A Christmas Miracle

It took two-and-a-half years to reach this moment: all of us are smiling and looking--with open eyes--at the camera.

We hadn't planned on taking a picture. We only took one shot. We look forward to another moment like this in 2012.

The Last Few Weeks

I'm too lazy to think of a theme or anything much clever to say ... so, here are some of the things we've been up to the last few weeks.

We went to some Christmas celebration thing at Sea World. The special Shamu show was scary for Joseph and awkward for me and Todd. But Joseph enjoyed sitting on a fake manatee.



Joseph's buddy Ashton turned two. While all of other kids were watching Ashton open presents, Joseph managed to escape and climb halfway up a very, very steep hill until he lost his shoe and had to give up. It is a good thing that Todd stays home with him and not me, because he can outrun and otherwise out-maneuver me any day.




Joseph did manage to stick around for the cake, though.


We went to a Christmas party at our church. I thought Joseph would be terrified of Santa but he ended up being okay with the whole thing.


Joseph's cousin Asher visited which was great fun. They are the cutest little guys, and Joseph is (generally) really kind and nurturing with Asher, so we are hoping he keeps it up for the new baby.

Cross-town Rivals

On December 22, the BYU Cougars are scheduled to face the Oregon State Beavers in the Las Vegas Bowl.

There are a number of factors that make this a good match-up, but our house is fired up for this game for one reason above all others: Joseph's closest buddy Ashton just happens to be a HUGE Oregon State fan (and maybe Ashton's parents graduated from OSU too).

Joseph prepared a little message for Ashton (who incidentally happens to be turning 2 today):

(Joseph came up with the "knock 'em over" line himself--I'm not sure how he came up with that; his line was supposed to be "stomp on them")

Hopefully, Ashton has had a very happy birthday, because he won't be smiling come December 22!

Go Cougars!

Trick-or-Treat

Don't want to spend a lot of time on this post since it's totally outdated anyway, but we still need to display Joseph's cute little Halloween costume before the New Year.

After our trip to Disneyland (more on that later) we decided Tigger would make a great Halloween costume for Joseph. (After all, Joseph had waited dutifully in line for quite some time to meet Tigger.) He was definitely adorable.

The day of, we had a "pumpkin party" at our place with Joseph's cousins and buddy Ashton. We decorated cookies and ate popcorn balls.


That night we went Trick-or-Treating with Ashton. It was really cute seeing the two of them go up to doors by themselves, knock, and say "trick or treat." Joseph was pretty good at saying "thank you" at first, but eventually he decided he'd rather eat candy right away than put it in his bucket, so he started telling people, "open it" as soon as they'd give him anything.

Halloween was definitely a hit and it took him a long time to get over it. We just never could get him particularly excited about Thanksgiving, try as we might. We're hoping we'll do a better job with Christmas, since that, too, involves candy.

Side-by-Side Comparison: The Toddster and Joseph

There's no denying it now. Joseph is definitely the mini-Toddster. The only feature that Joseph lacks is the ever-present Tang-mustache of the Toddster's childhood.

With the last post, we had Aunt Lindsey fooled--but only for a few seconds. After her first comment, she quickly called us out in a follow-up reply. The editors of this blog removed the second comment to keep things going for a while and wish to thank her for agreeing not to spoil the post for others.

Grandma White responded with an ambiguous comment, so we'll ambiguously declare that we think she might have possibly spotted the trick (maybe).

We're also declaring that anyone who didn't post before now was also fooled (and don't even try to give us any grief about how you just didn't check the blog before now or how you did see the post and knew all along but just didn't leave a comment--we're not buying it!).

Playing with Hamsters (at Nana's House)

I'm not sure what we're going to do when Joseph figures out that other families have pets at their houses all of the time.

A Pumpkin Patch and a Re-do

We have a Halloween tradition of visiting Bate's Nut Farm. It has, as this post evidences, traditionally provided great photo ops. This year promised the same, so I bought Joseph a cute little Halloween shirt that would match his surroundings and optimize the photo shoot.

Fail!

We went a couple of weeks ago and it was like 100 degrees outside. Joseph spent the first twenty minutes or so running around like crazy, looking for a "white pumpkin" (we found one) and getting very sad everytime he saw a rotten pumpkin (these poor rotten pumpkins were very upsetting to him). We couldn't get him to sit down around any of the pumpkins. So, no good photos there. Then, once he calmed down, heat exhaustion set in and he was pretty grouchy. No good photos there either. We cut our trip pretty short so that everyone (well mostly me and my overheated preggo belly) could cool off. We were left with very little.

