we hope you have a wonderful holiday with your family & friends.  we’re looking forward to it-  judging by the picture, i think it will be very peaceful:

santa just told her which list she's on.

here’s hoping you’re on the “nice” list….

i have shared that jovie is really exploding with her vocabulary.  (however, in just linking that last post, i see that was at the end of october, and um….. WOW how much she says now is unbelievable!)

The Mr. & i are in constant amazement. 

constant.

yesterday we were watching a baby einstein video (thanks again, beck!) & jovie was in a talkative mood.  she was sitting in my lap, & The Mr. on the couch.  the first few items came on, and she kept looking at The Mr. to tell him all the things she saw:  nose, apple, banana, monkey, moon….  each time, The Mr. & i laughing and feeling astounded.    “mah-kee” is her newest word.  and that was random enough! 

by the time the number 2 rolled around, she pretty much was done with her narration.

UNTIL…

they made a picture out of 2 orange halves:

as soon as she saw it, she said “bok” , which kinda sounds like the southern way of saying bike.  (ha)

to which i responded:  !!!!  <blink> !!!!

of course, that was a fluke.  because “bok” could mean a few things in life,  and you know… common sounds and all. 

and i hate to admit it, grampa, but we just don’t encounter a lot of bikes in her world.  so that’s not a word we share a lot (not like monkey is either— random).  we’ve seen this video probably 3x total- about a month ago when becky first sent it to me.  and the most i would’ve said while watching back then is:  the horse made a bike out of the oranges.  how funny.

well-  today, we watched the same video & again, she said “bok” when that point (and no other) was on.  in fact, i rewound it to be sure.  then i rewound it again so i could take the picture. 

each.and.every.time she replied with bike.

so- grampa— she’s got your blood in her for sure!

then:

05/21/09

now:

nov 28, 09

then:

thanksgiving 08

now:

thanksgiving 09

then:  (in greenville)

03/07/09

later:

07/25/09 at home

now:  (in greenville)

thanksgiving 09

then:

11/09/08

now:

11/26/09

then:

hanging her ornament 08

now:

spying her ornament 09

i find the similarities in many of these pictures uncanny.   and yet (especially in the thanksgiving pose with dad) i promise y’all:  that is the same baby!

so maybe it IS true:  the more things change, the more they stay the same….

The Mr. took the week off, and he did awesomely with how little work he did.  i’m sure today he paid for it though, but he made the most out of a week home. 

and jovie LOVED having him home.  of course, i did too.  because i probably only changed about 7% of the diapers!  and fed her about 35% of the meals.  plus, he started his vacation (which is my vacation too!) out perfectly by making us breakfast.  twice.

some things of note:

we bought jovie’s first pair of shoes.  i don’t think many people wait 16.5 months before doing that.  so i don’t think many kids’ first pair of shoes are a size 5!  wow.

we waited so long for a few reasons. 

1- she’s still not walking.  &  2- i dreaded how the fitting would go.

i thought it may go something like this:

not a fan of these shoes

but about 10 minutes later:

these shoes are pretty cool!

i can walk outside now.

so they are fine.  and there’s hardly any fussing when we put them on now.

happy thanksgiving!

planning the shopping day very carefully

alternate title:   “The Mr. gave jovie his phone while at the park on Saturday”

a view from my stroller

ah, a budding photographer!

at least she didn’t call India.

this past weekend, we had a change of plans.  what was supposed to be a nice relaxing fun day/night hiking at waterfalls & staying at a bed-n-breakfast for The Mr. & me turned into a weekend at gramma & grampa’s house with an afternoon spent at an apple orchard.

The Mr. has been traveling these past 6 weeks.  with the exception of weekends, he doesn’t get to see jovie.  and that will continue for the rest of the year- save for the vacation time he’ll “take”. 

so it wasn’t really a good time, or the best choice for us to go away in the middle of this.  although last week, she was normal & fine with Daddy being gone, the week before that she started to notice.  and  let me assure you that it’s just plain awful to go into her room when she wakes up and realizes her dad isn’t there.  i hear her playing happily.  i open the door and 1 of 2 things would happen:

1. she begins to cry immediately. 
2. she hears the door open, squeals “dada!”, sees me & cries.

even the other weekend, i went to get her.  and although he was home, she still began to cry/sob/make me “chase” her around her crib.  until i said some magic words:   “do you wanna go see Daddy?”.   BOY she was fine THEN!

