Dear Daughter,

Dear Mia,

Tonight, we tackled the cleaning out of your room...again.  Your room is going to be the end of me!  Right now, I am sure that your Grandma Desse and Aunt Sharmyn are laughing that I you are just like me.  I am sticking my tongue out at you two!  We can get your room clean again.  We can do this! 

We just started the cleaning tonight and we were able to get rid of:  a large bag of garbage,  a really full black garbage bag of hand me downs for friends and another black bag of donations to DI.  Great progress but shocking since we just cleaned out your room two months ago!  Where is all this stuff coming from?

We put away all of your clothes and put your shoes back on the shelves.  Your bed was stripped of all the excess blankets and you choose one teddy blankie and a soft pink blanket to sleep with.  We played a game choosing 3 items that you loved and wanted to keep, 5 items that you could throw away and 5 items that you could donate.  And Mia darling, you loved it.  You like to clean your room with me!  I know you like it clean, but, my dear,  I think that you have too much stuff that you are trying to take care of. 

I've been trying to get your room organized since the day we moved in.  Organized so you can easily take care of it.  I love for you to have toys to play with, dresses to dress up in, books to read and babies to love but those things need to be put back in their home.   This is a project that I really want to let be.  It's exhausting trying to figure out how to help you best.  I love you dearly, but maybe it's time to clean out your room entirely.  No more toys, dolls, Barbie's and dress-ups.  Just the necessities so you can have a nice, peaceful place to sleep.

Dear Mia-mine, what I am going to do with your cute self?

Loves,
Mom

Halloween 2010

I think that I forgot how to use my camera.  I got two pictures of the kids in costume and missed one child completely. 

It was cold, wet and raining cats and dogs.  Mia and Sam were not interested in pictures.  They wanted to get out trick or treating!  Even though we were soaked through, the kids had a great time and raved about how this was the best Halloween ever!

Jake went as Percy Jackson from the book series.  We sprayed his hair black, made a t-shirt that said camp half-blood and he wore a roman chest plate and carried a pen to represent the pen Riptide that Percy has that turns into a sword.

Mia insisted on a pink pirate costume from the store.  She told everyone that she was Jack Sparrow's wife.  She has a crush on him.  Him and Connor Stout.   My goodness me, you wouldn't know that she was just seven years old with how much she loves the boys.

Aunt Dee! Dee! made Sam's costume and she did an amazing job.  "The Three Amigos" is one of his favorite movies.  I love all the detail and really, he does love it, he just HATES pictures and just wanted to go trick or treating. 

Happy Halloween!! 



It's not summer unless...

There is a redneck swimming pool to play in. 

    (This is the smile I get when I tell Sam to smile! Oh boy!)

The girls, Mia and Lauren, are in their swimsuits all day long.

And Jake is trying to sell something.

(Look! Sam smile as Sammy.)

Happy Father's Day!

High Point!

Why didn't I take my camera with me to the last two comps that Mia was in? She did better and better and I was so proud of her!  We were so lucky that Sharmyn was in town and wanted to come to National's with us.  She brought her camera and got a shot of Mia in action.  How cute is her little face and body?

Two weeks after the first competition and then again at National's, Mia's team took overall high point in the Mini's division. That means that they scored the highest out of all of the teams! I am so proud of her and love to see her light up when she dances. She was super excited about the little trophies that she got. She was even more pleased with herself when I explained to her that her hard work and great dancing earned them.  You should see the trophies at school! They are taller than Mia, just about as tall as me.   I have a picture on my phone, but I'll get a better one.  I am a proud Mama of my little girl!

Here we are, exhausted, after her dance at National's.  We had slept over at Teryn's house the night before because we had to be to Provo by 7:30am.  We didn't get to sleep until way after midnight.  I didn't sleep most of the night worrying that I wouldn't wake up and be there in time.  Then up at 6am with a mad dash to get there in time to wait.  Apparently, we missed the message sent late the night before that there dances were pushed back.  Mia was supposed to dance at 8:30am but didn't dance until almost 11am.  Thank you to Sharmyn for seeing the upside in all that waiting and we enjoyed some great dancing.  I was also glad to see that I am not the only dork that cries watching the kids dance.  Sharmyn is worse than I am.  All I can think of is how hard they have worked and I am proud of them all!  Sappy, sap, sap. 

