Family Photos

We did our yearly family photos yesterday, and the debate is already raging between Brandon and I as to which of the first two to use for Christmas card purposes.

I favor Number 1 because it is more formal and I look better. Brandon favors Number 2 because it is more casual and he looks better.

I say I should win because I'm the one who spends hours - and risks carpal tunnel syndrome - addressing, signing and mailing the cards. Also, as a woman, I should be allowed to make decisions based on vanity. Brandon says he should win because...oh, I don't know, I wasn't listening. Anyone want to weigh in?

Anyway, in the meantime, here are a couple more shots of the member of our family who ALWAYS looks good.

Disney!

Grandma Char was in town this past weekend, so we made the trip up to Orlando for some Disney World fun. Anthony was a little timid at first, but soon got into the spirit of things and turned out to be quite the little trooper, making it through 12 full hours and three parks with just a five-minute catnap and surprisingly few meltdowns. Those Disney people know what they're doing!

Here's some of the fun:

Not sure who's more excited to be at Disney World, Anthony or Brandon:

Riding the trolley to the park. I think he looks so grown up here:

Standing in line...a recurring image; who knew there could be a 50-minute wait even for the Peter Pan ride?

We thought he'd love the race cars. Turns out this was the last moment of joy before the cries of "MOMMY, MOMMY, MOMMY" began. As revenge, Brandon made me sit with Anthony in the Haunted Mansion.

Hard to see it, but Anthony's peeking around the side of the car to look back at me and Grandma Char:

No problem wearing the 3D glasses before the show...not so much during.

Using up some energy:

Finding Nemo:

On the Nemo ride (definitely one of the highlights if you ask Anthony):

The aquarium after the Nemo ride. I guess Seaworld should be our next Orlando stop.

Grandma treated Anthony to his very own Nemo:

This is pretty much how we all looked when the day was done:

Trick-or Treat

We hit up the Trick-or-Treat scene last night with our little bumble bee. There wasn't much going on in our immediate area, so Anthony took his talents to Key Biscayne, where the community goes all-out for Halloween and the streets were literally shoulder-to-shoulder with fellow Trick-or-Treaters.

Here are some pictures!

Think he's ready to get going?
The bumble bee:

Licking his lips in anticipation:

Almost ready to strike:

Heading to the first house:

We take our Trick-or-Treat very seriously...

Looks like Brandon is more thrilled than Anthony about the candy haul:

Realizing this Halloween thing is a pretty sweet deal:

Checking out the loot:

The sweet taste of victory...

...and of sneaking some Whoppers on the ride home...

Bzzzzzzzzzzzz

Happy Halloween

Just an update

I'll try to let the pictures do the talking here - I mean, when you have a picture that says "bus fart", what more do you need to say? - but just a few quick observations on the video that I made. To suck you in to what is *warning* basically a vacation slideshow *warning* I craftily start with some obligatory cute baby pics. Anthony's growing up and learning new things all the time - he's still loyal to his cars, but he also likes showing off his counting, ABCs and dancing skillz (yes, skillz with a z, we are talking about a Josephsen dancing, after all). Alas, the cute baby pics do run out, and from there those of you who don't press stop will be treated to a look at our recent trip to NYC. Via an ingenious feat of logistics engineering - that actually had one set of granparents meeting me at Midway and driving to Bloomington, IL and one grandparent agreeing to fly alone on a plane with Anthony back to Miami - we pawned the little guy off and toured the city, hitting all the top tourist spots and even getting to hang out with my brother Jared and his girlfriend Shria, who live in Manhattan and were gracious enough to share their time and knowledge of the city, invite us over for an incredible lobster dinner, and brought to the roof of their building with an amazing skyline view. Enjoy the video!

Parenting Fail

Last weekend we decided to embark on that gloroious milestone that is switching one's toddler from a crib to a regular bed. I know, the things that pass for excitement these days. I didn't even get a free trip to IKEA out of this one, as our crib just converts to a regular bed...maybe that should have been my first sign this wasn't such a good idea...

Anyway, the first night - of course a Sunday, who doesn't do these things right on the cusp of a busy work week? - we put Anthony to sleep in his new quarters, crossed our fingers and returned downstairs so Brandon could read Twilight and I could finish watching the past week's Jersey Shore.

What?

Anyway, after a few trips upstairs to remind Anthony of the meaning of "night night time," we were rewarded with an extended period of silence. We tiptoed upstairs, ready to settle in for a nice restful night, quite certain our hearts were about to be warmed by this...

...only to instead encounter this chilling sight:

Instead of succumbing to sleep, Anthony had decided to waltz into our bedroom and take up residence in our bed, where he was quite contendedly thumbing through books and sipping his water. It was kind of like the scene in The Godfather where the guy wakes up and finds the horse head in his bed, only with less blood. And at least that guy didn't have to turn around and try to get the horse head to fall asleep, so really a lot worse.

Anyway, we soldiered on, once again extolling the virtues of the new bed as Monday's nighttime rolled around. After settling Anthony in, we again returned downstairs, this time finding ourselves rewarded with nary a peep from upstairs. After a couple rounds of high-fives and fist pumps - plus the requisite vampire fiction reading and reality TV watching - we skipped upstairs to peek in on our perfect child.

