M1A

For Mia's 1st birthday, we had a birthday party at Uncle Terry and Aunt Beth's house. We were blessed to have lots of family and friends be able to celebrate this milestone with us. It turned out to be a wonderful day and a fun party!

Mia's highlight from the day: playing in the bouncy with Annaliese and Lilah. Thanks to Uncle Scott for bringing this over!

Mommy & Daddy's highlight from the day: singing the "Baby Mia" lyrics Jake wrote to the Mamma Mia song that Scott played on his guitar.


By the way, when a marketing girl marries a graphics boy, it should be no surprise that a logo is involved.


Other fun pics from the day:

Happy Birthday Mia!

Yesterday was Mia's 1st birthday! Its hard to believe that a year has past already. And what a fun and eventful year it has been. Mia is such a joy to us and we are thankful every day that we've been blessed with such a wonderful and amazing little girl.

Mia's birthday party was yesterday afternoon and I'll be sure to blog on that and include lots of pictures. For this blog, I want it to be a special one, capturing Mia at this point in time. We all know how fast time goes and how you think you'll remember everything, but as days go by some things are fleeting. So, this post is all things Mia...

At 12 months old, Mia can:
-clap
-wave hi and bye
-baby sign "more" and "all done"
-point to the things she wants
-climb up the stairs
-give someone 5
-raise arms on "so big"
-clap along with patty cakes & "happy and you know it" song
-stand up and cruise along furniture
-can walk when you hold her hands
(*Mia took her 1st real step on her birthday!)
-raise her arms up when she wants to be picked up
-go get daddy when asked
-give hugs

Mia's favorites:
Food: hot dogs, cheese slices, mandarin oranges, black olives, deli turkey meat
Songs: "If you're happy & you know it," "Wheels on the Bus," "ABCs"
Toys: books, rings, ball, shapes, baby dolls, remote controls and cell phones
Activities: being chased and then tickled, tickle bug, riding on shoulders, going upside down, playing peek-a-boo
Books: "Who loves you baby," "Peek-a-Zoo," "Squishy Turtle"

Mia can say:
-hi, bye, mom, da-da, ball, ba ba, more and mum mum

Other fun stuff:
-Mia is a climber! She loves to climb up on everything - which scares mom & dad!
-Mia is a snuggler. She loves to sit on laps, cuddle and give lots of hugs.
-Mia has 4 teeth. Two more are peeking through on the top and 1 more on the bottom.
-Mia loves shoes!
-Mia loves her pacifier.
-She wears size 12-18 mos clothes and is about to move into size 4 shoes
-Mia loves other kids and loves to watch them.
-She likes the slide the best at the park.
-Mia takes 2 naps a day: usually 9:30-10:30 and 1:00-3:00
-Mia's bedtime is 8:30
-In a crowd, Mia is sometimes shy and sometimes a big flirt!
-Mia likes bathtime, but her favorite is at the end when we do "baby burrito" and wrap up in the towel
-Mia likes blues music!
-Mia likes to watch and then try to do it herself
-Mia is a happy little girl and full of smiles!

ZLC Fall Festival

Last Sunday, ZLC hosted a Fall Festival, complete with games, activities, and a big bouncy house. Mia loved the train ride and had an absolute blast in the bouncy house! Both sets of Grandparents were able to join us and enjoy this perfect fall day. We hope that this becomes an annual event. Here's a few of our favorite pics.

Mia checking out the bouncy house.


The bouncy house is so much fun!



Daddy and Mia on the train ride. Choo Choo!


The Cousins: Lilah, Mia and Annaliese


Kisses for Annaliese!


The Simon Family

The Best Sound...EVER!

Awhile ago I had blogged about Mia and her Bitty Baby. "Baby" has become one of Mia's favorite toys. A couple weeks ago, we shot this video of Mia and her baby...it's sure to make you smile! :)

Parents as Teachers

Last night Amy, our Parent Educator from Parents as Teachers, came over to visit with us and play with/observe Mia. Parents as Teachers is an awesome organization that is based upon giving parents tools and resources to enable their child's development.  We heard about the Parents as Teachers organization through our Lamaze class and signed up right away.  It is free to join and as a member you receive 4 home visits per calendar year from a parent educator.  All that is required is that we attend 1 group event per year - and there are over a dozen events to choose from, including family events and lectures on parenting topics.  The program starts prenatal and lasts until the child enters kindergarten.  As you can see, I am a huge fan of this program!  

