Josiah's Birthday Party

Sorry it has taken so long to get this up. Here is a video of Josiah enjoying his first birthday cake. It was fun for a little while, but when everyone started laughing it scared him and he took off and then started crying. I think it was because he was tired and the noise scared him. He did play in his cake more once everyone went back to playing volleyball. This video is the best out of all of them.

In other Josiah news, he had his one year doctors appointment. He is 30 inches long and weighs 21.1 lbs. According to the charts he is average for his height and in 25% for his weight. In other words, he is tall and skinny. I wonder where he gets that from? He wears 12 month shirts, but we are having a hard time with the pants because they fall off his little waist. He still isn't completely walking on his own. He is getting more courage and takes more steps on his own, but not ready to break out on his own yet.

Fountain Fun

Corvallis has a neat fountain that kids can play in down by the river. We go there when it is hot to cool off. Today we rode our bikes down there. Here are some pictures and a video of Josiah enjoying the fountain.

Mommy I can't walk through the big sprays of water, but I will watch them from a distance.

This one is more my size. Let's walk through this one.

Splash!

The last couple of weeks have been really busy for us. We had my mom here for a few days. Then I started going into work with Jason a couple of days a week. We have also been traveling around visiting friends. Josiah has been getting tired from all the traveling so I decided he needed to take the week off from traveling and going into work. He is much happier now that he can get his two good naps in. He hasn't started walking on his own yet, but this morning Jason and I were helping him walk from one person and back and he was able to take a couple of steps on his own. So maybe in a couple of weeks you might see a video of him walking. Until then, here are some fun pictures taken the last couple of weeks.

What do you do when you are done eating? You pull the food out of your mouth and wipe it on your face. What else would you do with it?
This is a picture of Josiah being a ham. He is making a funny face and fake laughing to get us to laugh with him.
This is Josiah having fun cruising in the stoller while walking on the beach.
This is a picture of us at Ecola State Park near Cannon Beach, OR. It was cloudy and cold, but it beat being hot in Corvallis.
Another picture of Josiah at Ecola State Park. He had a lot of fun watching the birds.

Crawling

Here are the much anticipated videos of Josiah crawling on all fours. He has been crawling for almost a month now. Enjoy!

Having Compassion

The above picture depicts perfectly what life around our house has been the past few days. Josiah has been cranky and for awhile we didn't know what it was. Then we saw the whites of his teeth begin to show. Josiah is getting four of his upper teeth all at once. As you can imagine he is in a lot of pain and he doesn't know how to handle it. So he goes from toy to toy trying to find something to relieve his pain, but nothing works. In the process he creates a huge mess. While I have tried everything from cold teething rings to Tylenol nothing seems to be able to sooth the pain. The only thing that seems to calm him down is love. When I pick him up and hold him he smiles and hugs me back. We sit in bed and read books and he laughs and giggles with me. Through this whole teething process God has taught me an important lesson. Sometimes people are dealing with difficult situations. They become cranky because they don't know how to handle the problem. When we become the victim of their bad attitude our first response is to fight back. But as with Josiah, sometimes love is what a person needs to help deal with the pain. They need to know that someone cares as they struggle through their tough situation. It is easy for me to love Josiah because he is my baby and I know why he is cranky. But God used this experience to show me that people need to be loved on even when it seems they are unloveable. God loved me when I was unloveable and now I know He is with me as I struggle through life. I hope that in the future when I encounter a difficult person I hope I can respond with compassion instead of anger. I want to strive be a light of God's love to them. Perhaps my light will help them deal with the problem better.

Family Biking

One of the members of the church here let us borrow their kid trailer for the summer. Corvallis has 26 miles of biking only trails and then bike lanes that run through town. Yesterday we decided to take advantage of the trailer and ride it to evening church. One our way home we took the Bald Hill bike trail. It has beautiful views of the valley and surrounding mountains.Here is a picture of Josiah in the trailer. He had a good time. We often heard him talking at we were riding a long. On the way to the church building he fell asleep.

This picture is kind of dark. The lighting was weird because the sun was setting. The picture was taken pointing east into town. Corvallis is located in a valley that lies between the Cascades Mountain Range and the Coastal Range. In the background you can see the faint outline of the Cascades.

This picture was taken pointing west toward the coastal range. You can't really see the mountains because the sun was setting on that side. The views on this bike trail are beautiful. Pictures don't do it justice so if you really want to know how beautiful it is you will have to come and visit. :)

How Big is Josiah?

We have internet service at our apartment now and it is really fast so I hope to update the blog more often. Josiah seems to be trying new things everyday. He now he trying to stand on his own. He lets go of whatever he is holding onto and can stand on his own for 3 or 4 seconds. He has also turned into quite the talker. He likes to stand up holding onto the coffee table and give me a speech with hand gestures and everything. If you could see his face, you would almost think he knew what he was talking about. But of course he doesn't do it for the camera, so I don't have a video of it to show you. I hope you enjoy the following 3 videos. This first one is Josiah showing you how big he is.