so we decided that now wasn’t the optimal time to leave her overnight for the first time in the care of gramma & grampa (who, just a month ago was scary to her) in their strange (not her) house.  because although we realize that’s just going to be plain awful no matter when it happens…. and she’ll definitely let them know it!….  couple that with the fact that this is the little time The Mr. gets to spend with her, throw in the other fact that she has not consistently been very fun in the car for a trip [his only time with her], and- well- we decided we should wait (even longer) for our (much needed) mini-vacation.  

but it all turned out ok. because gramma suggesting the apple orchard made our wrestling with the decision a little better.  The Mr. was excited at that prospect, because he said he’s been wanting to start a fall tradition.

and next year we know she’ll have fun.  this year, all the apples were picked (just as well.  not like she’d know what was going on anyway)

proof- there's the apples

& we just enjoyed the scenery

and fresh baked donuts. (mmmm).  we took a hayride (minus the hay??)

and we saw some animals.

"pup-pup"

although the car ride both to & from greenville were (dare i say) good, the ride to/from the orchard [about an hour each] wasn’t the best.  she was tired. and she felt as though she had to entertain gramma & me since we were in the backseat.   that = crabby!

it was a good weekend overall, though.  and it was fantastic seeing my bff & her fantastic baby, too.  and The Mr. & i did get to act like a childless couple when we went to dinner & also ran together sat & sun mornings.  …we haven’t run together in probably 3 years!

not exactly the picturesque fall foilaged waterfalls we had intended on, but there’s always next year.  (right, gramma & grampa??)

speaking of next year….  how much fun will it be to look back at THIS?:

from 16 weeks to 16 months, a retrospective of then & now:

my days then

my days now

warning:  overload of pics coming!

since jovie’s pretty young, we planned on having a very low-key halloween.  because it was saturday, music class was that day, so we were to wear our costume to that.  our big halloween plan was to just be in costume all day long.  yippee.  she goes to bed pretty early, and doesn’t eat candy, so we weren’t going trick-or-treating anyway.

good thing.

friday night we thought jovie got out of her crib, packed her things and moved out, but brought a newborn as a decoy.  ok. so, it wasn’t quite like newborn status, but it has been a long time since we had to get up with her 5 times!  (tho, thankfully b/c of her early bedtime, that’s not as bad as it sounds.  she slept solidly from 1-6:30am)

so we pretty much knew/assumed she wasn’t feeling well (tho no fever nor stuffy nose at all, except for what happens when you cry all nite).  of course when we saw her in the light of day on saturday and saw the red nose, watery, glassy eyes, and felt her hot skin…..   ooohhhh

so our one halloween plan changed and we stayed in our halloween pj’s much of the day.  after having a newborn-ish baby again—- no sleeping, being held, crabby, miserable— we did throw some jeans on her and brave the sprinkles of rain to take her for some coffee.  (us, not her).  we needed a change in scenery!

what with the rain and everything, that pretty much delayed the start of halloween in our neighborhood.  i don’t think anyone came over until right about 8pm!  just as The Mr. got the brilliant idea that since little girl was fussy/not feeling well/didn’t sleep at all…..let’s not have the doorbell ring all night.  so we just set our candy out with a threatening note. 

and she did, indeed, sleep through the kids who rang the doorbell anyway and shouted excitedly remarking on our scary halloween fun.

apparently she needed that sleep, because she was about back to normal yesterday.   so if you’re keeping track that brings her sick count to:  2.  (plus a 5day unexplained, unobtrusive fever).

luckily, we got to use her “costume” last week when we went to our friends’ halloween party. 

without further ado:  (plenty o’ pictures for you, aunt barb!)

i'm feeling fine on oct 30th. happy 15th anniversary, mommy & daddy!

inspecting pumpkin guts

can i look any more pathetic? i'm exactly where i want to be! eating a snack on daddy's lap

i don't LOOK sick!

i'm fearless!

i'll make a scary face. or, i'll just try to get down, either way.

really, dad. not scary. i'm containing my laughter.

and- the “costume”:

scary skeleton

scary skeletons need time to play, too.

makin our way in the costume parade

i know i’ve been kinda lax in posting, but really it’s because jovie is just doing more of the same.  only cuter, of course. 

she’s still talking up a storm.  it’s like almost every day we notice something new about her.  either a new word, a new sign, or a new gesture.  it’s been a crazy month!!

she’s kinda slowed down the walking efforts, and i assume it’s because she’s into the talking efforts more.  although, gramma & grampa were here 2 weekends ago and jovie decided to show off for them.  while i was on the phone in the other room, gramma even caught a picture of her walking w/ her walking toy with only ONE hand!  so i got to see it even if i wasn’t around.  (sorry i don’t have that photo)

she became interested again in that toy on my birthday.  so she’s been doing a little bit of both the past week or so.

