5/30/2014

Mia ate half of her malt-o-meal cereal and most of her raisins for breakfast.  For lunch she ate half of her ground beef, ate a large serving of shell noodles topped with shredded cheese, a taste of lettuce salad, and ate mixed fruit.  At breakfast she wanted to put her raisins in her cereal, but she remembered to ask me first.  She said, "Can I put my strawberries in here please?" as she was pointing to her cereal.  :)  Yes you can and thanks for asking.  Riley said, "Strawberries!?!"

The kids built the 'L' shaped block structure you see in the picture.  (I never touched a block!)  Nora primarily worked on the corner and Riley stretched it out in both directions.  Then Riley decided it was their swimming pool.  She said, "Ok!  Everyone line up! Get your swimsuit on!!  Get in the water!!"  :)   Riley was so focused when she was building this.  Mia was trying to get her attention and it went like this; "Help me Riley, help me!"  "I can't!"said Riley.   "You can't?" asked Mia.  "I can't!" Riley answered.  LOL

Nora was laying in the big box and Mia was the mommy.  Nora was yelling, "Help me Mommy, help me Mommy!"  Mia said, "Ok, I'm coming!"  Nora said she was cold and wanted Mia to cover her with a blanket, but Mia had used all the blankets on the dolls.  Mia said, "Ok, be careful!  I put cream on your butt!!"  LOL  I have no idea what that was about and by the look on Nora's face I think she was puzzled too!  :)

The birds have started coming to the bird feeder more often and Mia and Cooper have been watching them a lot.  They'll eat at the feeder and then fly to the fence and sit there too.  Mia said, "They so cute!"

Here are some Mia-isms from this morning:
I was wanting Nora's attention and I said, "Mia-Nora!"  Mia really laughed and said, "You said Mia-Nora!"
I yawned big and Mia said, "I tired!"  I laughed and she immediately said, "I not tired!"
Mia and I were looking at a mosquito on the outside of the window and Mia said, "Butterfly!"
She said, "I do puzzles pul-ease!"  (please with 2 syllables) She does one puzzle and said, "I don't like puzzles!"

5/29/2014

Mia ate two servings of raisin english muffin and ate blueberries for breakfast.  For lunch she ate chicken, crackers, sweet potatoes, and cherries.  Mia sat down at the lunch table and said, "Hi Riley! I Mia!"  Over and over and over!  :)

I was taking a picture of Nora laying on my lap like this and of course everyone wanted to do it.  Well, everyone except for Cooper!  He wanted to wrestle, not just lay there!  :)  Notice that Mia was wearing the Cow Suit again today.  She wore cowgirl boots with it too for awhile.

I took this picture of Mia and Cooper looking at a toy catalog.  This is what we usually do when I'm putting their food on the tray for lunch.  They love looking at these catalogs, but Cooper was starting to get distracted by something between his toes.  (Look at his right hand.)  He spent the next five minutes working on his toes.  :)  Love the haircut Cooper!  Whenever I say it's time for me to start getting lunch on the table, Mia always asks for "catalogs."

I don't know if any of you (in Missoula) heard the low flying jets this morning, but we were outside and they were loud.  Riley said, "Two Planes!!"  And they circled over the valley two or three times at a high rate of speed.

Nora was on the "phone" this morning and told Mia, "I call you Mom!....Hi Darcy!!"  (talk talk talk)  Then she said, "I call you Dad!.....Hi Matt!  You nice boy; like this!"  And she starts doing the sign language for boy.  :)  Very cute!

5/28/2014

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

Cooper was studying this poster this morning and then Mia joined him.  He was pointing at every picture when I named it; "Bear, penguins, apples, balloons, fish, etc."  When Mia joined him they were mostly concerned with "blowing" the candles on the birthday cake.  You can see a piece of it (middle picture) right between their heads.

Riley was busy working on building with the blocks again and then Mia joined her.  They were building it long instead of tall today.  (With some encouragement from me after they toppled it and slightly clipped Nora!!)  Riley was busy giving Mia instructions the entire time; "I need a little one Mia...I need a big one Mia!"  As you can see in the picture Mia was busy helping her.  You can also see that Mia is wearing the cow suit.  She put it on shortly after Mommy dropped her off and didn't take it off until after 10:00.

