It's the Holiday Season

The Christmas season has arrived!  A few weekends ago, we met up with some friends in downtown Dallas for dinner and then went to the Christmas tree lighting at the Main Street Garden.  I haven't blogged about it yet because talking about Christmas stuff before Thanksgiving just seems out of whack.  A few of Mia's friends from daycare were there, and the kids all had fun running around.  Downtown Dallas looked beautiful.  I loved seeing all of the Christmas lights and decorations.  They had a few streets blocked off, so we were just strolling down the middle of the street (not something you get to do everyday downtown).  There were fireworks when the tree was lit in the park.  The kids would have enjoyed it more except for the fact that the fireworks sounded like gunshots bouncing off all of the buildings.  Many of the kids started crying.  Mia didn't but she had that "deer caught in the headlights" look until it quieted down.  Overall, it was a lot of fun.  Hopefully, we'll get together with our friends again soon.

I had to get a picture of this as we were walking to dinner.  I love this building.

Walking down Main Street with Daddy and looking at the lights

 Red Mini Coopers decked out as Santa's reindeer

 

Shopping Buddy

A couple of weekends ago, I heard that Old Navy was having an amazing sale.  Their coats were going to be 75% off for a few hours.  I really needed a good coat for the winter.  It's been awhile since I've gotten a new one.  It's been so long that the ones I have might be out of style.  I loaded Mia in the car and drove to Old Navy to check it out.  Lo and behold, the sale was real, and I wasn't the only one who had heard about it.  There were tons of people.  I got a coat for Wesley and got myself...well...let's just say a couple of coats-no need to elaborate on how many.  Hehe!  I had forgotten the stroller but thought Mia would be fine.  I'd just grab the coats, pay for them, and leave, right?  Nope.  The checkout line was wrapped halfway around the store.  As we were standing in line, the woman in front of me turned around and commented on how many people were there.  She had secured a shopping cart with a kid's seat on it.  She didn't have any kids with her, though, and offered to let Mia ride in it as we waited in line.  I was so grateful!  I told her several times that she was a lifesaver over the course of the HOUR it took for us to make it up to the registers to checkout.  Mia was on her best behavior.  I was so proud of her!  Of course, I had to promise her some M&Ms for later, but she was good nonetheless.  I hope she still likes to shop with me when she gets older.  I can see the two of us hitting the sales when she's a teenager.

Such a good girl even though she got bored...

 ...and tired as we waited in line to checkout.

 She couldn't even finish her crackers when we got to the car.  Poor thing was wiped out!

 

Happy Birthday to Me

Today, I'm the big 2-9.  Only one year left in my twenties.  I'm not worried about turning 30 next year.  It doesn't seem like that big of a difference.  I've had a great day and even indulged in some delicious chicken nachos for lunch.  I got to see this adorable face singing to me this morning...

She sang Happy Birthday to me about five times without any prompting.  I'm not even sure if she knew that it was actually my birthday until I told her after about the third time of singing it.  I asked her how old she thought I was, and she said, "Um...two!"  I said, "I'm two-nine."  She laughed and said, "Aw, baloney!"  I kid you not.  Haha!  Wesley got me a great birthday gift...

It's a Nissan Pathfinder, and I love it!  We've been needing a new car for awhile now since his truck has been acting up, so it's great to have two reliable vehicles again.  He'll drive my Jeep now, and I'll have this!  I dearly love my Jeep, though.  I'll have to drive it sometimes so that I won't miss it too much. :)

 Ready to go for a ride in Mommy's new car after dinner last night complete with Hello Kitty house shoes and her zebra named Pete.

Thanksgiving

We spent Thanksgiving with my family this year.  I was having such a good time that I didn't take hardly any pictures.  That's okay, though.  I love taking pictures, but I don't have to chronicle every moment.  Later that evening, I went with my sister and two of my cousins to see a movie.  It's not something the four of us get to do with each other usually, so it was fun to spend time together.  After the movie, my sister went home, but my cousins weren't ready to go back.  I needed something from Wal-Mart, so we decided to run by there before we headed back.  I had neglected to remember that Wal-Mart was starting their Black Friday sales at 10pm that evening, and it was after 9:00.  I took one look at the parking lot and was fully intending to keep driving by, but I was curious to see what it was like in there on such a heavy duty shopping day.  We parked way out past the gas pumps and then made our way inside.  After walking through the store and marveling at the throngs of people ready to pounce on their merchandise, we were about to leave when I spotted a couple of things that I had already planned on buying.  Those pallets were somewhat hidden in another part of the store.  There weren't many people around there.  The girls had never participated in a Wal-Mart Black Friday and neither had I.  Thinking we were all crazy, I agreed to stay and get a couple of things.  I'd heard all of the bad stories of people getting injured and fighting over children's toys, so I was a little nervous.  I wasn't about to fight over a child's board game or a Barbie doll.  I was relieved though when we were given the go ahead from the overhead speakers, and we all calmly picked up our chosen items and walked away.  I can't vouch for anyone in the rest of the store but my fellow shoppers in our area were very polite.  The girls and I walked calmly to the registers where there was no line yet.  We paid, left the store, and were one of the first cars out of the parking lot.  It was super easy.  I really appreciated that I wasn't witness to any crazy theatrics.  Now, if we had chosen to go somewhere like Toys R Us, it might have been a different story!

