2/28/2014

Mia ate a large serving of oatmeal and ate dried cranberries for breakfast.  For lunch she ate most of ground beef, ate elbow noodles topped with shredded cheese, ate peas, and applesauce.

Here's a picture of Mia wearing dress-up clothes and walking on the "sidewalk" they all built with the big blocks.  She has on two shirts and I like how the one shirt is just draped around her neck.

This is kind of a silly picture, but Mia is in the picture.  You just can't see her!  She and Nora were in the igloo and Kenzie sat the big Panda Bear in front of the opening.  :)

Kenzie is Riley and Cooper's older sister.  She is at Little Treasures today because her Pre-School is closed.  She's been a great listener and plays so nicely with the little ones.  Mia adores her and Kenzie is very good with Mia.  Kenzie has led their play a lot this morning; dress-up clothes, building sidewalk, chasing each other around the room, and jumping off the climber together.

Mia was reading books again first thing this morning and it went like this; "Bridge is falling down, falling, Cooper baby sleeping.."  :)  ("London bridge is falling down…..baby sleeping safe and sound…")  Good job Mia.

Several weeks ago Lauralea came home early because her stomach was hurting.  Yesterday she came home early because she went into work early.  Anyhow, when she walked in early yesterday (at snack time) Mia said, "Lauralea belly hurt!"  LOL

2/27/2014

Mia ate two servings of raisin english muffin and ate blueberries for breakfast.  For lunch she ate half of her turkey sandwich, ate green beans, and ate kiwi.

The first thing Mia usually does everyday is go to the book rack and get some books.  I had all the books in a stack beside the book rack.  Mia looked at that arrangement and said, "Silly Cooper!"  Mia's favorite book in this set is "Shoo Fly."  She always sings it "Shoo fly; bother me, shoo fly; bother me!" Like she's asking it to bother her!  Then she says, "The end!"

The kids were making lots of towers and here's a picture of Mia working on her tower.  They'll work real hard for awhile and then they'll knock them over and laugh hard.  (Unless someone else tries to knock over their tower and then it's not funny!!)

It was about 10:00 this morning and Nora said, "Good morning Mia!!  Good morning!!"  Mia looked at me, totally serious and said, "Nora woke up!!"  LOL!  I love this job!!  The perspective of Toddlers!  Later I asked Mia what she did at home yesterday with Daddy.  She said, "Football!!"  :)  That may have been yesterday or two months ago.

The kids had lots of fun dot painting.  Dot painting is usually pretty calm so I decided paint shirts on the girls was unnecessary.  And of course I've never seen them paint so forcefully!  LOL!  Even Riley had paint blotches on her arm.  It was pretty funny.  Cooper (the only one with a paint shirt) painted so calmly!  So much for that strategy!

She was looking at the animals in the view-finder and I asked her what she saw; "Lion!"  I said, "Well it is a big cat, but this one has stripes."  Next answer; "Zebra!!"  Ok, that too has stripes!  :)

2/26/2014

If you're looking for Mia's Journal she is at home today.  Hopefully she'll be feeling better and back tomorrow!  :)

2/25/2014

Mia ate two servings of cinnamon roll and ate dried plums for breakfast.  For lunch she ate half of the scrambled eggs, ham, cheese, hash brown combo; ate half of her waffle and ate cantaloupe.

This picture was taken yesterday afternoon.  Nora and Mia were having lots of fun being silly and pretending to laugh.  As you can see they were tipping their heads back and doing fake laughs.  And they did it over and over.  Of course it turned into real laughs because it was funny!!  :)  I absolutely   LOVE this picture!!

The kids were having fun with the dress-up clothes and here is a picture of Mia with the rain boots on and her hat!

This is slightly gross, but I have to tell it.  I had reached across right in front of Mia's face (bad decision Gary) to wipe Cooper's nose.  Well sometimes when Mia sees me wiping someone else she will blow her nose even though I don't have a tissue on her nose.  And that is what she did; except this time my arm happened to be in the wrong place!!  And after blowing it she said, "My Nose!!"  Yes Mia, I'm fully aware that your nose needs to be wiped and so does my arm!!  :)

Nora did something to Mia and Mia told her; "Be gentle! I don't like that!"  Good job Mia!  That is exactly what I teach them to say rather than screaming at each other or retaliating!  I love catching them doing it the right way and reinforcing that behavior by telling her how proud I am of her!  The phrase I use is ; "Use your words; tell them what you want!"

