Green Table

It got down into the 40s at night while we were camping.  I'd packed fleece pj's and such for Mia, so she stayed warm, even flinging off blankets at night.  During the day, it would get around the mid 80s, so it was quite a temperature difference.  That's the desert for ya.  Sweatshirts in the morning and shorts by noon.  We took Mia on one of the shorter guided tours of cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde.  It was a one and a half hour ranger-guided tour of Long House.  Each set of cliff dwellings had a different name.  For that one (as with most of them), you have to hike down into a canyon to see the dwellings as the ranger tells you things about the lives of the Ancestral Puebloans.  Some of the trails were steep and many of the paths had no railings, so we had to carry Mia a good bit of the way.  She was away from home, out of her routine, and surrounded by a bunch of strangers, so she didn't behave like the little lady we had hoped she would be.  It was so neat to see the dwellings, but it was difficult to take pictures of them since I was terrified my little daredevil would scamper off the edge of a cliff.  We enjoyed the tour, but we were worried about the next day's tour.  It was a 3 1/2 hour tour of several different dwellings.  Mia's behavior had left something to be desired on the one and a half hour tour, and we didn't want to ruin anyone else's experience if she decided to have a meltdown on the long tour.  Wesley decided to stay at camp with her the next day while the rest of us went on the tour.  I love that man.  He said that it was fine and that he just wanted to make sure that I had a good time.  Isn't he sweet?  After getting back from our Long House tour that evening, Papaw made a campfire, and we roasted marshmallows for smores.   Mmmmm!  Delicious!  It was Mia's first time to have a smore.  She liked it, but she studied it like she was trying to figure out exactly what it was.

Pics from Long House dwellings

 In case you're wondering, when we got down to them, I did in fact carry Mia up those ladders.  Just call me Muscles. Lol.

 Roasting marshmallows with Daddy

 Mia's first smore - yummy!

 Needed just one more marshmallow with Papaw

Family Road Trip

We left last Friday (June 3rd) for our first major family vacation with Mia.  We were going to meet Papaw, Nana Bev, and Ryan in Albuquerque, and then drive to Colorado to go camping.  On Friday, we left after I got off of work and drove to Edmond, OK to stay with Mia's Nana for the night.  We thought driving that far would be advantageous since we were due to be in Albuquerque the next day.  Mia has become a very good traveler since we bought a DVD player for the car.  She just sits there watching Tangled, Mickey Mouse, or Hello Kitty depending on what she's in the mood for.  On Day 2, we drove to Albuquerque and met up with our family in Rio Rancho.  It was weird for Wes and I to be back there.  We haven't been back there since we moved to Texas 4 1/2 years ago.  Things had changed: new homes, new businesses, even new roads that had not existed when we lived there.  However, some things never change.  The Sandia Mountains still stood sentry over the eastern edge of the city.  Dust storms still have the ability to block out the sun.  My favorite constant: Venezia's in Rio Rancho still has some mighty tasty pizza.  We stayed the night in a hotel in Rio Rancho that wasn't too far from the house we rented in northwestern Albuquerque.  As we drove north out of town on Rio Rancho Blvd the next morning, I concluded that Albuquerque was a far better place to visit than live.  I'm from eastern Oklahoma originally, and I like grass.  Call me crazy, but the desert is not for me.  At least, not on a permanent basis.  Mia was excited to see Papaw, Nana Bev, and Ryan.  She also loved that a few desert bunny rabbits were hanging around outside our hotel after breakfast that morning.  She likes to identify animals and then imitate their noises.  Rabbits don't really make sounds distinctive only to them, so she just announced, "Bunny rabbits!"  As we crossed into Colorado, I fell in love with the state.  By the time we reached Durango, I was ready to buy a second home there.  Colorado is simply gorgeous.  We drove out to Mesa Verde National Park where we were going to camp.  Neither Wes nor I had been tent camping in years, so I had the car totally loaded down with everything we might need.  We set up camp and prepared for the next day's activities...

