Lil Kipper

Monday nights are swim lesson nights at the Webster Y.  Mia's in the "Kipper" class and boy does that girl love her swim lessons.  She actually squeals with delight when we walk from the locker room to the pool area.  She's quite a little fish too.  Basically all we do is play games and sing songs as a way for the kiddos to get comfortable in the water.  Mia loves to splash around and does a good job of sticking her arms and legs out to swim.  Her favorite part of class is when she gets to go down the little slide into the pool.  She always has the biggest grin on her face!  

Here's a cute pic of Mia in her swimsuit from Mia's 10 month photos:

The Week in Review

It has been awhile since my last blog and the Simon Family has been quite busy.  Last weekend our friends Angela and Jay were married in Washington, MO.  Jake and I made the trip while Mia stayed with Aunt Beth and Grandma Jan.  Angela is one the girls in my dinner club.  Since Emma moved down to KY last summer, I believe this first time all 6 of us have been together.  We all had a blast at the wedding.  And I hear Miss Mia was an angel while we were away (no surprises there!)  

On Sunday, Jake played with his dad and brothers in the ZLC Golf Tourney.  They were all very excited to play since they had won 1st place in the tourney last year (which incidentally was the day of my baby shower - my how things have changed in 1 year!)  Although the guys had fun golfing, they weren't able to keep their title of reigning champs.  But they did bring home a 3rd place finish.  Go Team Simon!

 

While the guys were golfing, Mia and I hung out with Grandma Randa, Christian and Aubree. The cousins had fun playing together!

Our week was busy as usual.  Both of our jobs are pretty stressful right now.  Jake's work is very demanding as his company is preparing for reviews with the client to determine if the contract will be continued.  This means lots of late nights for Jake, but at least they have given him a laptop so he can come home and spend some time with Mia (and me!) before he has to log back on for work.  As for me, Maritz has been going through a "re-structuring" period that finally culminated on Friday.  A total of 5 people from my department were laid off.  Thankfully I was one of the lucky ones that still has a job.  Sounds like my job really won't change much - although I'm hoping maybe some of the workload can be adjusted because I have a ton on my plate right now.  At least the stress of not knowing if I would be affected by the layoffs is over.  

This weekend was another fun one for us.  Friday night found us at Shenanigans in Belleville for a surprise 30th birthday party for our friend Angie.  We had a fun time catching up with our church friends that we haven't seen in awhile.  While we were out, Uncle Scott was watching Mia.  Since he lives in Belleville, it worked out great.  We dropped Mia off at Scott's and Grandma Randa and Papa Art came over to visit.  They had fun playing.  Mia really likes Scott's guitar!  After the party, Jake and I went back to Scott's and spent the night there too.  It was nice not having to hike back over across the river that night.  

Saturday took us in an entirely different direction.  Dawn and Dave had a luau themed engagement party in Foristell.  Now that's a hike!  We were practically at Mizzou!  The party was fabulous and Mia was awesome.  She looked like an Hawaiian princess in her Hawaiian dress.  She's just too darn cute!  

Now its Sunday night and once again it feels like the weekends pass by way too fast.  Hopefully this week I'll be able to keep up with my blog better...we'll see...

A Trip to the Allergist

Today Mia had an appointment with an allergist. She's been having issues with eczema since she was about 4 months old. In addition, she's had signs of reactions with certain foods and our cat, Max. It took 2 months for us to get into the allergist, so this was a highly anticipated day!

Mia ended up having a skin test. Once again, the test bothered me more than her (just like her immunizations). Mia's test results were somewhat surprising: she's highly allergic to peanuts (which had never crossed our minds); not allergic to milk or wheat (both of which we were sure she was allergic to); and is mildly allergic to soy. The funny thing is that we had switched Mia over to a soy formula at 6 months old and her eczema eased up. A couple months ago we tried the milk-based formula again and her eczema flared up again. Could be that she's outgrown her milk allergy or that her intense peanut reaction somehow affected the soy results. At any rate, we need to avoid peanuts at all cost, but do not need to move her to a soy-free diet.

