it’s not that i don’t have things to write about with jovie…  it’s that i forget to, or run out of time, or don’t have much creativity. & truthfully, i’m way behind in uploading my pictures from my newer camera…  way behind.  so i don’t have any pictures to show you right now.

at least i thought i’d write to say yes- we’re still here.  we’re all fine.  relatively.

The Mr. is nursing a cold right now.  last week i was dealing with my own battle of a cold or something that never fully developed but wiped me out nonetheless.  The Mr. traveled, though, so don’t blame me for his condition.

Jovie was pretty good considering i spent the better part of last week flat on the couch except when necessary.  nursing headaches, body aches, throat aches, etc… and fighting sleep (or actually sleeping).  she didn’t mind too much.  she watched about an hour of TV a day.  which is way more than usual.  she didn’t mind at all.

jovie started dance class.  she’s enjoying it!  i hope to follow up with pictures soon, you’ll like the one of her in her new leotard.

in the meantime, she’s being quite loving in the past few months.  she’s just bolt out an “i love you” and a giant hug & kiss.

yesterday, she said “Daddy, i’m sorry you’re not feeling well today!”

she constantly tells me how much she misses gramma & grampa.  she’ll say “but i really want them to be here.”

she’ll scribble & wad up a piece of paper, and declare it a present for them.  sometimes it’s hard to reason with her that one person’s trash is another person’s….. trash.

so, we’re still alive & well.  hope you are…

jovie enjoyed lots of time with gramma & grampa, and her daddy!  Santa came, and we were all excited.  and christmas morning was a great fun time.  Santa brought her a  toy to press a zillion buttons on with no rhyme or reason because they make cool beeps  kids’ digital camera, a set of aggravating puzzles and a buckling/buttoning/zipping etc… toy.

we went to the park on christmas eve.  beautiful day.  great, because christmas was dreary.  but we had fun playing with all of our new things and hanging out with the family.

—————————after having issues with the picture and things coming up in the last two days, i see i’m sooooooo behind in this post, and all creativity & thoughts have left me.

i will just post now already!  and assure you all of our holiday time was fabulous and well-spent.  including date night with The Mr. & fun times with our crazybig family.  lots of aunts, uncles, cousins, and more!

hopefully my 2012 will be better at posting.  stay tuned.

tho i’m not so sure jovie trusts us very much anymore.  we told her she didn’t have to sit on his lap.  if she wanted to go (which we talked about A LOT— we were not going to force her to go) she could stand next to him.  and of course, she wanted daddy on her other side.

this is what we could manage with the arrangement:

and 2 seconds after this, santa plopped her on his lap!  i was about to stop taking pictures when the big guy and The Mr. said to take more since she didn’t cry. 

santa tried hard to talk to her.  get her to smile. he noticed her bracelet gramma sent her and told her he wanted her to get him one.  that elicited a smile.

 but she staunchly refused to even look his way.  and i saw her (bravely!) fighting back the tears.

what a BIG GIRL she is.

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in other prep:  jovie helped me make one of the batches of cookies this year.  it was a recipe my sister (aunt jo-jo) shared with me.  and it makes me giddy, because i used to help my own mommy with these.  some people call them holiday snickerdoodles.  i call them “mommy’s cookies”

(if baking is not in her future, clearly her hair can allow her to become the 5th member of “Flock of Seagulls”)

hope your holidays are equally yummy & fun!

so that day, we spent time getting all the fun decorating done.  i hope i’ll remember to take a pic of the tree and the ornaments clumped together.  clearly jovie was allowed  (and excited!) to help this year.  of course, it’s fun having her excited about christmas at this age.  and she’s such a rule-follower that she does in fact ignore the presents under the tree!

of course, she does keep asking if it’s friday yet (hate to break it to her that’s just the day gramma & grampa come, and actually we have to wait til Sunday for the other goodies!)  or she’ll ask if it’s christmas.  even right after we do our christmas countdown calendar we have.   so, eager- yes!

when i was getting ready to decorate the mantel, jovie helped me by doing this:

which, of course, reminded me of THIS:

mpotter circa 1978

those rags in my head were my curlers i’d sleep in (uncomfortably, but WAY better than the pink ones  that made it hard to lay down)

and after seeing this, makes me think The Mr. & I need bigger stockings, no?

enjoy these last few days of your own holiday prep!  as busy as it gets, it’s so fun to me.  and i think jovie is enjoying it too!

her words:

“mommy, i have to get older.  it’s my job.”

11/19/11

11/18/10

11/18/09

11/16/08

to which i would like to reply:  get a new job!

someone, anyone?- make it stop!

It was a quick visit, but time very well spent.  We enjoyed some nice weather, and got to go to Falls Park in downtown Greenville.  (so very nice there!)

Here, I’ll just share some pictures already!

she really wanted to pet these pigeons.

at least i remembered to take off HER sunglasses!

signature shot

and then, this year, we got to (finally!) include Jovie in our Friday tradition of eating at an Indian Buffet for lunch.  The Mr. was smart enough to let us leave to come home AFTER we ate.  it’s one of my favorite reasons for loving thanksgiving so much.