Here's a picture of everyone with their dump trucks this morning.  We had some little balls (you can see a piece of one in Cooper's truck) that they were all carrying in their trucks and they were racing up and down the sidewalk.  It was not easy (without posing!) getting all four in the same picture!!

Yesterday afternoon Nora (as usual) was the first one awake and after playing for awhile we picked up toys to go outside after snack.  Her and I got all the toys picked up before anyone else was awake. Later, we were playing outside and Nora randomly walked up to Mia and said, "I did You job!"  Mia just looked at her like "What???"  LOL  When we pick up the toys Mia's job is ALWAYS picking up the books.  And Nora was letting her know that she'd covered for her!  :)

5/27/2014

Mia ate most of her cheerios and ate her banana for breakfast.  She ate about half of everything at lunch: cheese sandwich, tomato soup, and apple slices.

This picture of Nora and Mia was taken last Friday afternoon, but I wanted to post it anyhow!  They were walking up and down the sidewalk holding hands and being very sweet!  Notice they are also holding identical balls in their hands.  Their temperaments are so different in just about every way, but they do manage to occasionally play together and have fun!!  :)

So this morning Nora had the doll blanket wrapped around her and informed me that "I so married!" (Still!!)  Who are you married to?  "Mia!!"  (Still)  Then Nora turned to Mia and said, "Help me Mia!"  (Wanting Mia's help getting the blanket adjusted properly!!  LOL)  So Mia takes the blanket and immediately wraps it around herself!  Nora yells, "NOOO!"   (Ya'll can make up your own relationship jokes here!!)

Here's a picture of Mia and Cooper joining forces to harass Riley's sidewalk building project, which got an immediate response from Riley.  Cooper and Mia were being silly - And Cooper threw a block and it hit Mia on the side of the head.  Mia was trying to decide if she should cry and I was getting ready to remind Cooper that we throw toys outside only.  Mia started laughing hard and of course Cooper joined her with laughing.  Silly kids!

Here's a picture of Nora pulling Mia in the wagon; or sort of in the wagon!!  Mia was hanging on like this and yelling, "Help me Riley, Help me Riley...!"  while Nora pulled her up and down the sidewalk a couple of times.  And Nora was finding it all quite humorous!

The kids were chasing a "butterfly" (actually a moth) flying around and around the yard.  All the time they were yelling, "Butterfly, butterfly, butterfly..."  It kept landing in the grass right in front of them and stayed in the yard for probably 1 - 2 minutes.  They kept running and yelling, "Catch him, catch him...get it, get...!"

5/23/2014

Mia ate oatmeal and dried cranberries for breakfast.  For lunch she ate half of ground beef, half of shell noodles topped with shredded cheese, half of peas, and ate applesauce.

Mia said (talking to Nora), "I hungry Mom, I hungry!  You hungry?"  And they headed for the table and food toys to play.  Before Nora would leave the mattress area she had to wave goodbye to sometime.  Who are you waving to?  She said, "My friend!"  Who's your friend?  "Sofia!"  (That's the name of her soon-to-be-born sister.)  :)  These next two pictures were taken when they went to play with the food toys.

Lots of these food toys are pretty realistic looking, but we haven't really spent much time identifying them.  (Ok, being partially color blind I probably shouldn't comment on how "realistic" they look!!  Maybe they are completely the wrong color, but they look good to me!)  LOL  Anyhow, both of the girls could identify the beans (green beans), corn (cob), peas, carrots, etc.  But the chicken leg in Mia's hand is her "Ice Cream Cone!"  I thought it was adorable and just left it at that!

There are two "steaks" in this picture - one in front of Mia and one sitting on a yellow pan.  The girls called those "Hot Dogs."  And Nora also called the chicken legs/thighs her "pizza!"  :)  Mia was proud of herself for handing some food toys to Nora and said, "I give it to Nora, Gary; that's nice!"  She congratulated herself - kind of like a self-serve!  :)

Nora and Mia were playing with the dolls together in the big chair and the first thing Mia did was "introduce" each of them.  She said, "Hi! My name is Mia; this is Nora; and this is You!"  LOL  Then Nora said, "You're not tired!  You're awake!"  And she covered the baby with a blanket.  "You're cold!"

I guess Nora was impressed with how good Mia was pedaling up and down the sidewalk.  She said, "Look!  Mia pedaling!!"  And she really was doing a great job.  She's already going much faster than she was yesterday.