2/24/2014

Mia ate kix cereal and mixed fruit for breakfast.  For lunch she ate most of hash brown casserole, ate biscuit, and mandarin oranges.

In this picture the kids are sitting on blocks and using the toy shelves for a table.  I asked them what they were eating;  Riley and Mia both said, "Gum!!"  :)

We did a toy, book, and puzzle exchange this weekend and Mia liked the ice cream food toys and looked at so many books.  She was reading lots of them aloud and I love being able to listen to them when they do that!  She was singing several too including "Hush little baby."

Nora was back from her vacation in Minnesota and Mia was being her "Mommy" this morning.  Nora was pretending to whimper and Mia held out her hands and said, "Mommy right here!!"  It was so cute and Mia really is a good little mommy to Nora or to her dolls!

We did some stickers at art today even though Mia and Cooper did that on Friday.  The stickers were new for Nora and Riley.  There are different kinds of heart stickers that didn't get here in time for Valentine's Day.  Mia accidentally ripped one of those in half and Riley thought that was sooo funny!  I was surprised Mia didn't do it again for another laugh!

2/21/2014

Mia ate half of her brown rice and ate raisins for breakfast.  For lunch she ate meat loaf, bite of french bread, ate half of her carrots, and ate apricots.

Riley is also absent today so it's just Mia and Cooper at Daycare.  Mia heard me talking to Jamie this morning on the phone and at the lunch table she said, "Riley doctor, Gary!"  Yup, she went to the Doctor.

Cooper and Mia played just fine together this morning.  He followed her around a lot; to the chair to read books, to the yellow bench to read more books, playing with the animal toys, to the mattress, and building blocks.  The building blocks presented a whole new game for these two children; there was no one else here to build so they could destroy!!  :)  They also played with the legos and Mia pulled out the legos drawer and Cooper loved that because he likes getting under the legos table.

Ok, this was sooo cute.  Mia was doing the "Itsy Bitsy Spider song" and the actions.  Cooper started copying her and they did it for several minutes.  (I had plenty of time to get the camera.)  Then - about an hour later- I was reading stories to them and one of the Nursery Rhymes was "Itsy Bitsy Spider."  And I was thinking; I wonder if he'll do it again.  And, sure enough, as soon as I started reading Cooper was doing the spider crawling motions just like in the picture below.  Good job Cooper!!  And thank you Mia for showing Cooper how to do it!

We did stickers at art time this morning.  I got a small box full of new stickers yesterday and I opened it in the Daycare room so the kids could watch.  Mia remembered that of course and asked me this morning if we were going to "Do stickers?"  :)

2/20/2014

Mia ate two servings of breakfast; cinnamon toast and grapes.  For lunch she ate half of her chicken, ate dinner roll, hash browns, and cherries.

When I'm cleaning the Daycare room I'll often stand the yellow bench on end.  This picture was taken shortly after the kids arrived this morning and Cooper and Mia saw no problem using the bench in the upright position!  Very cute.

The kids like to stand on the yellow bench to see what I'm doing on the changing table.  Mia was standing up there and Cooper decided to start pushing the bench.  She continued to hang on until he had her stretched out quite a long way.  Ok Cooper, that's probably far enough!  :)  Mia was just grinning and really didn't care.

I was reading the "special books" and I asked, "What book is this?"  First, here's an FYI - I put the "special books" back in order as I read them so it's several days (sometimes 3-4 weeks) before they see the same book again.  Ok, the book was "I'm a Little Teapot."  And Mia's answer, "Peacup!"  I laughed so hard!!  However, she was definitely on the right track!!  :)   The picture on the front of the book is a teapot and a cup.

Mia has been asking about Nora and I always give her the same answer.  So now she's been saying, "Nora on airplane; see Grandma and Papa!"