This time, we found this:

Which would have been great, only he wasn't in his bed, he was on the guest bed. You know, the one I may or may not like to catch a few ZZZ's on when Brandon's featherlight breathing makes it hard for me to sleep. The best part of it was, he must have made three or four trips over to that bed, because he had everything from his crib - we're talking four blankies, several stuffed animals, a couple books, a Hot Wheels car and some water - right along with him.

In retrospect, it was kind of cute.

Ok, it was cute even in the moment.

Anyway, Tuesday night brought continued perseverence (we don't learn, do we?), and another stab at the New Night-Night. After a multitude of trips upstairs - dude, how are we supposed to concentrate on Team Edward and Snooki with all that racket??? - 8:30 p.m. found Brandon and I mumbling curse words under our breath as we hastily returned the crib to its natural state, Anthony looking on all the while with something that can only be described as ill-concealed glee.

Yes, we're back to this:

Our experiment has failed, and we have seen the error of our ways. I am suspecting there is a line forming to tell us "I told you so..."

But, if it means fewer nighttimes of this:

...and a more of this:

...it will all be worth it.

Otherwise, he'll just have to take the crib along on his honeymoon.

You can hate the game, but don't hate the playa!

Yay video!!

So the little guy is finally 2. And even better we got a new video camera to replace the one left behind in the taxi debacle.

I picked a few of my favorites on the new camera

1) One of our first experiences with discipline:



2) How old is the little guy now?



3) Nobody's this happy are they?

It's Disney Time!

Because it's a great idea to take a toddler to Disney World and an even better one to do so over a holiday weekend when the parks are guaranteed to be packed, we did just that.

Memorial Day weekend marked Anthony's first foray into the magical world of Disney, and our first stab at navigating a busy theme park with a child in tow. Look how fresh we appear in the ubiquitous "family-in-front-of-Cinderella's-castle" photo at the start of our journey...

...compared with four hours later in the ubiquitious "toddler-asleep-in-stroller-in-front-of-Cinderella's-castle" photo.

Actually, we had a lot of fun, and Anthony really seemed to enjoy the experience, even more than I thought he would. As Brandon accurately pointed out, the place is basically one big moving cartoon, and Anthony is nothing if not a fan of cartoons.

We started with Peter Pan's Flight, which Brandon deemed "lame" but was a nice, low-key way to kick things off. Anthony didn't seem altogether sure what was happening, but at least he didn't scream!

Later, he took it all in on everybody's favorite, It's a Small World. Yep, it's still in my head.

We even took a chance on the scarier Pirates of the Caribbean, and the oh-so-child-friendly themes of raping and pillaging and boozing seemed to go over just fine with Anthony. Not sure if that's a good thing.

By this time, Anthony was definitely warming up to the experience and enjoying the amazing sites all around him.

Brandon and I saw some amazing sites, too, not the least of which is this:

No, it's not amazing because our water-averse child - my ears are still ringing from the screams from last night's bath - is playing in the water.

It's amazing because....

THAT'S NOT OUR CHILD!

Yes, introducing Quinn, Anthony's 3-year-old doppelganger. Seriously, that's not Anthony. And somewhere out there there's a family not quite sure if they're OK with the fact that some crazy lady from Miami took a picture of their kid soaking wet in only his diaper.

Moving on, after Brandon and I got over the amazement of meeting Quinn, Anthony got to meet some new friends of his own.

He was pleased by this cat, whom I admit I don't recognize...although Brandon looks strangely giddy about the encounter...

...and more-or-less OK with this guy, who I think is from The Lion King?

However, the Stormtroopers on hand for Star Wars weekend? Not so much.

Fortunately, we quickly moved onto greener pastures in the form of The American Idol Experience. I may or may not LOVE American Idol (I do. I am woman enough to admit it.) so I was pretty excited about this one. I may have even told Brandon that if Anthony started getting antsy, he was going to have to take him outside while I finished watching the show...

As it turned out, Anthony was fine, and enjoyed clapping for the singers. One piece of advice, though: don't try to take your toddler's picture in front of a giant TV screen (that's Kris Allen as a baby, FYI). Said toddler will stare at TV screen, not dad with the camera.

OK, apparently the same is true about me when it's American Idol that's on the TV...

In any case, later on I managed to get this shot of the world's cutest Idol ever.

OK, second cutest Idol ever.

While Anthony seemed pretty into most of that stuff, there were a couple experiences that, for some reason, he was CRAZY about.

At Disney's Animal Kingdom, we decided to visit the petting zoo, and I braced myself for another 10 minutes of trying to get Anthony to show some interest in the animals while avoiding stepping in goat pee and simultaneously holding my nose. We've ventured to Miami Metro Zoo twice, and both times Anthony's response to the petting zoo has been to sit down (probably in goat pee) and read a book instead of interacting with the animals.

But, hey, drive four hours and shell out hundreds of dollars for tickets, and suddenly the petting zoo is the BEST THING EVER.

I guess we have a goat elitist on our hands; only Disney goats will do.

Later, Anthony surprised us by taking a major liking to another activity - playing in water, his sworn nemesis, at this fire-hydrant cooling station.

He was predictably unsure at first...

...but quickly warmed up.

Anyway, we had a great time, and taking a toddler to Disney World on a holiday weekend proved not nearly as terrifying as it originally sounded.

Now Stormtroopers or the image of TWO ANTHONYS...that's another story.