Joseph and his white pumpkin:

Joseph not willing to sit for pictures:


Joseph sitting on my lap for a split-second:


Today we got the opportunity for a re-do. Joseph's Nana, Grandpa and Uncle Brent were in town so they all decided to take advantage of the cooler weather to return to the pumpkin patch.

Success!




Joseph even got to ride a pony -- but if you tell him it was a pony, he will emphatically claim that it was a horse, NOT a pony.

I'm just bummed that Joseph has TWO Halloween shirts that he could have worn, but both were dirty. Luckily this did not seem to diminish the significance of the trip for Joseph, whose prayer tonight included effusive gratitude for "pumpkin patch, pony at pumpkin patch, scarecrow at pumpkin patch, candy, and trick-or-treat." He had a happy day.

Introducing Joseph's sibling

The first picture of our new baby on this blog:





In case the picture doesn't help. Here are some purchases that Erin made tonight:

























Joseph, Erin and the Toddster are pleased to announce that next February we will be welcoming a baby girl to our family.

Ultrasound Images

This morning, we got some great images of our new bundle of joy from the ultrasound technician.

We'd like to post them here, but unfortunately, we're having technical difficulties getting the images onto our blog.

We hope to have this remedied shortly. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Baby Names

EX POST FACTO DISCLAIMER:We are likely NOT going to be using any of these names for our next child. This post was originally written as a part of a series of posts designed to drag out the process of announcing whether we were having a boy or a girl.

The names on this list are examples of what could be considered androgynous or unisex names. We were teasing people by giving a list of names that potentially could be used for either a boy or a girl.

For a current list of the most "gender neutral" baby names click here.

Agreeing on a name for Joseph was a lengthy process that didn't end until after Joseph's birth. We don't want to deal with the same struggle in naming our second child, so we're taking input on a good name.

What do you think of the following names?

• Pat
• Chris
• Jamie
• Jessie
• Alex
• Riley
• Jean
• Robin
• Terry

We're hoping to engender some useful suggestions here.

Big Announcement

Erin went in for an ultrasound this morning, and Joseph is pleased to announce that somewhere around February 20, 2010, Joseph is going to become a big brother.

We are all VERY excited.

Happy Halloween

The other day after I got home from work I mentioned that we could go shopping for Halloween decorations. Although Joseph didn't know what those were at the time, he heard me and started insisting that we go get Halloween decorations, so we did.


The next day, he insisted on wearing a Halloween shirt that his grandparents had given him - even though it is black, long-sleeved, and it was 100 degrees outside. So, I figured it was as good a day as any to decorate (even if it was a bit premature).

Joseph had a great time helping me.



He is really excited for Halloween. He loves the pumpkins and ghosts and other Halloween things, and I think he finally understands the concept of a costume (though we haven't decided on one yet -- any ideas???), and we've been talking about saying "trick-or-treat" and getting candy.

(He is just mad that we are trying to take his picture here.)

Yesterday we even spent some time playing in last year's costume, since he is so into dinosaurs right now and loves looking at last year's pictures of "baby Joseph being dinosaur".



Apparently he doesn't need the costume to be a triceratops, though, because tonight he informed me that he has horns.

However, even this excitement did not prepare me for the purchase that Todd made the other day.



Meet Ludwig the skeleton/skull. Todd didn't catch on about my "cute" Halloween-themed decorations, and instead went straight for creepy. I guess this is to get me back for getting Joseph a super-girly, hot-pink Valentine's Day playset.


But Joseph loves Ludwig. He plays with him, shares with him, hugs him, and gives him hats so he doesn't get cold (since Ludwig lacks hair).

It is a good thing Joseph is getting a sibling soon because obviously the poor child is lonely.

The Other Part of the Visit

We also spent some quality time with family in Utah while we were out for the wedding.



Mostly, it involved me playing with this really, really cute little guy:



Joseph absolutely loved his cousin Asher too. He liked holding him and cuddling him and making him smile and telling me how "cute" Asher is. He was generally pretty gentle with him (we just had to watch to make sure he didn't try to "share" his own food with Asher).