She was reading a book this morning and singing, "Pussy cat pussy cat, where have you been?"  Except the book was about a turtle.  :)

2/19/2014

Mia ate two servings of breakfast; whole wheat bagel and peaches.  For lunch she ate half of her ham, ate mac-n-cheese, bites of lettuce salad, and ate her corn.

At the lunch table Mia was trying to sing "Miss Mary Mack Mack Mack" between every bite she took. (Which was quite impressive because she wastes no time between bites!)  Riley had the cutest amused look on her face while watching Mia.  I must say it was quite entertaining!  :)

Mia spotted Riley tightening her ponytail so Mia was giving it a try.  And that too was quite entertaining as she was basically yanking on her own hair!  So I tried showing her what Riley was doing by using both hands and making it tighter.  She kept trying!!

Here's a picture of Mia reading "Baby Beluga" to her baby (on her lap) in the big box.  She absolutely loves this book and the song.  I didn't even realize I was singing "Baby Beluga" this morning too, but when I stopped Mia just kept right on singing where I left off; "Where the dolphins play.."  It was super cute.  :)  Good job Mia!

Mia played with the dolls a lot and then the food toys.  She announced, "Dinner time!!"  And then was trying to feed everyone.

2/18/2014

Mia ate two servings of waffles and ate pears for breakfast.  For lunch she ate bites of tuna, most of crackers, ate sweet potatoes, and most of her oranges.

Mia loves this "Baby Beluga" book in the picture and frequently reads and sings it.  She was bellowing it out pretty good and look at Cooper's eyes; he's watching her mouth and not looking at the pictures.

Here's a picture of Mia putting on some dress-up clothes and she has an entire selection on the floor beside her.  Riley also put on one of these headbands and then they chased each other around the room.

Mia worked hard at putting stickers on her paper at art.  She usually gets tired quite quickly of doing most art projects that we do.  But this morning she was really into it!  She did it all herself and worked until she had the entire paper covered.  She said, "More!"  I told her she had her paper covered and so she turned her paper over.  I laughed so hard!  Good thinking Mia!

Have you heard her talking about things "matching?"  It's usually certain colors or same toys, etc.  (Like the toys on the shelf behind her in the picture.)  She said, "Hey Gary!  My boots match!"  "Yup they do sweetie and it's nice to have shoes and boots that match!"  Except now I see lots of school age kids intentionally wearing mismatched socks and I see them for sale that way in the store.

Mia told Lauralea this morning; "Lauralea! You came back!"  LOL  Except you were the one gone Mia, not Lauralea.  :)

2/14/2014

Mia is going to Grandpa and Grandma's today so there is no blog for her.  Happy Valentine's Day everyone and we'll be back on Tuesday the 18th!  Little Treasures is closed on Monday for Presidents Day.

2/13/2014

Mia ate french bread and three servings of cantaloupe for breakfast.  For lunch she ate turkey slices, two servings of crescent roll, ate green beans, and two servings of mangoes.  These were canned mangoes and she obviously liked them as well as the dried ones.

This picture was taken yesterday afternoon when Cooper woke up from his nap.  Everyone had to go  greet him and then the girls started crawling back to the Daycare room.  Cooper immediately got down on the floor and started crawling too!  It was so cute and I ran to get the camera.  This is a "wee" bit staged because I asked them to slow down and give me time to take a picture.  Look at Riley's face; she's patiently waiting; and so is Nora.  Mia, on the other hand, was waiting for no one!  :)

This picture was taken right after we built a box with the big blocks.  (Which is why it's all still intact!)  They built the tall tower on the left side of the picture and look at Riley's eyes checking out the tower.  Mia's looking at her feet because she was getting ready to give everything a big shove with her legs! :) It's fun to build them and it's fun to tear them apart!

Just about every day I give my (almost) 85 year old mother a call to check on her.  She still lives alone on the same place where I grew up.  Anyhow I always put her on speaker phone and Mia says, "Hi June!" and "Bye June!"  Today Mia said, "Hi June, Hi June!  Potty June!"  Ok, Mia I will take you potty!  That cracked me up!  Mia pooped in her diaper, but went potty in the toilet two times this morning.

