Toilet Training Update

Now I just have to write this and we are all up to date...

Number one: Josh is toilet trained day and night now! It happened by accident when we forgot to put a nappy on him one night. He has been fine ever since (lets hope I don't jinx it now!) He gets up in the morning and goes straight to the toilet and then into our room to wake one of us up.

Number two: Josh now stands up to go to the toilet! I couldn't believe it the first time it happened. We haven't said anything to him about it, he must have just decided to wee like Dad!
He is just the right height now to do it, though he did say that the toilet was cold on his doodle today!

Josh's Third Birthday

Last year I started a competition to see if anyone could guess the theme of this year's party...

some of the answers I got were:

Wiggles, Smurfs, Mr Squiggle and Pony.

This comment from Pop was funny... "you would look great in a cowboy suit" If you look at the photos you will see that Josh and Sam had matching outfits with a cowboy theme... Josh's said "Wanted - for being the cutest ever" and Sam's said"Littlest Cowboy". So I would have to say that Pop came closest, though I did get some comments later that it was impossible to pick a theme of something that Josh had only heard about a couple of months ago! (You don't know how close we were to having another train party!).

The theme of the party was "The Green Sheep", taken from Josh's favourite book "Where is the Green Sheep" by Mem Fox.

I found this picture of a sheep cake...

...saw a challenge,

and spent a week cooking, carving,

icing and decorating until I came up with this...

The Party...

Josh's friends and family came on Saturday morning to help celebrate Josh's birthday. The kids had great fun running around the backyard, the weather was perfect!

I took the kids inside and read them the Green Sheep book. I was amazed that most of them actually sat there and listened and interacted while I read the book. Josh was playing but did look up at the book every now and then and came over for the page with the train sheep (which I knew he would do!). For some reason he also decided it was a good time to start stripping (!!!)

While we were reading, Kel was hiding chocolate money around the backyard for a treasure hunt. We took a bit too long with the book so the kids had lots of melted chocolate over their faces by the time we got to them! Then we brought out the now famous Green Sheep!

Some of the presents that Josh got at the party were: books, clothes, runners, Thomas towel, trucks, puzzle, a bear chair and a train calendar.

Here is a picture of Josh pretending to sleep on his bear chair...

The Zoo...

For Josh's actual birthday we were going to spend the day at the zoo... but then they said the weather was going to be 31 and smokey, so we went on Sunday instead with Aunty Kel, Mark, Aunty Lou and the kids. Here is the traditional photo of me and Josh at the butterfly enclosure...
And once again Josh's favourite thing was the giraffes, but once again he spent most of the time there looking at the drinking fountain!!!

The actual Day...

Josh's third birthday ended up spanning three days (lets hope this idea doesn't continue or we could be in big trouble by his 21st birthday!).

It was a very relaxed kind of day spend in our pjs mainly :)

We played with the trains and watched Thomas videos and gave Josh a present every couple of hours. From us he got a Matchbox car thing (hard to describe), a game where fish are blown up into the air and you catch them with a net, a blackboard and a basketball ring.

He also got a kitchen set with pretend food (including chips!), and a Puffing Billy tshirt in the mail.

We did eventually get dressed and got takeaway chicken and chips for dinner and ate at the park and had icecreams for dessert. There was even some sheep head left so we could sing Happy Birthday and eat some cake on the actual day!

Christmas 2006 - Finally!

This year Josh really 'got' Christmas... though most things were about Santa. We had Santa trees and Santa hats, and lots of visits to Santas in the shopping centres. We had our annual trip to Myer to see the 'real' Santa. Josh got to ride on the train there, which he loved - of course!

Christmas morning Josh woke up to a lounge room full of Thomas train tracks. Santa spent a lot of time setting up the track so Josh could play with it as soon as he woke up. You should have seen his eyes pop out of his head when he opened the door!
He got the Round House (where all the trains live) and the turntable so they can go in and out of the house. There is also the gold mine, the fire station, a road crossing and signals. The trains he added to his collection were James (which makes sounds and has lights), Diesel, Bill and Ben, Gold Mine Thomas and Christmas Thomas, Gold Mine Salty and Gold Mine trucks.

It was a struggle to get Josh to look in his Christmas stocking, or to look at his present from us (Elmo Knows your Name).

Christmas lunch was at our house followed by dinner at Grandma and Grandpa's house.
Josh had lots of fun playing with Sam's toys and helping him to open his presents. He got more trains, a playdoh table and accessories, Buzz Lightyear jocks and singlet, Thomas card game and nursery rhyme CDs. The boys also got money which we put toward renewing our zoo membership.

We also took trips on Boxing Day and the day after that to visit the Great Grandparents. Josh is so lucky to have four great grandparents who adore him. He got to help dig holes (or should that be fill holes!) and play in the dirt at Ballarat, and had fun running around outside and eating cake at Greensborough.

The tree has been taken down, the lights have been put away and Josh has finally stopped singing Christmas carols!

PS. The middle photo is of Josh covered in stickers from the bonbons!

A New Beginning

Welcome ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls to the new and improved website of our favourite little red head... Josh!

It was with sadness that I ended his old website. It was the story of his life from conception to almost three years old. But we are moving with the times now... and a blog is the way to go.

I have lots of news to tell you, I have been so busy between Christmas and Josh's birthday... so let me post this, and get started.

Thanks for reading... it really does make me happy to hear about you all reading about Josh and keeping up to date with the latest news, and hassling me when I haven't updated for a while!

I'm sure there are going to be lots of funny little stories to tell in here as he becomes more and more a real little human being with his own personality and funny ways.

Make sure you check in here often, you never know when I am going to update... but I will try to keep up the tradition of writing something on the 15th of every month (or there abouts).

Cheers, Trace

PS. In case you were wondering... the name Mosh came about when Kel started getting called Mad (when Josh mixed up Mum and Dad). So we had Mad, Mosh and Dum (can't say I really like being called Dum though...)