5/22/2014

Mia ate raisin english muffin and blueberries for breakfast.  For lunch she had bites of turkey sandwich, bites of green beans, and ate all of her plums.  I bought some canned plums (prunes) and then I had to pit them so it wasn't the most appealing dish when I was through!  Nora looked at them and asked, "What are these?!"  However, Mia and Nora both ate all of their serving.

Here's a picture of the first project of the day - Mia stacking pans.  She read lots of books, played with the food toys, the babies, and she was being a "puppy" again.  The girls were also jumping on the mattress and singing some songs about "butterflies" and other various things.  It was super cute - they were just making up songs and words.

Nora and Mia played with the sidewalk chalk outside and stayed on task for probably 20 minutes or more.  And that's longer than they usually do.  I took this picture in the early stages and then it kind of evolved into a "racing" game too.  (Toddler version of "racing!")  Mia was saying, "I gonna race you, I gonna race you! - I race you Nora!!"  (I wonder if Daddy is a Track Coach?)  But they were always running at different times, or in opposite directions.  (They were "racing" to the gate with one piece of chalk, then coming back for a different piece of chalk.)  Sometimes they'd meet on the sidewalk, say "Hi!," and keep on "racing."  They were getting some awesome exercise and I never did suggest that they could take the bag of chalk down to the gate with them!  I have no idea how many back-n-forth trips they made.  :)

Mia has occasionally tried to pedal the bikes, but she'd much rather just use her feet to propel herself along; she can go WAY faster doing that!  Well this morning she totally mastered the pedaling thing! I'm not sure exactly why, but somethings things will just click and it's a done deal.  There was one thing different and I don't know if it was part of the deal, but....when she was running up and down the sidewalk "racing" she ran out of her flip-flops several times and finally we just sat them aside and she was running barefoot.  When she got on the bike barefoot she was really looking at the pedal and how it was feeling under her foot.  Anyhow, we'll "show-off" the pedaling skills when you arrive!

5/21/2014

Mia ate two servings of jelly toast and ate mangoes for breakfast.  For lunch she ate beef & bean burrito, sweet potatoes, and two servings of tropical fruit.

Just an FYI in case you see some bruising around her left eye.  (I've haven't seen any yet.)  She was returning from the bathroom and ran right into the gate.  (While looking in the other direction - and she almost did it again later!)

This picture of "Puppy Mia" basically tells the story of the game Mia and Nora played for most of the morning.  Mia was the puppy and Nora was Mommy.  Nora said, "That my puppy!"  Several times I heard Mia say, "I want my bone Mommy!"  Mia was crawling around on her hands and knees panting with her tongue hanging out, and spinning in circles.  I kept thinking; that's probably what Titan does! Oh yes, I even heard Nora say, "I put your leash on!"  :)  Nora was a pretty good Mommy (my opinion!) because she kept putting "candy and ice cream" in the puppy bowl!

This is a picture of "Puppy Mia" taking a nap.  I like how she has her eyes closed and you can tell by the shape of her mouth that she was doing some major pretend snoring!  :)   Also, this picture shows Mia's shirt and Nora studied it closely this morning and said to Mia, "I like your shirt!"

Outside they played with the wagons (Nora pulling Mia), the balls, pushing the dump trucks, and on the climbers.  Nora likes this geo-climber, but gets nervous when someone joins her.  She was hanging upside-down and then asked Mia, "You want a turn?"  And here's a picture of Mia.

5/20/2014

Mia ate most of her cinnamon roll and had a bite of dried plums for breakfast.  She was in a hurry to finish breakfast because Kenzie was here this morning and Mia wanted to go play!  For lunch she ate half of scrambled eggs and hash brown combo, half of her waffle, and ate cantaloupe.

Mia saw Kenzie (Kenzie was here this morning and all the Cline kids left right after lunch for the farm and will be back after Memorial Day.) holding Nora's hand and helping her walk on top of the block sidewalk.  So Mia started yelling, "Help me Cooper, help me!"  Then she grabs his hand and starts racing in circles with him.  Silly girl!  Cooper was loving it of course.  He can totally keep up with the girls and is very coordinated.  He gets lots of practice with Kenzie at home.