Turkey Cookies

I got the bright idea the other day that Mia and I would make cookies that looked like turkeys for Thanksgiving.  I had seen a picture online, and it looked easy enough.  Mia and I went to the store last night to get all of the ingredients.  She was really excited about making "turkey cookies".  She was very well behaved at Tom Thumb where we found all but one ingredient on our list...candy corn.  I had mistakenly believed that they would still have some since it wasn't yet Thanksgiving.  However, the only holiday candy out was for Christmas.  Not willing to give up yet, we stopped at CVS on the way home to check there.  Mia and I scoured the candy aisles, but there was no candy corn.  As we were leaving I told her that it was okay.  I said that I would have to find a recipe that didn't use candy corn.  I told Mia, "I'll have to Google it."  Mia laughed and said, "That's funny!" Haha!  It had started to rain, but I made one final attempt by running in to Family Dollar.  I dug through an entire shopping cart full of leftover Halloween candy and decorations but came up empty-handed.  I was really disappointed.  I decided that I would have to figure something else out. 

Then, at work today, one of my coworkers asked me if I wanted some leftover Halloween candy.  I laughed and told her I'd kiss her if that included candy corn.  As luck would have it, she had five shopping bags full of...candy corn!  What!?!  She didn't make me follow through with the kiss offer, but she sent me home with waaaay too much candy corn.  Mia was so excited when I told her we were going to make the turkey cookies this evening.  At not quite three years old, she doesn't have a very steady hand when it comes to cookie decorating, but she was a big helper with unwrapping all of the candy.  She tried to help with the assembly of the cookies but decided that watching tv with her daddy was more interesting after awhile.  She said she's going to share them with her class at school tomorrow.  She's such a sweet kid.

Baby Words

As Mia is getting older, her vocabulary is growing at an amazing rate.  There are some words that she used to pronounce incorrectly, but even those cute baby words are being replaced by their proper pronunciations.  Most of the time I don't even correct her because those "baby words" are disappearing as my baby becomes more of a big girl.  I guess I'm still clinging to the baby days even though I love watching her learn and grow.  One of the biggies is that Mia now says Rapunzel instead of Perunzal.  However, she still calls earrings "ingers".  The remote control is a "merope", and her pink harmonica is a "wonta".  My sweet baby :)

Last Sunday we went to the Dallas Zoo.  Mia has been there at least five times before, but she always enjoys it.  As usual, she wasn't ready to leave when we headed to the car.  Every fall we have to get a picture on the rock by the meerkats, so we made sure to take that, too.

Pointing to...

 ...the elephants!

 I think it kind of freaked her out when the cheetah walked right by the window.

 

6 Years and One Little Turkey Later...

Wes and I celebrated our six year anniversary last weekend.  I still remember our wedding so clearly, and yet, so much has happened in the last six years.  We've moved a couple of times, bought a house, and had a baby.  We went to a movie together which is rare for us.  I laughed when I realized that we hadn't been to a movie together since our anniversary last year.  We had a good time.  Mia had lots of fun with the babysitter and her daughter.  Mia was worn out after they left.  She was eating some popcorn on the couch and got really quiet.  I looked over, and she was falling asleep while still holding the bowl.

Mia has been saying some funny things lately.  She wasn't paying attention to what I was telling her the other day.  I told her, "You need to listen to me.  Do you know why?"  She said, "Because you're the boss, right?"  She always knows how to make me laugh when I'm trying to be serious.  She's been learning the song Pop Goes the Weasel at daycare.  Mia's version is Pop the Wizzle.  It cracks us up!

Today was the Thanksgiving program at daycare.  Afterwards, there was a Thanksgiving lunch for all of the families.  Mia enjoyed getting to see us in the middle of the day.  Seeing her sweet face is a great way to break up the work day for me, too!

Eating a pumpkin chocolate chip muffin, my favorite fall food.  See the gorgeous roses Wes had waiting for me when I got home on Friday?

I asked her what was wrong when she made this face.  She said, "I'm happy!"  Could've fooled me.  She looks like she's about to let somebody have it.

 

Wordless Wednesday: Giraffe Dress Up