Good job my little Mia!  When we got home that day, you asked when you would be dancing again and was very disappointed that it was over but then lit up again over your upcoming recital.  I then asked you if you wanted to dance on the team again and you gave me a pouty "no" answer.  You could hardly hold your pout before you laughed and said YES!  My silly, sassy Mia.  What are we going to do with you?  Love you and kiss you and be proud of you, that's what!

Highlights of Mia's birthday

This little girl turned SEVEN!

She was super pleased with herself having a birthday.  She wore her favorite Peace t-shirt that Debbie and Fayth gave her the night before.  With her favorite skinny jeans of course! 

She invited Paige Christensen over for a little pre-birthday celebrating.  They watched a Barbie movie with popcorn, sour patch kids, candied oranges and butterscotch candy.  Her request of course.

Mama made her a special birthday banner just before the party. 

Mama was so pleased that the party was ready in time with no stressing.  She was soon proved wrong when the downstairs toilet overflowed and flooded the bathroom right when the guest got there. 

We invited the family over for her favorite dinner.  Spaghetti, garlic bread and salad of course!  Papa, Grandma Dess, Dee-Dee and Matt came to celebrate.  Grandma Sharon and Gramps weren't feeling good from their recent surgeries.   We know they missed her! 

She got a vintage play kitchen shelf that I dolld up for her from us.  She got clothes, paper dolls, make-up, a very cool rock, play food and plates and much more.  She was spoiled!  That's how I think it should be on your birthday.  Spoiling good birthday times!

 She requested brownies for desert. 

Jake, Mia and Sam played with all her new goods until way after her bedtime and our Sammy took care of the garbage.  

Of course, hugs and kisses for everyone.  This little girl had a very good birthday. 

Love you my little Milly!  MWAH!

SEVEN!

I can hardly believe that my little Mia is already SEVEN years old!!  When Jake turned seven, all I could think of was that the next year, he would be eight and be getting baptised.   I worried about it all year and missed out on enjoying it!  While I still fret about her growing up, I am trying to enjoy her now. 

Highlights of my girl:

• She loves to dance and is doing wonderful on her team!
• She's loving school now and claims that she loves to read and loves to be in school!  This is all thanks to her teacher, Ms. Bradford.  Ms. Bradford is the perfect teacher for her and Mia loves her with all her heart!
• She is so tall!  Taller than many of her cute little friends but not the tallest in the class.
• I love her big brown eyes.  She got my eye color and thankfully, not my tiny little eyes.  I think that she is incredibly beautiful.
• She has a fierce jealous streak in her.  We are working on it.
• She still loves to collect rocks.  We just cleaned her room out and I took out no less than 50 pounds of rocks.  I do not kid you.
• She does approximately 50 billion cartwheels a day.  It's her favorite thing to do.
• She still loves the monkey bars and does tricky-tricks crossing them.  I am proud of her for that because I never could do it.  To whimpy.
• Her favorite food is still spaghetti. 
• She's still willing to try a bite of any kind of food. 
• She still loves to cook and bake.
• She has lost two teeth and has one wiggly one.
• She has a crush on Connor Stout, a 12 year old!  Ahh!
• She loves "Peace" signs and draws them on everything and will pick out every single piece of clothing with the sign on them. 
• Speaking of clothes, she's obsessed with her skinny jeans that are so worn out that they have holes in the knees.  Even though I have bought her other pairs, she only likes the one. 

I could go on for pages and pages!  I am so in love with my little girl and so proud to be her mama.  I hope and pray that I can be a good mother to her and that she will learn to use her talents for good. 

Dance Competition

Mia's dance school has pretty much become a dance competition school. While I'm not so sure about having her compete, Miss Mia loves it. LOVES IT! She's a funny little one for sure. She's shy and worried about dancing in front of Gram but as soon as you put her on stage, she's in heaven!

I think that they did really good!

The little girls looks so cute in there costumes. Some of the other teams had such trashy looking outfits, hair and makeup. I don't think that little girls should have big fake eyelashes with rhinestones, huge hair extensions and open backed dance outfits.

Sleeping Beauty

It always amazes me that Mia can sleep in a bed full of junk.  She has crayons, paper, coloring books and books for entertaining herself before she goes to sleep.  She has no fewer than twenty-eight blankets and and three billion pillows.  She has dolls, her white teddy bear and clothes.  It amazes me that she can find a place to sleep in that mess! 

Lately, Mia loves to make houses.  She makes them in the clubhouse, in her closet, in the boys room, under the table, on the sofa.....you get the idea.  This night, she decided to make a house on her bed.  Here's what she came up with.  Do you see her??