Mia worked hard trying to put the cow suit on and I helped her when she was stuck.  She really didn't like it very much, but she wanted it on because Kenzie was wearing one!  :)

Mia was whipping her head back and forth and her hair (ponytail) was flying around.  It was totally bugging Nora and she yelled, "I don't like that game!!"  LOL

Mia heard me tell Cooper that he did an amazing job stacking the wooden blocks outside.  She looked at his tower and said, "That's ameeeezing!"  Then we moved on to play in the sand table.  Mia only played for a couple of minutes and was bored and started putting sand in her mouth.  So I had her go play elsewhere in the yard.  She was doing everything she could think of to get the other kid's attention! "Look at me guys!  Look at me guys!"  Next she brought the wagon over and said, "Everybody pull me!!  Next she was on the geo-climber and yelling, "Geo-climber, geo-climber!

5/19/2014

Mia ate kix cereal and mixed fruit for breakfast.  For lunch she ate ham sandwich, peas, and two servings of mandarin oranges.  (Auto correct just made it organs instead of oranges - Yuk!)   :)

We did a toy, book, and puzzle exchange this weekend so there were lots of things for Mia to explore.  Everyone had fun playing on the rocking horses and when I took this picture of Mia on the rocking horse she was saying, "Where you going horsey?"  :)

Actually, Mia sometimes enjoys running and being crazy more than any toys!  She was laying in the middle of the building blocks flailing around (similar to doing "snow angels"!) and saying, "I swimming, I swimming!"  LOL

I took this picture of her engaged with the food toys and filling this bowl full of goodies.  She also had the little barn (sitting beside her) full of food toys.

Last week and again this morning Nora has been wrapping the doll blankets around her like a shawl. Then she's been saying, "I married, I married."  I asked her who she was married to and the answer is always "Mia."  She started doing it again today, except she was adding "so" to the statement; "I so married, I so married!"  LOL  Who are you married to?  And again the answer was "Mia!"  I'm not sure if Mia is aware if this development!

5/16/2014

Mia ate brown rice and raisins for breakfast.  For lunch she wolfed down the meat loaf first(I think it's safe to say that she loved the meat loaf), ate half of her french bread, ate carrots, and apricots.

Here's a picture of Riley, Cooper, and Mia doing one of their frequent searches for the neighbor's puppy.  They've been playing "puppy" a lot lately and crawling around on the floor with their tongues hanging out.  :)

Riley is pulling Cooper and Mia in the wagon.  I'm not sure what they found so interesting in the bottom of the wagon, but I thought it was a cute picture.  Right after this picture was taken Riley dropped the handle of the wagon and came running to me saying, "Two bumblebees flying everywhere!!"  :)

Nora and Mia played lots of their "Mommy" game this morning.  Nora was in the big box "crying" and Mia was telling her it was all "ok" and covering her with a blanket.  Mia is almost always the "Mommy."  Mia just wandered off and wasn't doing her Mommy duties and Nora was standing there calling "Momma Momma Momma...."  It was kind of sad!  :)  So Nora goes over to Mia and said, "Hi Mom!!"  (I'm still here - Don't forget about me!)  LOL   Then outside they were playing some kind of game in the play house and Nora said, "Hang on tight!"  Mia answered, "I can't - I pooping!!"  And she was too!  :)

Cooper was messing around first thing this morning and accidentally kicked Lauralea's shin!  Lauralea yelled, "Owwww!"  Riley immediately yelled, "MIA!!" LOL!!  Poor Mia; she wasn't even close!  Then Mia was watching Lauralea give me a good bye love at breakfast time and a few minutes later she said, "Lauralea and Mia love you soooo much!"  Isn't that the sweetest?  Very Precious!!

5/15/2014

Mia ate cinnamon toast and two servings of grapes for breakfast.  There were quite a few grapes left-over and after cleaning up the breakfast table I sat in the Daycare room with a bowl full of grapes.  However, I knew it was going to be a futile effort to enjoy some grapes.  :)  All four kids gathered around like ravenous wolves!  LOL  So they got more grapes!!  For lunch she ate chicken, bite of dinner roll, ate hash browns, and ate her cherries.

This picture was taken yesterday afternoon and Coral and Micala were here again.  As soon as Coral lay on the ground Mia and Cooper were right there using her for a chair.  It seems like just a year or two ago that Coral was Mia and Cooper's age and running around our Daycare!

