Josie is now 16 months and has changed quite a bit since I last reported three months ago! She's WALKING on her own and took her first solo walk on June 7 (at a little over 15 months old). I say "solo walk" because by the time she finally decided that it would be fun to let go of our fingers and take off on her own, she could walk well enough to go a pretty good distance before tottering over! And it took her just two days after that to figure out how to get back up to standing on her own without assistance - Go Baby Josie!!! Da-gu and Boo-gey (as Josie has named her grandparents) were quite pleased to witness Josie's first steps. And speaking of pleased, so was Josie as she took off all over the place testing out her new freedom to the sounds of her fans' cheers and claps!

Josie has had quite a busy couple of months with a trip to Miami and several trips to Northern Virginia (see pictures below). She took her first ride on an airplane (one of her favorite things to talk about and pretend to see flying overhead) and took a tour of the West Wing at the White House with her Mama.

Her favorite things this summer have been swinging on the baby swing, or "baby," as she calls it, swimming at the pool, visiting the "ooooo-cean," chasing kitties, playing with her "socca" ball, playing with her "be-yous" (her word for her stacking cups!) in her bath, watching her Winnie the Pooh movie on rare special occasions, spending time with grandparents, going to Mother Goose time at the Library, and learning how to use a spoon and a fork to feed herself.

Her vocabulary continues to grow like crazy...she is quite a talkative little lady. She said her first really clear three syllable word in the beginning of the month, "hamburger" and her first four syllable word last week - "alligator." She has started to learn colors (blue, red, green), and knows some letters by sight (i, e, q, and v). Thanks to her Daddy's tutelage, she does some great animal impressions for a pig (my new favorite, b/c she mimics a snorting pig sound, without actually snorting!), elephant, kitty, doggy, duck, cow, fish (in case you're wondering a fish says "glug, glug, glug"), lion, and tiger. She continues to love music, which she calls "b". She is often sad when a CD reaches the silence between tracks and often asks, "b? b? b?" so that we'll get the music going again! She loves books and has begun to recognize the names of certain books by memory ("Moo" is the name she'll call out as she reaches for her "Mr. Brown Can Moo" Dr. Seuss book). She also has developed a special affinity for all things Pooh, so her Daddy found several more books online to add to her growing collection of Winnie-the-Pooh stories.

Basically she amazes us daily and we're so thankful to have this little person in our family!

The pictures that follow are somewhat out of order, but cover the end of May and the month of June.