We also got to meet my sister's fiance, Devin, who immediately won Joseph over with his talent for making strange noises. Joseph loves talking about how Devin and Keegan are getting married. Inasmuch as Keegan is actually Lindsey's husband, Lauren and Lindsey aren't as happy with that arrangement, but hopefully Joseph will get things straight eventually.

Joseph also got to go swimming at the splash park, meet Keegan's horny-toads, and play with the kitty cat. (The other day he spontaneously told me that he "loves Kiki at Gramma White's house" and that she is "his friend.") He loved playing with his aunts and uncles and Grandma and Grandpa White. He was not happy about coming home.

Hopefully I'll have more pictures to post -- but I'm waiting for Lindsey to email me. Hint, Hint.

The Wedding

Last week we flew out to Utah to attend the wedding of our good friends Sam and Nancy.

Joseph, waiting for our airplane.

I think Todd and I would both rank Sam and Nancy's big day as one of the happiest of our own lives. Sam has been a dear friend to Todd for many years, Nancy has also been a good friend since law school, and the two of them are the most perfect, happy couple you will ever see. Also, on a completely selfish note, it was fabulous attending the wedding of people that we introduced because everyone wanted to meet us and thank us. It almost got embarrassing ...

Some of the other thing that made it so great were:

Nancy and Sam are both amazing party planners, so we knew this event was not to be missed. Sam is a professional chef and his boss, one of the best pastry chefs in the country, made the cake:

It tasted as good as it looks.

Joseph got to wear a super cute little outfit since he was part of the wedding party. Unfortunately, he did not cooperate very well with the pictures.

A beautiful Nancy, showing grace under pressure as the little children start falling apart.

Joseph, not cooperating with the nice photographer.

But, hopefully they got some good candids of him running around - he had a really good time.

I don't know who this woman is in the picture, but mostly we took this to show Joseph wandering far off in the background:

Hopefully he didn't end up in the professional shot.

Joseph especially enjoyed the live band and dancing. Seriously, he danced for most of the night. Everytime a song would end, he'd get mad and yell, "More music! More singing!" until they started up again, and he'd be back dancing.

Almost as fun as the dancing were the sparklers.



We got to catch up with some law school friends (most of whom we hadn't seen since graduation), and Todd was able to see lots of friends from his mission. Todd and Sam's mission president performed the ceremony and did a lovely job. It reminded us a lot of our own wedding day.

Law school friends, most of whom we hadn't seen since before Joseph's birth.

As you can see in this happy picture, all of us (even Joseph!) had a grand time. We are hoping for another inadvertent-but-successful set up soon. Baby #2 is coming in February, so we're thinking maybe he or she can fill Joseph's shoes and facilitate another marriage.

Dining with Joseph

For breakfast this morning, Joseph had a milkshake and a powerbar.

Before you start searching for those nominations for "Father of the Year," let's reflect on some of the other dishes Joseph has requested (and usually received).

Guacamole

Dipping chips in guacamole is a favorite pastime at our home.


One of the hardest things about being two is that you can't always get enough guacamole all the way from the container up to your mouth using something as crude a tortilla chip.

Joseph remedied this by requesting a "green spoon" for his guacamole.


Who needs to bother with chips when you can just spoon the guac directly to your mouth?

Pico!

Joseph (and everyone else in this household) loves Trader Joe's Pico de Gallo. One day we tragically ran out, and for several minutes he kept yelling "Pico! more Pico! want more Picooooooooooooo! Pleeeeeaaaaseeee!"

Joseph loves his pico so much, he even dips his pacifier in it.


(Mental note to readers: Never eat the pico at the Goodsell house)

Gnocchi and Humus

Joseph doesn't always get what he wants. One morning, while trying to figure out what to give Joseph for breakfast, he asked for gnocchi. We didn't have any gnocchi, so he asked for humus. We didn't have any humus. So we had popcorn for breakfast.

Unfortunately, he didn't think to ask for powerbars or milkshakes.

Milkshakes and Apple Juice

Despite my love for chocolate milkshakes, it was actually Joseph's mother who introduced him into his latest beverage of choice.

Here's a photo from Erin and Joseph's most recent Saturday afternoon together.


This is Joseph watching some TV with his apple juice in one hand and his milkshake in the other.