 1/2.  First day swimming!  The pool here in Mission fills up the kiddie pool (which is kept quite warm) with rubber duckies.  We still go every week - Josie loves it!  Here the red eyes are after Laura (a friend from our prenatal class) and I tried to put Josie's bathing suit on wrong...  Poor baby!  Another shining example of why it would be nice if babies came with instruction manuals - hehe ;)

 Picking out her stroller for France!  Oh my...  we leave in less than two weeks.  Note to self: add "start packing" to the to-do list.  I almost DIED when I put these sunglasses on her.  After listening to her scream the whole way from Mission to Surrey in the car (about 45 min) sticking these puppies on her face boosted my mood instantly.  We of course bought them on the spot.

 Playing outside!  This is probably the only time the sunglasses have stayed on her face for more than 13 seconds.

 More sun!

 These next couple are from last week.  We headed out for some spring photos in the gardens at Heritage Park.  Josie thought sitting in the dirt was the cat's meow.

Eating the greenery was also a huge plus.

She's really getting into this whole park thing.  When she's not falling asleep in the swings, she's either loving them or eating them.

So that's a recap of the last 6 months thanks to my Samsung (never leave home without it).  I will try to remember to post a few of the videos later too.

On to some recent fun stuff!  Well some of it isn't THAT recent.  We got Josie an exersaucer at about 4 months.  She was ready for a change from her playmat (although she still loves playing on that thing!).  We figured she was ready to see the world from an upright position.  She was unsure of it at first but is a nutcase in it now.

 This is an older photo, but reminds me to mention that we've just transitioned Josie to sleeping in her own room!  It was a lot easier than I thought it was going to be.  In fact, it was a non-issue, actually.  And dare I say that we all might be sleeping a little better?  I think we are, although I miss her snuffles and have been known to lurk by her doorway at all hours of the night to make sure she's still breathing.

 Baby blues!  Her eyes have stayed blue blue - will she be a blue-eyed blondie?  Her hair seems to be only getting lighter, so maybe!

 "Playing" with Maggie.  The only thing that gets Josie more excited than the dog is the pool.  And maybe the Jolly Jumper.  Maggie has been surprisingly amazing with her.  No growling to speak of.  Although Remi and I both worry how she'll respond when Josie starts crawling.  She's such an old grouch!

 Josie has been working on rolling over for about 2 months.  She does it from time to time, but then has a bird when she's on her tummy.  She'll get there.  Her legs are so strong but her arms can't support her weight for very long.  She also won't spend much time lying down anymore as we've started sitting her up to play.  She may skip crawling and go straight to walking, but we'll see.  This kid certainly wants to get around!

 She's French.

Ahhh....  The biggest recent event - FOOD!  For about 2 weeks we've been doing three "meals" a day.  We've changed our dinner time so we can all eat together.  Josie has tried quite the variety of foods and we're getting close to feeding her from our dinners, we think.  In fact, we'll probably do a lot of that in France.  She loves eating!  Yesterday we tried some chunks and she handled them quite well.  She's very interested in feeding herself so it's a messy process, but  so much fun!

 Feed me!!

 It's amazing how quickly she's learned to grab objects with both hands (and shove them in her mouth).  Babies change to fast!!  Don't blink is good advice!

 I think this is from last week.  Photo shoot with daddy on the front lawn.

Oh my goodness - I was actually able to finish this blog post while Josie was napping!!  Little monkey needs to wake up soon though or we'll miss the ducky swim!  

Hope you've enjoyed the recap :)

Oh and I thought I should put this in writing.  Grandparents, I promise to purchase flash-drives this week to send you pictures.  I PROMISE.  It's on the web now, so I have to follow through (I know you've all been asking for months).

S