2/12/2014

Mia ate lots of breakfast; three servings of cinnamon toast and two servings of mixed berries.  For lunch she ate half of her ham, ate crackers, most of bean & bacon soup, and ate kiwi.

When Nora arrived she was so happy to see Mia and it was so cute.  She kept saying, "Hi Mia!"  And Mia was responding so sweetly!  I think they missed each other while Mia was home with her cold.  Now I was thinking, "Maybe I could bottle some of this kindness and use it later in the morning!"  :)  How much later?  Ohhhhh about 5 - 10 minutes!!  :)

We did a toy, book, and puzzle exchange this past weekend and Mia was thrilled to explore all the different toys.  I also bought new dolls for this set of toys as the other ones were totally worn.  And all the kids have enjoyed these dolls.  Mia wanted to immediately put on some one-piece pajamas so I took this picture of her with the pajamas and with her baby wrapped in a blanket.

Mia saw a little boy walking down the sidewalk to school and started beating on the window saying, "Kid kid kid!" trying to get his attention.  He didn't hear her thumping on the window, but it was cute.  I've posted pictures of that kid at the window looking at the Daycare children.  :)

I was finishing cleaning up from breakfast and Riley alerted me to some situation that needed attention!  She was saying (or what I was hearing), "Mia bitten, Mia bitten, Mia bitten…"  I couldn't figure it out and she tried and tried to make me understand.  And every time she'd repeat it Mia would say, "Cooper bitten, Cooper bitten."  (It's him, not me!!)  So I said (as I frequently do when I can't understand them), "Can you show me what you're saying?"  Riley looked at me like I'd lost my mind (Don't you know that would be  inappropriate Gary?) and then I finally realized she was saying, "Mia spitting, Mia spitting!"  LOL!  I laughed so hard!

2/7/2014

Mia ate two servings of kix cereal and ate mixed fruit for breakfast.  At lunch time she said she did not want to eat.  She sat with us and drank most of her milk, but she wasn't interested in eating.  Both of the Cline children are not feeling well so I'm hoping Mia isn't catching something too!

Riley and Mia played with their dolls for a long time and were using the toy shelves for baby beds.  They frequently laid in there with the dolls too.  Right before I took this picture Riley was doing "Patty Cake" with her baby and it was so cute.

I took this picture of Mia and Nora playing some kind of "store" game.  They were exchanging items in their hands and then talking about "money."  It was very cute and Riley was playing too, but didn't make it into the picture.  Cooper wasn't exactly part of the game, but rather trying to steal merchandise out of the customer's hand!  Also, they were taking turns on each side of the bench.  When Mia walked into the "store" Nora greeted her!  "HI!!"  It's sure fun watching them use dramatic play to re-enact events they have seen.  Super cute.

Shortly before going home yesterday afternoon Nora started calling Mia "Mommy" and Riley "Daddy."  And she immediately started in again as soon as she arrived this morning!  Later I was fixing Mia's hair and when I finished I said, "Ok, you're done!"  Nora yells, "Yea Mommy!"  LOL!  Mia was playing along with the whole thing; Riley, on the other hand, was not real thrilled with her designation!  Are you Nora's Daddy?  "NO!!"  :)

Everyone was watching lots of birds filling several trees across the street.  It's easy to see them in those trees with all the leaves gone!

Cooper climbed into the chair beside Mia and then pointed at the books; wanting her to read him some books or get some for him.  :)  He loves his books!  Of course he was pointing up at the special books which she can't reach, but he was satisfied with the available ones she got for him too!

2/6/2014

Mia ate two servings of breakfast: whole wheat english muffin and blueberries.  For lunch she ate chicken, crackers, sweet potatoes, and two servings of canned cherries.

Mia announced, "I go bye bye Gary!  I go work!"  So I took a picture of them all going to "work."  They were making car sounds and pretending to drive.

