Spider Duck?

Wesley had to work a twelve hour shift today (Boo!), so Mia and I spent the day alone.  We had a great time, but we missed her daddy.  She hasn't been wanting to nap at home for the last several weeks, so I made her a deal.  If she laid down and took a nap, we would go to the park when she woke up.  Thankfully, she took a (short) nap, so I kept my end of the bargain.  Mia loved the "paygound" (playground) as always.  After awhile I asked her if she wanted to walk over to the pond and see the ducks.  "Yeah!!!" she squealed and off we went.  As we were walking, she started singing, "Spider duck! Spider duck! Spider duck!" over and over until I asked her what that was.  She pondered the question and responded with, "Easter duck! Easter duck! Easter duck!" Yeah, I don't know what it means either, but she thought it was funny.  She kept laughing each time I asked her what she was talking about.  When we left the park, she only had one skinned knee, so she left with a smile on her face.  Since Wes had to work, I decided that our girls' day should end with dinner from Sonic.  Every girls' day should end with junk food. Am I right?  Mia got to try a cherry slush for the first time.  She loved it, but whether it was too cold or too sweet, she didn't drink a whole lot of it.  Glad that Wesley is home now!

Playing on the see-saw

 She had to sit on every one of these stumps.  She would sit on one, then say "Another one!" and move to the next one.  That took awhile!

 Lovin' her very first cherry slush!

 

The Beauty of Spring

Wesley and I took Mia to the Arboretum yesterday to see all of the flowers.  The Arboretum is famous around the world for it's amazing gardens.  They designate this time of spring for Dallas Blooms which is the best time to see the flowers once they have opened.  There are thousands of tulips and many other flowers and trees.  It's just gorgeous.  We found an area there called the Texas Pioneer Adventure where they have recreated dwellings from Texas' pioneer days including a teepee, covered wagon, sod house, and many wooden buildings.  They were so cool to look at, and families are encouraged to go inside and look around.  Another fun feature of the Arboretum right now is the fairy tale castles.  They were built by local architects and are scattered around the grounds.  All of that stuff was really fun to see, but I would have gone even if it was only the flowers there.  They were so beautiful.  After awhile, you almost take for granted that you're strolling down the path surrounded by seas of dazzling colors.  Sigh.  I loved it.  One thing I didn't love, though, was that I forgot to charge the camera battery, and it died on me halfway through the Arboretum.  Thankfully, I was able to get some good pictures with my phone, too.  Mia enjoyed walking around, but she didn't cooperate very well with pictures.  You'll notice that in many of these pictures, she's looking in a different direction.  Oh well, it was lots of fun!

The rest of the pictures were taken on my phone.  I thought they turned out pretty well.

Beauty and the Beast castle

Sitting on the throne in Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters castle

 Wesley captured my face at the moment that Mia snapped off a tulip.  Oops!

 

What's For Dessert?

Mia was really excited about getting a treat after dinner this evening!

My Lucky Charm

Today is St. Patrick's Day! Mia woke up in a great mood.  She was really excited to put on her shamrock dress.  When I got her dressed she said, "Mia sooo pitty!" (pretty).  She was, too.  I  put her hair in pigtails with two green hair clippies which she calls "hair kippies".  Lately, she hasn't had a lot of patience with me taking pictures, but this morning she humored me.  When I asked her what she wanted for breakfast, she said, "Lucky Charms!"  I thought this was entirely appropriate considering it's an Irish holiday, so she ate that with her pancakes.  She was a little testy when we first got home this afternoon, but she settled down as the afternoon went on.  By bedtime, she happily laid down and said a bunch of "bye bye"s and "lub you"s.  It cracks us up that she'll say, "Mommy's turn!" and give me a kiss and hug.  Then, she'll say, "Daddy's turn!", and Daddy gets the same.  She's such a sweet girl.

My attempt at getting a picture of the two of us in our green this morning.

One of Mia's teachers tied a bunch of curly ribbon onto her pigtails.  It was quite festive!