We always look forward to our visits with Amy.  She always brings an activity that we can do with Mia.  Last night we worked on shapes.  Amy has great suggestions on toys that you can make at home using household items.  For instance, Mia loved trying to get the clothespin into the Gatorade bottle.  Ingenious - fun for Mia, easy for us and basically free!  

Bowl-a-rama

On Friday night, we went out to celebrate Toni's birthday. The birthday girl's choice - Bowling at Saratoga Lanes. Saratoga is an old-school bowling alley where you actually have to keep score by hand. No electronic scoring here! (Thank goodness for high school PE!)  And even though I started out bowling like a champ, I couldn't quite break a triple digit score.  Good times!

While we were hanging at the bowling alley, Mia was home with a new babysitter.  Well, actually Miss Laura is not someone who is new to Mia, but it was the first time she was at her house.  Miss Laura is one of Mia's teachers from daycare.  She's great and Mia loves her.  I think the two of them enjoyed the extra bonding time.  We are so happy to find a babysitter close by, and one that we know Mia loves too.  

The Bump Report

Today when I went to pick up Mia, the first thing I noticed was Mia's teacher giving me a sheepish look.  And then Mia turned her head towards me and I understood why.  She has a big purple bump on the left side of her forehead.  Poor little girl!  It looks so painful, but apparently Mia handled it like a trooper.  They were outside on the playground and Mia was climbing on the picnic table.  Miss Laura told Mia that she needed to sit down because she kept trying to climb onto the table.  Mia doesn't like to be told "No" and can sometimes be dramatic...so instead of sitting down, she flung herself off the table and her forehead connected right on the motorcycle riding toy.  Mia really didn't seem to be affected by it.  Her bump report (1st one ever, I might add) said that they treated her with ice and lots of TLC.  I love that they put that on there!  I know accidents happen, especially with toddlers just learning to walk, so I'm sure this is just the beginning.  

Work Day - Play Day

In an earlier post I had written about our ceiling in our sunroom leaking. Today Scott came over to help Jake work on replacing the ceiling. Of course as with every home project we've encountered, once you start to fix one thing, it leads to many more things that need to be fixed. In this instance, once the drywall was removed in the area that had been leaking, we found that this drywall was actually on top of another ceiling and that this ceiling had mold. So now the ceiling, sub-ceiling and insulation for the entire sunroom has to be removed. Before they guys tackled this, they went up on the roof to find the point of entry for the water. What they found up there is that the water was not entering from a hole in the rough, as we had expected, but actually through a rotted area near the gutter. To fix this, they guys removed the gutter, replaced a 2x4, added flashing, reinstalled the gutter and then added gutter covers. They also were able to add an extra downspout on the other gutter which has been causing us problems since we moved in. Hopefully this will make a big difference the next time it rains. We are so thankful that Scott was able to come over and spend the entire day with us. And he's volunteered to come back tomorrow to continue working on the sunroom ceiling. What an awesome brother!

While the guys were busy working on all of this, Mia and I pretty much played all day.  I had so much fun hanging out with her! In the morning we pretty much stayed upstairs so that we were out of the guys way. It was such a beautiful day, we decided to go for a walk after lunch. We went to the park and Mia had a blast going down the slide, riding on the merry-go-round and swinging. A few weeks ago, Mia didn't like the swing, but today she thought it was fun. We played for quite awhile and I don't think she ever would have wanted to leave. She absolutely did not want to get back in her stroller!

Papa Art and Grandma Randa came over in the early evening and visited with us while Jake and Scott finished up. Then we all went to Sweet Tomatoes for dinner. That was my first time there and it was quite a different place. Its a buffet restaurant, but the weird part is that you go through the salad line first before you pay. Its confusing and I just couldn't figure out why you didn't just pay at the front - like every other buffet restaurant?  Mia was a good eater - no surprise there.  Some of her favorites tonight were chicken, peas, black olives and ice cream.  Her list of dislikes is quite small, but we did find out tonight that she doesn't like pickles.  So I guess that makes her list of dislikes up to 2:  pickles and lemons!

Happy Birthday Grandma!

Yesterday was Grandma Jan's birthday. We were able to celebrate with her on Tuesday night at Beth & Terry's. Of course, Mia was the entertainment for us that evening. She was in a great mood and was having fun crawling around and climbing up and down the stairs. Probably the cutest thing was when she would see a pillow on the floor and go lay her head down on it like she was going to sleep. What a cutie!

There's another October 1 birthday that I need to mention - happy birthday Toni Jo!