I was repairing a torn book and someone asked what I was doing so I said, "Fixing this book."  Then I added, "Someone wasn't being gentle with our books."  Riley immediately said, "Mia do it!"  :)  THEN, Nora gets right in Mia's face and gave her a good lecture about the meaning of "gentle!"  Geez, sorry Mia!  I was kind of sorry I mentioned it!  I guess at Toddler Camp you're automatically guilty unless you can prove otherwise!  :)

This is just an FYI for mommy and daddy.  Mia is still just using her binky for a short time in the mornings.  By 8:30 this morning she'd asked me to put her doll, doll blanket, binky, and her blanket on her cubby.

We did some dot painting and then added some stickers to our pictures too.  I encouraged them to put their stickers on places where their papers were dry (no paint) and I pointed at what I meant.  They may have understood, but Mia was slapping her stickers down and not even looking at the paper.  LOL.  That cracked me up.  Uhhh, maybe it'd help to at least look at the paper to see where you're putting them!

2/5/2014

Mia ate biscuit and three servings of peaches for breakfast.  For lunch she ate baked beans, dinner roll, peas, and pineapple.

Here's a picture of Cooper sitting in the chair with Mia reading to him.  She was yelling, "No Cooper, No!"  So I suggested she read to him and she went with it.  :)

The girls were being kind of wild and crazy while I was setting up for painting at art time.  However, everyone was having a blast and laughing hard.  And no one ended up in tears.  :)  I was watching from the gate and Riley was throwing the little animals off the mattress and Nora was pitching them back at her.  Nora was using both hands and was actually holding her own pretty well.  Then Mia joined Team Riley, but Nora continued to laugh and enjoy it!

I saw something on Mia's face and I said, "What's this?" as I was wiping it off.  And Mia said, "Goopy eye!!"  LOL  I guess she's heard that phrase a few times!  :)

Everyone was wrapping their dolls and playing with their babies.  I asked Mia; "What's your baby's name?"  Mia's answer, "Baby car seat broke!"  :)  Alrighty then!

2/4/2014

Mia ate two servings of waffles and ate hash browns for breakfast.  For lunch she ate half of her beef & cheese quesadilla, ate most of her carrots, and ate oranges.

I had to quietly and quickly move to the camera to get the next two very RARE pictures!  LOL !  I knew it wouldn't last long!  Nora was being Mia's baby and they both loving it!  So stinking cute.

And then Mia started feeding her.  I couldn't believe Nora would let Mia hold that cup over her face!  I love how Mia is gently holding her left hand on Nora's head.

Riley and Mia were doing "Row Row" on the floor.  The song was not playing on the iPod, but they got inspired to do it anyway.  Nora and Cooper were trying to cut in, but Nora agreed to teach Cooper how to "Row Row," so Riley and Mia kept at it for several minutes.

Mia played with lots of food toys and was driving the legos tractors around and around on the table bench.  She also read lots of books this morning and sang songs.  I heard her singing "Skip to my Lou" and it went like this; "lou lou kip!  lou lou kip!"  So cute.  We'd read that book yesterday so it was still fresh in her mind.  I love that!

2/3/2014

Mia ate cheerios and banana for breakfast.  For lunch she ate cheese sandwich, drank tomato soup, and ate apple slices.

Riley was wearing a cow suit so Mia wanted to put on the cow suit.  She also put on a cow mask and I asked her if I could put the cow hat on her too and she was ok with it.  For just a few seconds anyhow, but long enough to get a picture.  She left the suit on for probably 30 minutes.

Riley had to go potty right before lunch so I put her nap time diaper on her and I said, "Ok, you're good to go!"  (meaning you can head back to the big daycare room).  Mia heard that and started chanting, "Go Riley, go Riley, go Riley!"  Silly kid!!

Then Mia sat on the potty too and she got a little bit of pee out!  Yeah!!  That's the first time at Little Treasures so it was pretty cool.  She was proud of herself!

Riley and Mia were playing with the dolls and having them go "night night."  Riley looked at Mia and said, "Baby going night night!"  And she was giving Mia the "Shhhh" sign too.  So Mia started copying her and they were doing the "Shhhh" sign back-n-forth at each other.  :)