Look a little closer. 

This is how I found her, fast asleep late that night.  Let's count what is in the picture.  Alrighty, deep breath.  Here goes:

1. 
   
    NINE different pillows!  Found from my bed, the family room and hers. 
2. 
   
   Three different blankets, not including the regular ol' bedding under all of this.
3. 
   
   A stack of books, papers and markers.
4. 
   
   Your favorite satchel from Dee! Dee!.  Yes, I think it's funny that you call it a satchel.
5. 
   
   Dad's old teddy bear.
6. 
   
   A baby cradle.
7. 
   
   A baby car seat.
8. 
   
   A baby doll.
9. 
   
   And of course, little Miss Mia. 

Good gracious girl!  You are hilarious!  It was so funny to me that I found you this way that I had to run and get my camera.  You slept through me taking pictures of you.  My funny, funny Sleeping Beauty.  I would say that you don't have the "Princess and Pea" sleeping problem.  Seems like you sleep with just about anything on your bed.

Mia's Dance Recital

Mia's dance recital was on January 27th.  She did AWESOME!!  We were all so proud of her.  Before the recital, Jake did a mini photo shoot of her.  He cracks me up and she, obviously, was loving it!  Check her sassy self out!  We got her the pretty pink rose. 

And then I let Jake take photos of her dancing.  He likes it and I like watching her.  I have a video of her from the dress rehearsal but I wish that I would of taken a video of her on recital night.  She really stepped it up and danced much better than the night before.  She knew all the steps and loves being on stage. 

The opening pose.  Then she starts a cute little hip shake right after this.

And the final pose.   She tried out many different options before she settled with this pose.  It's blurry, but you get the idea.

Afterwards, Grandma Sharon and Auntie Megan brought her these cute brightly colored daisies and took us all out to dinner at Crown Burger.  She loves her flowers and they are still look great after all this time. 

Mia's drawings

Mia is very much into drawing and ever since she has learned to read and spell, she is always writing love notes to everyone.    They are the best! 

Her New Year Resolution is to get better at drawing.  It's very much her.  At night, she begs to draw in her bed.  "Just one more quick sketch?" she'll try and negotiate.

She'll often draw a picture of what I am doing.  Here is the magnet board project.  She's disappointed by the lack of pink in the rest of the house.  Here, she thought that it would look good to paint the hooks board pink and blue stripes.  As always, it's from loving Mia.

Or while I am cleaning the kitchen.  Her drawings of her pictures on the fridge is my favorite part.  As is the drawing of her drawing at the table.   I have it up in a frame in the kitchen.

These little things in my life really make me happy. 

Padme

My little girl is growing up.  She wanted to be Padme.  From Star Wars.  What??  Not a princess in a fancy dress, not a cute witch, not a ballerina or a beautiful bride.   She did say that she wanted to be Repunzle so I found this best gold sparkly dress for her to wear and was sure that she would love it!  She did, until she put it on and it itched.  So Padme is was and a cute Padme she made.

Super simple costume with a old blanket wrapped like a shawl, cool hair (Thanks to Steph for the late night, hands on tutorial!), boots and some silver paper and she was set. 

Her poor bruised eye.  She had a accident on the play ground   This cute girl and her tangled up and knocked themselves down.  Mia took one for the team.  We kept telling her it was perfect a battle wound to go with her costume.

When asked why she liked Padme so much, she replied "Because she gets married and has twin babies."  She's still a romantic girly girl! 

Pumpkin Patch

We went on a pumpkin hunt to find our perfect pumpkins. 

The children searched long and wide to find their perfect pumpkins.

Oooo, this one is just right for Jake.  So heavy, but determined to make it his.

He placed it in the cart next to Sammy's perfect pumpkin. 

Then Mia found her perfect pumpkin.

And into the cart it went.

Along the way, we picked up this cute little pumpkin.  He sure was a keeper!

Then off to the hay maze to have some fun.  Jake followed them making videos so long, my memory card filled up. 

And of course, the obligatory photo op even though the sun was in their eyes....

And the trip to the pumpkin patch was done and of course, we are eagerly planning our trip next year.

Pretty, pretty ballerina

It was his idea.

He thoroughly enjoyed dance class with her.

(And art class before that. Note the blue nose and the colored pencils everywhere.)

The boy can't help that he just wants to dance!

I thoroughly enjoyed his moves and his little boy undies peaking out.

Pretty, pretty ballerina.