Our Goofy Two-Year-Old

I wanted to document a couple of funny things that Jovi has said lately. Since this is the one of the only places that I document things….I hope you’ll excuse my indulgence.

One of my favorite things that Jovi said lately is when it’s getting late, and she doesn’t want to go to bed. She combines two expressions and says, “I want to play a little minute.” (a little bit and a minute).

About a month ago, we had some music playing. I gave Jill a hug and then started slow dancing to the music in our living room. Jovi walked in and said, “Ahhhh, cute.” We busted out laughing. We couldn't believe our two-year-old daughter just called us “cute.”

Jovi is beginning to imagine a number of things. She started talking about her friends "Peeky, and Poka" the other day. I have no idea where she came up with these two, but apparently they are her friends who live in her bedroom with her.

Sisters

Ready for March Madness

A Sign of Things to Come

Jill’s sister’s wedding was on Saturday, and she and Jovi were in the wedding. I couldn’t help but think while watching Jovi come down the center aisle that perhaps this is foreshadowing of some sad yet joyful day not so many years from now. Anyway, both my girls did great. Weddings are always fun. Here’s the quick video I took before grabbing Jovi as she made it up to me in the front of the church:

Hard Time Keeping Up

Hello Folks,
Well as you can see, I'm having a hard time keeping up on my blog. Everytime I read a book or see a movie, I think, I ought to write something about that, but it just doesn't seem to happen. This has been low on my priority list lately. So, I do at least try to remember to post on Jovi's progress every now and then.
We recently got a video camera, so here's my 1st attempt at posting a video from it. We celebrated Christmas a few days late with my family back in Ohio. Jovi was modeling her "silly smile" in which she crinkles her nose really big. It's lots of entertainment for Jill and I.

Halloween

Jovi was ladybug for Halloween. Jill made the costume, and it looks like it will fit her for the next 3 or 4 years. The night she first put it on, she was pretty proud of herself. We had music on, and she started doing her latest Jovi-dance. See the video below. Lately she’s also found it very amusing to stick an ice-cream bucket on her head and walk around….strange kid…gets it from her mom.

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Mmmmm

Our Vain Child

Jovi is going through a stage in which she whines a lot more than she used to when she doesn’t get her way. She wants her mama most of the time, and it’s been harder to keep her happy and entertained. Her fussiness is partly due to her going through the weaning process….and partly due to the fact that she’s a girl. I recently discovered that she loves watching these videos of herself, so I’m posting them in order to keep her occupied. Every time she watches one, she gives me her sign for “more.” Jill is working tomorrow, so I may find myself sitting at the computer with our vain little girl.

She's learning her body parts but does much better when there is no camera pointed at her.

She's also learned a few animal sounds. The cow sound is getting pretty close to "moo." The sheep clears its throat rather than saying "ba ba." The lion used to growl, but now the lion just says "mama."

Having fun with her favorite person.

Learning to Walk

Sorry for posting so rarely. We've been gone for almost half of June and had VBS another week. I'll try to keep up a little more often the second half of the summer.

Jovi is learning to walk as you can see in the video. She's still too much of a chicken to venture off on her own. She's only brave enough to try if someone is waiting for her to catch her.

She continues to be a tiny little thing. At her last doctor's appointment (12 and 1/2 months) she weighed in at 15.3 pounts.

1st Birthday

It's hard to believe that Jovi is one year old. We had a little party for her with a few friends over, and Jill made this sweet duck birthday cake.

First Taste

After the Party

Waving goodbye to her friends.

Trying on the new clothes.

Dance, Dance, Dance

On Jill’s birthday, my brother got her the largest birthday card I’ve ever seen. When you open it, it plays the “Peanuts” theme song. We’ve gotten more use out of this birthday card than any card in the history of greeting cards. It sits under Jovi’s crib, and she likes to get it out every week and have a dance party.

I Win

I can turn just about anything into a competition. Not long after Jovi was born, I would always tell her, “Say Dada.” Of course, Jill would always tell her, “Say Mama.” While I certainly know that Jovi love her Mom more than her Dad, I at least won the battle for the first word.

Bustin' a Move

Home Alone

Jill went off to a women’s retreat this weekend, leaving Jovi and I to fend for ourselves at home for three days. Surprisingly it has gone really well. Jovi’s been a good girl for me. But, we are looking forward to having Jill back later this afternoon.

Here’s a quick video to show the latest of Jovi in action. And I know what you’re wondering, are those Tristan’s famous chicken legs in the video? Yep, that’s them. I wanted to have my producer photo-shop me some big bulging calf muscles, but due to budget cuts at our production studio, we had to stick with the raw footage.

Latest on Jovi

They say that weight training works because it stresses out muscles and breaks them down. Then when your muscles get rest and protein, they recover and become stronger than they were before you worked them out.

