The Very Hungry Caterpillar

This has become one of our favorite books to read. Joshua likes to read the story himself and tell us about each of the foods the caterpillar eats. I have to laugh when he gets to the sausage because he refuses to call it a sausage, but calls it a doughnut, because the picture shows the sausage cut into circles with a hole in the middle.

Today we made the hungry caterpillar and drew all the food that he ate and then we made a beautiful butterfly!

Reading

Who doesn't love a good story at bedtime?

Look what I can do!

My little helper

Joshua is always such a big helper. Even when he was barely walking, he wanted to help Ronnie and I with anything we were doing. Now we can add one more to his list:

You can see by looking at his eyes that he had not been awake very long on this morning. Bless his little heart, he is such a sweetie pie. I can't even begin to verbalize what a sweetie he is and how much I love him, but I can say that we think Joshua is the most precious little boy in the world. Click here for a few more pictures of my little helper.

This week has also brought the beginning of knock-knock jokes. The funniest part of this is that Joshua doesn't really understand how a knock-knock joke works, but he thinks it's hilarious.

Joshua: Knock-knock

Momma: Who's there?

Joshua: Me!!!

Momma: Me who?

Joshua: Me, Joshua (all the while giggling that cute infectious giggle)

The very best part - I know this is just the beginning of many more giggle filled moments.

Imagination

One of my very favorite things right now is watching Joshua's imagination work. It's just an amazing thing to witness this little mind think up games to play, places to go, and people to be. One of his latest imaginary places is riding a roller coaster. We've not taken him anywhere to ride a roller coaster, so the only way he knows about them is in books and seeing the Disney World commercials. (We've been working on Daddy that we want to go see Mickey's house soon!) A few days ago he pulled out all of the tubs from his toyganizer and his laundry basket and the plastic boxes I was using to sort in, and brought many of his friends to ride on his roller coaster!

Every day with Joshua is so much fun. He is such a blessing to me, to us, and brings us so much joy. Watching him play and learn with so much energy and enthusiasm gives me hope that I really can be whatever I dream to be when I grow up!

Picture of joy

The best painting sessions go from this:

to this in just a matter of minutes:

I love this little face of pure joy!

A thought to ponder - what happens on the way to adulthood that we lose this joy?

Big Apple Circus

We had a fun day today going to the Big Apple Circus!

Joshua was so excited about cotton candy -
but decided he didn't really like it after all -