 After much (much much) coaxing, I talked Amelia into showing me her shamrock hat that she made at daycare.

Friend Makin' Mondays: We Heart Surveys

Thought I'd try another of these surveys from Kenz at All the Weigh:

If you've taken part in FMM then you know the rules. If you're new, please take a moment to answer this week's question on your own blog then add a link at the bottom of this post so we can all see your post. The idea is to connect with other awesome bloggers so take a moment to post your own FMM post and comment on a couple of other posts.

FMM: We Heart Surveys!

1) What's your favorite brand of make-up? For powder and eyeshadow, it's Bare Minerals all the way.  I pretty much buy a different mascara every time because I can't find one that's not clumpy after a few uses.  I don't wear much lipstick.  Being a radiation therapist, I'm partial to Aquafor on my lips.  It's clear, but it's the best lip moisturizer ever.

2) What is the last thing you drank? The answer to this is almost always water, but tonight I had a Sprite. 
3) What's your favorite Girl Scout cookie? It's a tie.  Thin Mints and Samoas.

4) French Fries or Onion Rings? Definitely french fries.
5) Share something you've done in the last week that makes you proud of yourself.  Mia and I went shopping this weekend.  I was pretty proud of how well I did on the sale racks.  It's a good thing, too, because the poor girl only had three short-sleeved shirts that fit before then.  It gets warm pretty early in Texas, so we've got to be prepared!
6) What is your favorite inexpensive indulgence? Ice cream at Espumoso.  There's something special about going out for ice cream with my amazing hubby and my sweet girl after dinner.
7) Are you currently reading a book? If so, which one? Right now I'm reading The Other Queen by Phillipa Gregory.  It's a fictional account of Mary Queen of Scots.  I'm a sucker for historical fiction, and Philippa always does a great job.
8) Do you prefer to text or talk? Talk.  I'm not fast at texting.  By the time I get it typed, I could've called the person and just asked.
9) Have you ever performed on stage? Sure for high school band concerts if that counts (probaby not, ha!)  I was also in the Miss Pre-Teen America pageant in the third grade.  Memories!
10) Are you more likely to pick truth or dare? I always pick truth.  Dares are usually something silly or likely to get you in trouble!

What's in a Name?

Today is apparently Middle Name Pride Day.  They come up with the weirdest holidays.  My middle name is Marie, but there's no particular story behind it.  Mia's middle name is Korynn.  My great-grandmother's name was Corine.  I always liked it, but it's a little old fashioned.  We tweaked the spelling and altered the pronunciation a bit, but that is where Mia's middle name comes from.

Mia has turned into a little songbird lately.  She sings Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star pretty well.  She also attempts to sing the ABCs as well as The Hokey Pokey and Row, Row, Row Your Boat to name a few.  She usually ends up singing a medley of all of them at once.  Her version of Jesus Loves Me only has one line.  She sings, "Jesus lums (loves) me, too!"  I don't know why she adds the "too" onto the end, but I can't convince her that it isn't part of the song. 

One of the funniest things Mia has done lately was last Saturday.  She was refusing to take a nap.  I told her that she had to at least stay in her crib and have some quiet time so that she could rest.  I could hear her playing in the crib, but she wasn't crying.  After an hour and a half, I heard her start singing.  Every couple of minutes the singing would stop, and I would hear a thump.  A few seconds later the singing would start again followed by a thump.  After listening to this for a few minutes from the living room, I quietly walked up to her door and peaked in to see what she was up to.  She had thrown all of her blankets and stuffed animals out of her bed.  She would stand on one end of the crib singing.  Then, she would do a somersault, and her feet would thump against the other end of the crib.  I watched her do it several times before I started laughing.  She heard me, and naptime was over for that day!

Wesley took Mia's extra carseat out of his truck the other day.  She saw it by the front door and wanted to sit in it in the living room floor to watch tv.

Daddy Drive!