Mia was happy watching Perunzal and eating M&Ms

 View of the Sandia's as we drove out of town

Hairstyles

Mia's hair is finally long enough that I can get all of it into a ponytail.  That's fabulous since the weather is getting hot.  Maybe she'll stay a little cooler.  For some reason on Sunday, I was feeling ambitious in the hairstyling department.  I made a maze of connecting ponytails on Mia's little head then put hair clips on all of them.  It took me an hour to do it because she kept jumping up and running off.  Just when I would give up, she would run back to me and say, "Mommy fix my hair!"  I like how it turned out, but it will be awhile before I attempt to tackle that again!

We're still working on not standing so close to the tv, but that girl sure loves Rapunzel.

 Silly goose!

Instead of eating her hamburger, she took off the bottom bun and sat her drink on it.  At least she knows how to use coasters, right?

 

 

Fun with Zoey

Mom and Preston came down to watch Mia last weekend so that Wes and I could go to an American Cancer Society fundraiser.  They brought Zoey with them.  Mia didn't want to be parted from her all weekend.  She kept bringing Zoey toys and saying, "I sharing my toys!  Here Zoey!"  She wasn't happy when Mimi, Pa Pa, and Zoey left, but they had a lot of fun.

Reading Zoey her Stella book

Isn't she a doll?

 The girls had a tea party

 Mia definitely got out plenty of toys for Z

 I just can't get enough of this girl!

 I think Mia decided that Z needed a few more toys.

 

Wordless Wednesday: Reading with Uncle Darvey

Instead of Napping

Mia is supposed to be taking a nap right now.  She hasn't been napping much at home on the weekends lately, so I usually give her a few books when I put her in the crib.  I tell her that she needs some quiet time and to just read her books until she gets tired.  So, a few of her dolls are now lined up in the crib, and she is reading to them like her teachers do for her class at daycare.  She said to the dolls, "Do you wanna read a book? Yeah? Okay.  Everybody listen.  Everybody scoot back!"  She held the book up so that her babies could see better.  At daycare, the teacher will hold up the book and point to the front, back, and spine, so the kids all know the parts of a book.  Mia usually does that at home, too.  She points to each one and says, "The front! The back! The spine!" 

Reading a story to her dolls.  Her audience is Ann, Susie (in purple), and Edie (in green)

 

Bottom and Eve

When we read a book to Mia, she always wants to know the names of every single character in the book.  Kids' books don't usually have many characters, so that is normally easy.  However, her new favorite book is her picture Bible.  She has two different ones, and she loves them both.  It's pretty difficult to name every person on every page.  Mia definitely can't remember all of the names that we tell her.  She wants us to start at the beginning and read the whole thing.  Even a picture Bible is kind of long to read the whole way through, though.  Wesley tried to cheat by saying, "There's the sun." (Flip page)  "There are some flowers." (Flip page).  Mia stopped him and said, "No Daddy!  Read book.  Talk about it!"  So, we read a little at a time.  Mia is good at knowing who Adam and Eve are.  Adam is a little awkward for her to say, so she usually calls him "Bottom".  We're working on saying his name right.  She can always find Eve easily.  Mia finds the person with long hair and says, "That's Eve! She got's no shirt!"  It makes me laugh, but she's totally right.  That's a definitive way to pick out Eve as the only woman in the Bible that ran around without a shirt on.  Haha!  She always wants to find the baby Jesus.  She likes to say, "Ssshhh!  Baby Jesus is sleeping.  We have to be quiet ("quiet" sounds like "kai-et").  Don't wake him up!"  Then she'll point out Jesus as a man.  She always says, "That's Jesus.  He's not a baby."  For some reason, she is obsessed with the story of the paralyzed man that Jesus heals so that he can walk.  Mia gets very concerned.  She says, "His legs hurt! Oh no.  He got's an owie!"  I love that she's so interested in the Bible stories.  The whole daycare goes to chapel once a week, so she already hears some of the stories and songs there.

We all went out to breakfast yesterday to Southern Maid Donuts.  Mia loved her donut covered with sprinkles.  My ham and cheese croissant was pretty delicious, too!