Good News

We got some great news today. My sister, Rachel, is having a girl! It's exciting that Mia will have two cousins so close in age to her. Rachel's baby is due in July, and my brother, Tyler, and his wife, Shawnna, are expecting a little boy next month. Happy news!

Rockin' the Minnie Mouse hoodie. Love the ears!

Mia loves her sunglasses. She randomly picks them up and wants to wear them around. She just ate dinner here, so her shirt is a mess!

Seeing Life Through Rose-Colored Glasses

I didn't realize until later that my last post was number 100! Woo hoo! I try to update the blog fairly regularly, but it's been pretty quiet this week. After the great Dallas snow storm of 2010 last week, we went shopping in Allen, TX with my mom and sister. We found some amazing deals! One of my purchases was a pair of sunglasses for Mia. She won't leave them on her face, but she enjoys carrying them around for some reason.

Mia hasn't really had a definitive first word yet. I'm waiting for her to look at something and call it by name without any prompting. That is when I will consider her blabbing a first word. However, she did learn "uh-oh" last weekend. Not a real word. Doesn't count. Anyway, it's really cute because she says it all of the time. Whether she drops something by accident or throws it in the floor on purpose, it is followed by a long string of "uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh". I was feeling lucky, so I tried to get her to say "uh-oh, spaghetti-o!" She replied, " uh-oh, da da da-o!" She cracks me up.

Nana came down Thursday to see us. We let Mia play hookey from daycare on Friday to stay home and play with Nana all day. Wesley was already off that day, but I had to work. They had a fun day together, and I brought us home Springcreek BBQ for dinner. Yum!

Mia and I had a tea party this afternoon. This involved the two of us passing the desserts and tea cups back and forth several times. After that, she wanted to play with the velcro on her shoe for about 10 minutes. Yeah, I'd call that a productive afternoon!

Historic Snow Day!!

Dallas has been getting a crazy amount of snow. Official measurements come from DFW Airport. Their total as of this morning was 12.5 INCHES OF SNOW!!! That is unreal for Dallas. The news said that yesterday goes down in the record books as the snowiest day in Dallas/Ft. Worth history. I think the last really big snow was in the 1970s with a recorded 7+ inches of snow. Our neighbors across the street made a snowman that is over 6 feet tall. They just got finished making an igloo that all three of their kids got inside at the same time. I swear I am not making this up. We will probably never see this much snow in Dallas again in our lifetimes. Dallas is not equipped to handle this amount of snow. I've heard reports of roofs of businesses collapsing under the weight of the snow. The news said that 175,000 people were without electricity this morning. One bonus of the weather is that I got a snow day from work. Yippy! That's good because yesterday I worked all day long, and a couple of the guys had to literally shovel snow out from around my car so that I could leave at the end of the day. The temperature has mostly stayed just above freezing despite all of the snow, so the roads are mainly slushy instead of icy which is a plus.

Wesley, Mia, and I went outside last night to check out the snow after I got home from work. Mia was tired after being at school all day, so she wasn't too interested in it. We didn't stay out long and came in after going to check out the neighbors' gigantic snowman. The trees were so bowed this morning that some of the limbs were touching the ground. Ever since last night, we've heard branches cracking and falling in neighbors (and our) yards. We had one huge branch and a few smaller ones fall, but no damage to report. Mia had more fun in the snow today. We held her practically all of the time, but she liked looking at it and swatting at the big snowball Daddy showed her. Wesley made a snowman, and I accessorized it. Not the most awesome snowman ever, but it's Mia's first snowman. We had to get some pictures of her with it. I also took some pictures of the depth of the snow with a ruler. I dug out a place in the front yard to show how deep it was: 11 1/2 inches! I also measured the snow on top of my Jeep: 8 inches! It wasn't as deep on the Jeep since I drove it to work and back yesterday. One of these pics shows Mia and Wesley covered in snow. He was holding her and walking under a tree when one of the branches dropped all of its snow on them! Lot of fun and great memories!

