Here is some video of Josie that Helene took of Josie walking, playing and talking to Helene and the camera. Now that she knows she can walk that’s all she does. Crawling is no longer an option. 
September 30, 2008
Josie Walking, Talking and Playing with Mommy
September 25, 2008
New layout for the site
As you might have noticed, I’ve modified the site layout. Turns out the site wasn’t showing properly in Internet Explorer, although it looked fine in Firefox. So I’m using a slightly modified standard template which gives us more space for posts and should work with all browsers.
Let me know if things don’t look right and I’ll look into it.
September 24, 2008
18 months and counting
It’s so hard to believe that Josie is now 18 months old. I can’t believe how quickly the time has gone. We took her for her check-up on Monday. She is now a “whopping” 19 pounds 13 ounces (3rd percentile) and 30 inches (10th percentile). As the doctor said, we guess she’s just going to be a petite girl. I’m betting, looking at her father, that she will end up taller than me. It’ll just take some time for that to happen. And it looks like we shouldn’t have that pesky childhood obesity problem either. She eats and eats and eats but she is still so slim. I remember having that same problem when I was little. Of course, that all changed as I got older. I won’t mind one bit if my daughter has the slim gene.
Josie has also decided that she is now capable of walking. Within the last week, she seems to have figured out that it’s ok to walk around. She does more walking than crawling. It seems like she was waiting until she had the confidence and balance to not fall very much. She is also finally moving off of baby food. We’ve been trying to move her to table food for a long time but she seemed to be sensitive to the textures. She has now been eating more grown up foods (Gerber Graduates, spaghettios, etc.) for 2 weeks. She is also more willing to try things we are eating. She really enjoyed the curly fries when we had lunch at Arby’s this weekend. She still says no a lot when we offer her new things to try but at least we’re making progress.
She now has over 90 words. She uses 2-word phrases and I’ve heard at least one 3-word phrase. The doctor was quite impressed by her language skills. We would expect an 18-month old to have probably around 15 words and to start 2-word phrases around age 2. I’m quite a proud “speech mommy”!
Here is a picture of Josie cheering on her favorite team (UW Huskies, of course!). This was on our way to a game about a week and a half ago. She’s actually wearing the same cheerleader outfit that my mom made for her last year. We just let the arm holes out a bit and it fits again for this year.
And here is a picture for Josie’s Aunt Deb and family. They gave Josie this outfit and she’s now getting to the point where she can wear it. It’s a 12 month size and you’d figure that by the time she was 18 months old she’d be able to wear it, right? 
September 15, 2008
Give him a break
I’m proud to be a graduate of the University of Washington. Since I was little I claimed to bleed purple and gold. I come from a long line of Huskies, including both my parents, my brother and his wife, a couple of uncles, cousins, great aunts, and great uncles. We are a Husky family. For many years now my parents have been getting season tickets to the football games. They get enough to share with us kids and our families. So, we are able to raise our children in the great Husky Nation.
My brother likes to point out that when he was in school (1988-1992), the football team was National Champions (1991). I always point out that they weren’t as good when I was in school (1992-1996) because of the troublemakers from when he was in school. Without going into a lot of detail, the Huskies had some harsh sanctions while I was in school due to some screw-ups who felt entitled (my interpretation). Not only that, but we lost “the Dawgfather”, Don James, who is remembered as one of the greatest coaches we’ve ever had. He resigned after my first year. Since then, we’ve had our ups and downs, but recently it’s been more downhill.
Our latest problems can all be, in my humble opinion, put on the shoulders of one Rick Neuheisel. He was our coach in the late 90’s through the early 00’s. He is apparently not smart enough to realize he shouldn’t bet on college basketball. Needless to say, he was fired and left the football program in extreme turmoil with more sanctions. Since then we’ve been in a downward spiral. We even had the worst season ever recently with a record of 1-10. That’s unheard of for the mighty Huskies. However, we have a very good coach now who is in his 4th year of trying to turn our program around.
What’s the reason for my post today? I’m sending out my support to Coach Tyrone Willingham and all of the hardworking Huskies. He is really not being given the respect he deserves. Not only did he come in to this program when it was the worst it’s probably ever been, but he’s been playing the hardest schedules the last couple of years of anyone in the Pac-10, and according to the media last year, anyone in the nation. We all know that football programs are judged on the basis of wins and losses, but can’t we once in a while actually look at progress? We’ve gone from winning 1 game a season to winning 4 or 5 games. That’s considering we’re playing nationally ranked teams such as USC, Ohio State, Boise State, UO, ASU, and BYU. We even beat Boise State last year and came within one point, and a very bad penalty call, of tying and going into overtime against BYU. Isn’t that progress? Yes, we still have some issues to work through. But they are making progress and when Willingham started in 2005, the year before was the year we had only won one game. Shouldn’t we be happy that we appear to rebuilding. And can you really blame Willingham for losses when they are against teams such as USC, Ohio State, Oklahoma, BYU, etc.? He didn’t make the schedule. He wasn’t even at the school when the schedule was made. He just has to make the best of it.
I get so tired of hearing all the fair weather fans calling for his firing. Do you really think switching coaches again this soon will benefit the program? One of the things I appreciate the most about Coach Willingham is his attitude. You don’t see him swearing and throwing things on the sideline like so many other coaches (*cough* Pete Carroll *cough*). Not only that, he instilled a dress and grooming code that requires the players to look presentable. If they are talking to the media they are supposed to be in a dress shirt and tie. They are allowed to have longer hair or facial hair but it needs to be properly groomed. It’s almost like he’s teaching them how to live in the real world outside of college football. GASP! Why would he ever want to do that?!?! And then there’s also the fact that before Willingham joined the U, we were constantly hearing about Husky football players run-ins with the law. We still hear about those issues at other schools (for instance WSU recently) but I can’t remember the last time I heard of a Husky football player being arrested. Maybe, just maybe, it’s also important to teach these college age kids some responsibility and how to behave like adults instead of feeding into the myth that they are gods who can do no wrong. Good for you, Coach Willingham!
So, to sum up my longwinded post, leave Willingham alone! Let him do his job! Let the players focus on playing the game they love instead of feeling like they need to defend their coach. Quit acting like big babies who threaten to take their toys and go home if they won’t fire Willingham. Let us get back to the glory days. There is no magic wand to wave. It takes time and effort. And above all else, it takes patience on everyone’s part.
GO HUSKIES!!! WOOF! WOOF!
And just because it makes me smile, I have to also mention that UCLA lost BADLY (59-0) to BYU this last weekend. That’s the same BYU that we lost to by a score of 28-27, thanks in part to that really bad penalty call with 2 seconds left. Why am I reporting this? Because the guy who in my opinion started all of the problems for the Huskies, Rick Neuheisel, is now the head coach at UCLA. We may have lost to the same team but at least our loss was respectable.