THIS is what we come for!

we also enjoyed going to a hands-on museum. (this is #3 if you’re keeping count) and it was such a blast.  coupled with the yummy diner The Mr. scoped out for lunch, we had a fabulous weekend with gramma and grampa!

a future career in cashiering just like mommy & meemaw.

we also got to share some delicious hot apple cider and (my) homemade pumpkin cookies with some friends that we see too too rarely.

november is as awesome as october!  cool temperatures, football, beautiful colors & crunchy leaves falling before your eyes……

it’s our favorite season!

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jovie is enjoying her mom’s morning out program.  she gets a kick out of being line-leader & a few weeks ago she was thrilled at getting to have a stuffed animal friend come home with her after being the snack-bringer.  we got lucky & Crush the turtle got to be a part of that whole halloween weekend fun!

i’m not exactly sure what she does on most days, though.  she already thinks she’s a teenager.  we get a lot of silence from her when she decides she doesn’t want to talk about something.  (most of the time!)

[in fact a few months ago we did a craft with some friends of ours that encourages good behavior by putting (small) buttons in a jar.  jovie has been earning "manners buttons" for general pleasant behavior & good manners.  answering a question from someone earns her a button... this shows how often she becomes a teenager!]

{by the way, the night before we left for g’ville, she FINALLY filled up that jar— she waited so patiently because i’m a stickler for rules.  she earns one button at a time for specific things i can name/recall…..  some days she earns as many as 10 +buttons.  some days as few as 3.  all depends!  but she FINALLY got to watch her first movie!  she was thrilled to spend some extra time with Clifford!}

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i just wanted to add this pic of jovie using kids’ chopsticks:

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she likes to imagine a lot.  most of the time, The Mr. & i are pretty clueless at what she means.  half the time, we wonder if she even knows.  but all of the time it’s funny to catch her talking to herself.

today was the first time she took herself seriously.  yesterday, she had decided that today would be Baby’s birthday.  and at breakfast, she remembered and we planned out baby’s 5th birthday party.  on the way home from running errands this evening, jovie then decided that Baby was in “fifteen grade”

we came home & she set up plates, etc for the friends.  we sang happy birthday to Baby who somehow has managed to bend the space/time continuum because she has surpassed jovie’s age quite easily.  (here she is, not even a year and a half ago, on jovie’s second birthday:

back when Baby was just a baby....

Yiminy thought he could come, too.

logic— it isn’t for 3 year olds.

then, that weekend was a fabulous birthday weekend for me!  it began with this:

i had an audience!

where i ran the 5k portion of the Peachtree City Classic.  it was my 4th “race” —which also was my FASTEST!  3.1 miles in 30:40!  woohooo.  i think it helped that The Mr. could cheer me on & bring Jovie to her first spectator sport.

the next day was my actual birthday, and we spent it doing this:

Then more of October came and went.  leaves fell, were raked and played in:

i promise in the pic right before, The Mr. looked a little happier to play

parties were attended (and FUN):

on the way to our friends' party!

party at school

the school party was fantastic! their hayride came complete with hay, and even though my girl didn’t want to participate in any of the games, she surprised the heck out of me by doing this:

yes. this is the same girl, who just last week wouldn’t even go see the animals up close on the farm, who decided to wait patiently! to ride a pony!  i really thought she’d end up changing her mind, and she did it all by herself.

i mean, look at that smile!

and when we came home from the party, we just had to wait a little while to meet her cousin sophia! we haven’t seen Stacey & Dave since jovie’s first trip to greenville for thanksgiving.  my, how things have changed:

somethin' tells me they don't get too many LEAVES in phoenix

on the way to the park in gramma & grampa's neighborhood

the girls really did LOVE each other! jovie was just being..... jovie and wouldn't sit next to her for a great shot

after a fun weekend in greenville, spending time with the family (even Uncle Nate flew down from boston!), we came home on halloween to do this:

so yeah….. october is done.  and november will be just as fun……

PS- my cute little kittycat has a tail for her costume. seems i could never get a great shot of her from that view.

we went to a local farm and she enjoyed herself.  she surprised me a little, and surprised me not at all a little too.

we rode a hayride. (this one complete with hay) and the cows came really close to us- she didn’t mind that so much.  watching the other animals through fences- neh, not interested.  (except the bunnies):

we walked through a corn maze:

i (finally) convinced her to jump on the GIANT pillow-thing.  then i convinced her to do it again so i was able to get some great pictures!**

Y'all- that's AIR! under her FEET!

she also rode a “cow train” and she didn’t need me to go with her!  so i was able to take more great pictures:

she picked a tiny pumpkin (the tiniest one she could find, of course) & ran through some flowers.  she saw animals up close, far away, & being silly:

sure, they swim. but do they FLY?

and even ate ice cream….. before lunch!

i think her favorite part of the day was when we came back & had lunch with DADDDDDYYYYYYY!!!!!!!

it was a great day!

**her therapists (both PT & OT) would be amazed with the fact that she was able to jump with so much force, and knees bent.  we work on this constantly!  i’m still amazed when i see her jump.  it’s still a relatively new skill.  now i try to get her to jump forward- and this picture i think was a forward-moving jump. so WOOHOO for her!