The kids had fun outside this morning flying up and down the sidewalk with the dump trucks, riding the bikes, looking through the fence at the neighbors and their dog, playing with the wagons, and doing some cooking in the play house on the patio.  Mia started riding the bikes first and lost her shoes three or four times so I went and got a pair of her socks and the shoes stayed on pretty well after that.  Riley just about ran over one of Mia's shoes with her bike and she thought that was so funny!

I think I've mentioned several times about Mia remembering songs and books so well, but I see it almost every day and it's quite impressive.  And she remembers long sections of the song or book, not just a word or two.  We were reading special books this morning and I asked, "What's this one about?"  ("Do Your Ears Hang Low?")  No one said anything so I specifically asked Mia and she said, "Ears hang low; wobble wobble!"  LOL   "Do your ears hang low, do they wobble to and fro..."

5/14/2014

Mia ate two servings of whole wheat bagel and ate peaches for breakfast.  For lunch she ate ham, mac-n-cheese, bite of lettuce salad, and ate corn.  As the kids were sitting down for lunch Nora announced, "I so tired!!"  Mia said, "I so tired too!!"  Riley said, "I tired too!!"  And then Riley laid her head on the table.  Nora looked at Cooper and asked, "Are you tired too Cooper?!"  Wanting to make it unanimous! They were all of one mind!

This picture was taken yesterday afternoon when Micala and Coral were here.  Those two haven't been here too often lately and the kids were thrilled to see them.  (Mia said to Micala, "You came back!!")  They were taking turns carrying their backpacks and it was so cute.  When Nora put on one of them she tipped right over backwards, but landed on the backpack.  (They were pretty heavy!)

I took this picture because it's kind of a rarity to see all four of the kids building on the same legos piece; and doing it with minimal conflict.  They were doing it yesterday after nap time and continued it this morning.  It took several minutes to get this picture; I'd get ready to take the picture and then one of the kids would jump up to go get more legos!

Mia was crying (I'd separated her and Nora) and Riley must have heard a "snort."  Riley said, "You snorted!!"  Mia said, "I not snorted!!  I just crying!"  :)

She played with the wagons outside, rode on the bikes, played on the climbers, and spent lots of time playing at the sand table.

5/13/2014

Mia ate two servings of waffle and ate pears for breakfast.  For lunch she ate tuna, crackers, sweet potatoes, and oranges.

I took this picture yesterday after nap time.  Nora was the first one awake from nap (always) and was happy to see Mia.  They were SO sweet and kind to each other, which is usually the way it is right after nap.  Like I told Lauralea, that lasted for at least 3 - 4 minutes!!  :)

The girls were fixing each other's hair again this morning.  Nora and Mia started it and then Riley soon joined them.  Sometimes Mia would sit in front of Nora, then she'd jump up and run off.  Right after I took this picture Mia was asking Nora, "All done, all done?"  Nora said, "Not yet!"  :)  Mia will need a hair-sylist who is fast and efficient!

Before breakfast Mia was playing with the dress-up clothes and had on yellow shorts and two yellow shirts.  She had both of her legs in one leg hole and the shirts looked more like "straight jackets!"  I announced, "Come and get your bibs for breakfast."  Mia started to panic and yelled, "Uh uh uh...I stuck in yellow!!!"  :)

We were identifying letters on the alphabet posters; especially the first letters of our names.  Mia also read lots of books and played with the legos.  During story time and when she was reading I was again reminded of how many different songs and stories she knows.  And she can recite several of them from start to finish.  Very impressive!

5/12/2014

Mia ate half of her chex cereal and ate mixed fruit for breakfast.  For lunch she ate roast beef sandwich, two servings of tomato soup, and ate apple pieces.  I was having a cup of coffee and they were calling their cups of tomato soup "coffee."  "Gary's coffee, Mia's coffee, Nora's coffee."

Nora and Mia were both spinning to the music; Mia had a doll and Nora had Pooh Bear.  Mia was saying, "Baby happy now, baby happy now!"  LOL

The Cline family are coming home from the farm today so it is just Nora and Mia here today.  They did just fine and had a good morning with a minimal amount of toddler squabbles.  Here's an example of a funny (my opinion) squabble: Mia was singing and Nora said, "No singing!!"  I informed her that singing is very acceptable (and encouraged) so she started singing - LOUDLY!!  LOL  Strategy # 2: I'll just sing louder than you!