My Jeep when I walked outside after work.Look at all of the snow on top of it!
Robert and Jason taking a break from shoveling snow from around our cars.
Views from our front yard
Waving to Daddy from the porch
Deep snow in our front yard
Daddy and Mia after the tree dumped snow on them!

MOO...Yum Yum!

Mia is now completely on cow's milk! No more formula. I'm glad to lose the expense of formula, but it's another of her baby stages that she has completed. I love to watch her grow, but it goes so fast! Next on the to-do list is starting to use the sippy cup. It seems like most (if not all) of the kids in her class are using one at least once a day. Mia is the youngest in the class, but I think she is ready. It's strange for me to see her go from the oldest to the youngest, but I learn a lot from it. All of the kids wear shoes since they are mostly walking now, so Mia is getting used to wearing shoes to school, too. Sometimes she's into it, but sometimes she's just in her socks when I get there to pick her up in the afternoon. The class is having a Valentine's Day party on Friday. She and I bought some Hello Kitty valentines to give to her daycare buddies. I signed Mia up to bring bananas, grapes, and strawberries to the party. It's not the typical sugar-overload party. I think one of the parents is bringing ham and cheese sandwiches, someone is bringing veggies, juice, etc. They'll have cookies, too. That's another new love of Mia's. COOKIES! I gave her a vanilla wafer while she was waiting for me to make her dinner this evening. Then, she wanted another...then another...uh oh...I hear her crying and turn around to see that Xander has stolen her cookie and is eating it right in front of her. Big tears were rolling down Mia's face. He had not bitten her, of course. He knows just how to grab it without touching her fingers. She was just crying at the injustice of it all. First, he stole her delicious cookie. Then, he had the nerve to rub it in her face by eating it right by her! She was crushed, so I dried her tears and got the baby another cookie. Then, it was as if nothing had ever happened. She just munched on her cookie. Of course, when it was gone, she thought she needed another. Dinner was ready by that time, but she wasn't thrilled about eating sweet potatoes and edamame instead of the yummy cookies. She perked up when I gave her plums and vanilla yogurt, though. Her discovery of sugar is sure to be a challenge, but I hope she continues to eat her veggies!

Relaxing on the couch with a bottle.

1 Year 1 Week 1 Day Old

I thought Mia's age today was cool. She's taking well to being a one year old. Her walking improves every day. She jabbers and points at things when she's talking. My infant is now my walking, talking (somewhat) toddler. Mia started in her new classroom on Monday. Now that she is one year old, she has been promoted to the Infant III class. She's loving it and hasn't cried at all when I drop her off in the mornings. Today, she saw one of her Inf II teachers as we were leaving daycare. She went crazy. She wanted her teacher so bad. I'm sure that she misses them. She loves the new class as well, though. She's already fast friends with her new teachers, and she already knew a couple of the other kids. Mia isn't shy and takes to new people easily most of the time.

Within the last week, we've started transitioning Mia from formula to whole milk. She's doing well with it. She's up to one part formula to two parts whole milk. She doesn't get too upset about change if it's gradual, so I hope to have her completely off formula in the next week (or two at the most). After that, we'll start working more on the sippy cup. That's one thing that Mia isn't too crazy about. She likes her bottle. I'm going to let them start giving it to her at daycare first. I think she'll be okay with it if she sees that the other kids have one too.

We bought Mia a "big girl" car seat now that she is one year old. She gets to face forward which she enjoys. The first morning she rode in it on the way to daycare she was so quiet. I looked at her in the rearview mirror, and she was just staring at everything. I guess it was a bit of an overload. All she used to see was the back of the seat.

So far, Mia has only had her front two bottom teeth. We noticed last week that she is getting all FOUR of her front top teeth in at once. Ouch! She's been chewing on everything and drooling a lot. I like her gummy smile, but she'll be so cute with all those teeth. If only she would stop grinding them! It is such a horrible sound. Like fingernails on a chalkboard. Very cringe-worthy. I hope that stops soon. Lots of changes going on, but our little blue-eyed munchkin is doing great with everything!

Trying to check out the new car seat
Pink camo from Papaw and Nana Bev.
Under the "Born to Be Wild", it says "Bear Country, USA"