Mia doesn't usually mind getting out of the car.  In fact, she's usually climbing out before I can get her all of the way unbuckled.  Today, however, was different.  When she and I pulled up in front of the house, I opened my door to get out.  She said, "No Mommy! Seat!" (Seat is Mia's way of saying sit down).  I went around to get her out of the backseat, and she started to have a fit.  Wesley had seen us pull up and came out to help us with our stuff.  Mia said, "No Daddy!" Wesley asked Mia what she wanted to do.  She said, "Drive!", so Wesley went to get his keys.  Mia said to me, "Daddy keys! Glasses! (sunglasses)"  When Wesley came back to the car we all got buckled in.  We asked Mia where she wanted to go.  She said, "Ummmm, drive!"  Wesley said, "Yes, but where do you want to go?"  Mia's reply was, "Daddy, drive!"  We took off in no direction in particular.  Wesley asked Mia what she wanted to see.  Mia thought for a second and said, "Cows!"  We live in the middle of Dallas, so there isn't much livestock roaming around, you know?  Mia was disappointed until we passed a Charco Broiler with a huge fake cow on the top of the building on Jefferson Blvd.  Wesley pointed the cow out to Mia, and she seemed satisfied.  With the cow sighting accomplished, Mia drifted off to sleep.  I then remembered that her report from school had said that she never fell asleep at naptime today.  That must have been why she wanted to go for a drive!

Trying out some new shades on the way to daycare this morning.  Unfortunately, she couldn't get them on her ears correctly, but she didn't care.  She said, "Hollywood!" which is what I call her when she wears her sunglasses.

 

Mardi Gras Parade

We went to the Mardi Gras parade this afternoon.  The parade route ran a couple of blocks from our house, so we put Mia in her stroller and walked down there.  She didn't know what a parade was, but Mia was curious about what we were doing.  There were tons of people lining the street to see the parade.  She liked looking at all of the floats and people.  The sheriff and some of her deputies rode horses which Mia loved.  Many people in the parade had their dogs with them.  The dogs were decked out with Mardi Gras necklaces, too.  There were people on stilts, lots of people on bikes, vintage cars...you know, the works.  Some of the people in the parade threw candy, but most of them just threw Mardi Gras beads.  We didn't allow Mia to run around, so she just got to pick up the ones that were thrown to her.  This didn't mean that she was shorted on necklaces in any way.  No sir.  That little girl got (and I counted them) 57 Mardi Gras necklaces.  In case you think that might be a type-o, I'll spell it out...FIFTY-SEVEN necklaces.  What on earth will we do with all of them?  She couldn't even wear them all.  I ended up having to wear a lot of them just so we could carry them home.  Mia had fun, and that's always the focus of our family outings.

Daddy and Mia waiting for the parade to start

 Lots of people on bicycles were at the front of the parade

 One guy on a really tall bike

 Waving at the Girl Scouts

 The float from the church where Mia goes to daycare

Here's proof that I was there since I'm usually the one behind the camera!

This chick could hula hoop on stilts.  Now, that's impressive.

 Wearing as many of her necklaces as she possibly could!

 

Weekend at Nana's

We went this weekend to visit with Nana, Keith, and Uncle Darvey.  We got to see Nana and Keith's new house.  It's really nice, and they've already started doing upgrades to make it their own style.  They chose some great paint colors.  I love their new carpet.  It's so thick that you could sleep on it!  They have a big, gorgeous backyard with a tree house that Mia fell in love with.  She wanted to go play in the tree house every ten minutes it seemed.  Mia also had a blast riding on the tricycle that Nana and Keith bought.  She never quite got the hang of peddling it, but she scooted around pretty well and liked to ring the bell on the handlebars.  I'm sure with a little practice she'll figure it out.  She really loves to be outdoors.  We plan on working on our backyard soon so that she'll have a place to play when the weather warms up.  She played hard all weekend, and we all had a great time.  She was so worn out that she slept almost three hours on the way home on Sunday! 

Exploring the tree house

 Mia and Uncle Darvey