I think our stressful travel must have been the equivalent of weight training for Jovi’s mind and development. When headed out on Christmas, she was able to roll over and only in one direction. Now, just in the past few weeks, she has gone from rolling, to crawling, to pulling herself up into a standing position. I figure that if we take her on few more stressful trips, we can probably get her walking, talking, and maybe even writing my sermons for me by next year.

The Trip from Hades

It’s been quite some time since I last touched base with the blogging world. Forgive my absenteeism. Jill, Jovi, and I were traveling over the holidays. We returned home for one week before heading out again for meetings with my denomination in Ohio. The last couple of weeks I feel like we’re just trying to catch up with work at the church and around the house, so my blogging has been on the back burner. But, it is good to be home.

Do you ever feel like God is just messing with ya? I’ve never really thought this, but by the end of our trip, I was beginning to wonder. We headed out Christmas morning to fly to Minnesota for few days to celebrate with Jill’s family. Our first flight was canceled. We showed up at the airport for the next available flight, and it was delayed for about 3 hours. We finally boarded the plane and took off. We landed in Chicago and were supposed to have a brief layover, but they didn’t have any gates open for us to get off of the plane, so we sat on the runway for over an hour, causing us to miss our connecting flight. We hung in Chicago for quite some time....our next flight was delayed, but eventually we finally made it to MN.

While in MN Jovi got sick and pretty much hated everybody but her mom for those few days. The following Tuesday morning we got in the car to drive from Jill’s parent’s house to the Twin Cities to catch our flight home. We set out really early because it was snowing hard. A drive that normally takes about 2 ½ to 3 hours took us about 5 ½ hours. We were stopped for over an hour at one point because of an accident. We finally arrived and stood in line for over an hour waiting to get our ticket. All the flights were delayed. Eventually we boarded the plane at about 8 pm. After boarding the plane we sat on the plane for over an hour before taking off….familiar story. Remember all of this was with a 6 month old baby! We finally got to Chicago. Our next flight was delayed again (making it a perfect 4 out of 4 for delays). We tried to drive to see my parents in Ohio, but the snowy roads nearly killed us, so we eventually stopped at 2:30 in the morning. What a nightmare!

So, what did I learn from all of this? 1) While part of me wants to say a big “Bah Humbug” to ever traveling again over the holidays, I came to realize that my experience this Christmas was much more an authentic representation of the first Christmas than my usual Christmas rituals. Rather than waking up Christmas morning to a big breakfast with family, laughing together, opening presents, and celebrating, this Christmas I was stressed, traveling, dealing with circumstances that were beyond my control, and trying to appease a crying, tired baby. I can imagine that Joseph must have felt the same way about the Roman government forcing him to travel to Bethlehem with his pregnant wife as I did about the airlines this Christmas.

2) True joy is most apparent in the midst of suffering. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that we really “suffered” on this trip, but the lack of sleep, the stress, the crying kid, the bad weather, and all the delays can certainly steal one’s Christmas spirit. After our second miserable day of traveling, while we were sitting on the plane on the runway, most people’s tempers were getting hot. You could hear people on the plane rustling in their seats, complaining to one another, and being very short with the flight-attendants. I was just like everybody else, getting very frustrated, but then I prayed and God spoke to my heart and reminded me how blessed I was. In that moment I couldn’t help but smile. I began to think that God was just messing with me this whole trip, like some cosmic practical joke, and it made me laugh. I realized that joy is so much deeper than our circumstances. I chatted and joked with the flight-attendant and let her hold Jovi. Jovi eventually started crying, and the flight-attendant asked me what’s wrong with her. I said, “She hates your airline,” and the people in our section all started laughing. Things really weren’t that bad. I don’t want to be happy; I want to have joy

The First Supper

Last meals can be pretty important. I think it must be one of the highlights of the whole death-row experience. Jesus had a pretty important last supper with his disciples, but I've never given much thought on first meals. Well, here's Jovi's first experience eating solid foods (if you can call them solid). Anyway, she's doing a pretty good job with it. You can tell that she enjoys it by the death grip she gets on that spoon.

A Brisk Fall Walk

I'm getting excited for the time that Jovi can actually do more than crying, eating, sleeping, pooping, laughing, and the latest...rolling over (but only onto her belly, then she's stuck and begins to crying again). I try to do stuff with her all the time, but she never really seems to be to interested. So, I took her for a walk yesterday, and I think you can tell by the expression on her face that she was pretty excited about it. It's gotten much colder here the past week or two so we bundled up and hiked around for about 1.5 miles. She did pretty well. She didn't cry at all. She didn't do much of anything....just chilled with her daddy. One day I hope she enjoys it.