Nora and Mia both got lots of snuggle time this morning - with Gary and Lauralea - before she left for work.  Lauralea was singing songs and both kids kept saying, "another song!!"

Well I haven't posted a picture of the kids doing their "hole in the table" play lately.  There are some 'cleaning cloths' included in the food toys and they were poking them through the hole back and forth to each other.

Kimberly (the parent of a previous and future Little Treasure) stopped in for a minute this morning and Mia kept asking, "Where's Riley?"  LOL  I guess she thought Kimberly might know more about that than me.  :)  Later Mia asked me AGAIN, "Riley/Cooper coming?"

5/9/2014

Mia ate most of oatmeal and half of her dried plums for breakfast.  For lunch she ate a large serving of hash brown casserole, most of biscuit, and ate mandarin oranges.

Mia was here at least 40 minutes before anyone else arrived so she got lots of special snuggles.  First she watch me finish putting the shredded cheese on the hash brown casserole.  It was still a bit froze and I thumped it on the counter a couple of times.  She said, My turn!!"  LOL

Lauralea sang lots of songs to Mia and when I was starting to take this picture Mia started yawning, but still singing.  So if you can't decide whether this is a yawn or singing, it's both!  Mia looked up at Lauralea for several seconds and said, "I miss you so much Lauralea!"  Very very cute.

Kenzie was here this morning and then the Cline family left right after lunch to go to the farm for Mother's Day weekend.  So it was very busy with lots of distractions for Mia and Nora at Daycare and Kenzie is really good with the younger ones.  One of the first things Kenzie said to the girls was, "Hey, Nora and Mia, do you want me to read you a book?"

Here's a picture of Kenzie organizing the passengers on the train!  She was instructing them to sit on certain colors!  :)  Now that was comical.  She said to Mia, "I need you to sit on the red and blue!"  So Mia promptly sits on the yellow and Kenzie lets out an exasperated sigh!  "No!  That's Yellow!!" I liked how she preceded every request with a "I need you to..."  You'll also see in the picture that the stuffed animals were part of the passengers.

5/8/2014

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 mangoes.  The crescent rolls were some left over ones I'd done with 'cinnamon.'  And the kids love those.

I'd made an "S" shape with the blocks and Lauralea was cheering.  So of course Mia and Nora started cheering exuberantly too.  Right before I took the picture Mia was also raising her hands to cheer, but I couldn't get the camera quick enough!

The kids were at the window this morning and Mia saw a reflection and she said, "Moon!"  It was actually the reflection of the light globe from the daycare room, so at least it was round!!  Anyhow, Riley found that to be quite amusing!  She said, "There's not any moon!!  That's after nap time!!"  And they have been spotting the moon in the afternoons this week.  Actually Cooper has spotted it twice this week.  "Moon, Moon!"

Riley and Nora were in the kitchen watching Lauralea this morning and that gave Cooper and Mia a chance to run and be crazy.  So they were doing just that!  First they were jamming their blankets from home into the school buses and pushing them around at a high rate of speed.  Then they were just running and zooming into the igloo.  Now that was making me hold my breath; I was hoping they wouldn't misjudge the size of the opening and flatten themselves!!

We did some finger painting and also had a visitor during art time; a monitor from the food program to check things out.  (When the monitor was leaving Mia said, "Bye Cantaloupe!"  Which I thought was quite funny and kind of fitting in light of her occupation!)

5/7/2014

Mia ate half of her whole wheat toast and ate mixed berries for breakfast.  For lunch she ate ham, crackers, bean & bacon soup, and ate two servings of fresh plums.  I told her they kind of tasted like a type of apple so now she calls them apples.  "More apples please!"  :)

Lauralea was "getting them" this morning and I love how hard Nora and Mia are laughing in this picture.  Cooper kept asking her to do it again and again; "gin, gin, gin."  (With a hard "g" sound, not like a drink!)   :)  Soon after this they were all spinning and twirling, holding on to stuffed animals.

And this is just a picture of another way the girls are playing with the igloo.  Sometimes it's their horse, sometimes they are drumming on the top.