She did turn out to be allergic to Max, no surprise there, but the allergist feels that her allergies are mild enough that we don't have to go to any drastic measures such as removing Max from the house - thank goodness!!

I'm so happy that we finally were able to meet with the allergist and have a little more knowledge around her skin issues and find out about her peanut allergy! And of course, Mia was great during the appointment. In fact, she fell asleep on my lap right after the skin test and napped until we left. What an angel!

Water, Water Everywhere

Today got off to an interesting start.  It was raining pretty hard but nonetheless we were packing up to go to church in Mascoutah.  Right as we were getting ready to load up the car, (we were planning to stay the whole day so that requires diaper bag, change of clothes, extra bottles and formula, etc...) Jake noticed that the ceiling in our sunroom was leaking.  Upon further inspection, Jake informed me that the ceiling was just moments away from caving in.  What!?  So we hurriedly moved everything out of the surnroom, turned off the power to that room and then called Scott, Jake's brother, for advice.  He suggested that we drill a hole in the ceiling to let the water drain.  Good thinking!  So we decided that Mia and I would still head to Mascoutah and Jake would stay behind to work on the sunroom.  A few blocks from home I realized that the road was flooded and all the cars had to turn around.  I went the other direction and the road was closed a few blocks the other way due to flooding too.  So, I decided it would be best to just turn around and head home.  Jake was able to poke a few holes in the ceiling (no drilling required it was so soft) and about 6 gallons of water drained out.  We were able to save the ceiling from caving in but we definitely have some work ahead of us.  

Later this afternoon, the weather cleared up and we took Mia to Tilles Park.  On the way, traffic was still being diverted on Brentwood due to flooding.  It was crazy to see indicators of how high the water had risen this morning.  Once we finally got to the park, we had a great time walking around.  The water was so high there that the pond was covering part of the road through the park.  This meant that we could get right up next to the ducks, which Mia thought was so fun.  She would point at them and say "Duck!"  Okay, actually Mia likes to point at things and say "Da" so really she could have just been saying that, but we do like to think that she is a genius!  After such a crazy morning, this was a great way to end the weekend!

Here comes the Sun-deckers

Last night we went out to Sundeckers on the Landing to celebrate Lisa's birthday. Grandma Randa came over to our house to watch Miss Mia. I know both of them had fun hanging out!

Our big night out on the Landing was quite a bit different from our "old days". For instance, this time we were leaving to head home just about the time we normally left to head out. The nice part was that we missed the crowd and pretty much had the place to ourselves. I've always liked Sundeckers - pretty good food (good bbq sauce and honey mustard - what else could a girl want?) and always good music.

In addition to celebrating Lisa's birthday, we also got to celebrate with Alana and Sam on their big news that Lilah is going to be a big sister! We are so happy for them!

Bitty Baby

Tonight Jake went to the driving range to prepare for the ZLC Golf Tourney (go Team Simon!) so Mia and I enjoyed some girl time. Just recently Mia has started showing interest in her Bitty Baby, which was still in its box, so I decided tonight would be the perfect time to play with her baby doll. Mia was super excited and was all smiles when she held the baby. But the real excitement for Mia was actually the box. Take a peek at my Bitty Baby!

Hey world - I'm bloggin!

Social media - its one of those buzz words in marketing that seems to make its way into every conversation.  I've been working on launching a blog for my work, because we need to "get on board this social media train."  It started getting me thinking that maybe its time I entered the blogosphere on my own terms.  I mean, if everyone else is doing it, shouldn't I?  

Actually, along with the work nudge, I've been inspired by other friends who use their blog as a way to capture, share and preserve family stories, memories and pictures.  So I guess now along with my titles of wife, mother, daughter, sister, aunt, friend, and marketer, I can add blogger.