but still, her fave thing to do is talk.  and now mimic.  (The Mr. is enjoying getting her to say inappropriate things, such as hiney- much to my prude chagrin).

let’s see…. how bout if i bore you document the things she likes to say & do:

kii = kitty,    baw= ball,    tii= bird,    mama, mommy,   dada, daddy,     up! (and now when she’s done eating that’s what she’ll say),     oh-oh,  bup!= bump,    dee-dee= baby (with sign),     wok=walk,    buh-boo=bubbles,  pup-pup or puppy,      yucky,   and hi!!  which she says a lot.  esp when she signs “phone”.

she signs:   baby, phone, kitty, more, flower, rain, milk, eat (mainly to mimic, not to actually tell us she’s hungry), fish (you should see her pucker!),  thank you, hat, daddy.

but she’ll also say “mao” when asked what a kitty says.   and she’ll growl or try to say “woof” when asked what a pup-pup says [which i have never ever growled to her for puppy.... The Mr. thinks she got that from the real dogs down the street].  

when you say something’s hot, she’ll immediately start blowing.  as well as if you talk about bubbles.    she’s starting to shake her head no (even when she doesn’t mean it!) and she blows kisses and just mimicked the “ssshhhh” sign.

she can do a high five.  & when she sees something sweet or a pic of someone (or kitty) sleeping, she’ll say “awww”  b/c she knows that’s what The Mr. & i say.   speaking of “awww”, she’ll make me do that a lot in the week because she SO knows how to love!  she’ll lay her head on my shoulder (after she says “up”) and she’ll just rub or pat my arm/shoulder.   amazing!

she can do all 4 stanzas of “if you’re happy & you know it”, and now she’s correctly anticipating a song we sing at the library. 

i’ve done a few google searches for this song. i can’t find it.  but we sing it every week…..   and she’s starting to like it.  she’ll kinda start singing what we think sounds like the beginning of the song.  so when we begin singing it, she’ll sign “baby”. ….. before we even get to the first stanza that says “when i was a little baby….”   it caught us by surprise.  all the while she shows us her big grin.

oh, and that grin now has one extra tooth on bottom.  she’s slow goin, but now there’s 7.  who knows when that other match will come in. there’s not even a speck yet!

enough with the words, here’s the fun:

i'm getting into mischief so i'll stay still for a pic.

i love to crawl & stand at the TV.

The Mr. & i are having a ton o’ fun w/ jovie these days.  (and we say over and over what a very different kid we have!)

she’s really wanting to talk.  she babbles all day. nonstop nonsense with LOTS of inflection & hand gestures.  she prob’ly gets that from me.  (The Mr. would agree.  & likely agree that most of what i say is also nonsense).

i spend a lot of my day repeating what she says, telling her she’s right.  trying to make up a conversation to go along w/ the string of nonsense.  but i lack a lot of imagination.  a lot of “uh-huh”s & “oh really!?”s come out of my mouth.  very exciting.

but she really wants to talk.  & sign.  sometimes we watch baby einstein videos before bath.  we have 3 that show different signs, and she is so interested in them these days.  she’s always enjoyed them.  from day one…back in january… for whatever reason, i guess she saw that i signed back, she’ll look at me (or The Mr.) and get our assurance of whatever sign is being portrayed.  you can see in her face just how intent she is on watching us sign the word.

and lately she’s taken it upon herself to sit in our laps for about 5minutes before crawling RIGHT UP to the tv, pulling herself up and gluing herself to it.  constantly looking back at us to make sure …………….of what, exactly??  that we’re signing? <ok> that we think she’s damned cute?  <check>

but now she wiggles her hands a lot when she strings her “sentences” together. lots of pointing.  you know- for emphasis.  because what she’s got to say is pretty important!

the coolest thing is when she gets so excited, and then she’ll say or sign something in context.  i love that.  it’s one thing to say/sign when you see a video for the 50th time, but yesterday we went to the store and she about had a fit to tell me that there was a baby right there.  that’s one of her latest signs.  and it was really neat to me, because she saw him first.  there was no prompting or prodding at all.  so this is a sign that she’s growing up. 

….here she is, not signing or anything, but crawling around talking.  can’t you just see how excited she gets?  no doubt she said something truly wonderful.

"you can't keep me still enough to get a good shot!"