I occasionally get calls from telemarketers and I put one on speaker phone.  When Mia heard a man's voice she yelled, "Hi Daddy!"  Now in my world here at Day Care that was really funny!  I roared with laughter, but he didn't think it was nearly as funny as I did!  :)

The kids were spinning and twirling really fast with some stuffed animals.  Mia was loving being rowdy and was yelling, "Help help help!"  Silly girl.  Sometimes when she gets to squealing or yelling too loud here is what I do - I will ask them to use a quiet voice (and give an example of the volume expected), but another thing we have used a lot is giving them words to say rather than just begin loud.  The phrase I use is "This is fun!!"  And Mia totally gets this concept, which doesn't surprise me at all because she's all about language.  :)  She was being loud and immediately started saying, "This is fun, this is fun!"  (Two or three times this morning.)  Lauralea was impressed!  :)

5/6/2014

Mia ate whole wheat bagel and two servings of apricots for breakfast.  For lunch she ate chicken, noodles, peas, and two servings of applesauce.

Yesterday Mia's Grandma brought Mia right before Snack time.  (They had just arrived in town from Helena where Mia spent the weekend with Grandma and Grandpa.)  Anyhow, when Grandma was leaving she said, "See you later alligator!" to Mia.  After she went out the door Nora said, "No!! That's Mia!"  LOL

Today's blog may be a bit shorter as I didn't take too many notes due to a Doctor appointment this morning.  Lauralea watched the kids while I was gone and they all survived quite nicely.  (Nothing too serious at the Doctor - just dealing with a hand issue.)

When I got back from the Doctor they were just finishing up Story-Time so I had to take a picture of our precious group!

Here's a picture of all four kids in the tunnel this morning.  (I like how the picture makes it look really long!)  After I got back from the Doctor, Mia heard me talking to Lauralea about "Carpal Tunnel Syndrome."  She yells, "I wanna do tunnel, I wanna do tunnel please!!"  LOL  Ok, why not; it kind of fits the morning theme!  Riley was following Cooper in the tunnel and then stops and wouldn't go any farther and was pointing at a wet spot.  I asked her if Cooper puked; "No, just slobber!"  LOL

5/2/2014

Mia ate malt-o-meal cereal and raisins for breakfast.  Daddy and Grandma picked her up shortly before lunch and they were headed off to eat.  Then Mia was going to Helena with Grandma.

Here's a picture of the kids outside this morning playing the same game they were playing yesterday; cheering for each other on the climber.  Except this time they are cheering for Reid, who was visiting this morning.  He and Cooper are the same age and Mia played with him on the climber and jumping on the mattress.  Which was lots of fun until Cooper accidentally jumped on Mia's back.  And Mia has been a little more 'tender' since Mommy has been gone.  Usually she would just shake that off, but she needed an extra love this morning.

Mia played with the bikes, wagons, and kicking the biggest balls around the yard with Cooper and Reid.  She also spent some time at the fence with Riley and Nora watching the people at a neighbor's yard sale.

Mia was headed out the door this morning and Riley wanted her to wait.  She said, "Hold on Mia!!" Which made me laugh because I realize I use that term all the time.  Especially with Mia!!  She's always headed somewhere at a high rate of speed!  :)

Have a great weekend Mia and I'll see you when you get back from Helena!

5/1/2014

Mia ate two servings of breakfast: whole wheat english muffin and blueberries.  For lunch she ate everything; chicken, crackers, sweet potatoes, and cherries.  At breakfast time Mia was talking about her Mommy going to "Ha-y-eee!"  (Hawaii - with three very distinct syllables! - for a wedding.)  So Nora had to expound on her Mommy at Hawaii too!!  :)

I had some cute pictures from this morning, but something is not working between the camera and the computer.  Not that we have to have pictures every day, but they illustrate the stories so well!!  So I'll try to figure that out tonight.

Yesterday morning it was Riley and Mia together.  This morning it was lots of Riley and Nora.  They played with the food toys together and with their babies.  Then Riley and Nora were holding hands and spinning in circles.  Mia saw them and grabbed Cooper's hand to start spinning, but instead she just took off running!  That did not end so well!  :)

Outside, Mia played on the bikes a lot, on the climbers, at the fence with the neighbor's doggy, and lots of running.  She was also pulling Cooper in the wagon.  Mia will stand and yell at the fence for the doggy or as she calls it, "Neighbor doggy!!"  I got a cute picture (which I'll try to post soon) of the kids sitting on the edge of the cement by the garage cheering for each other on the climber.  One on the climber and three cheering.  Then one would yell, "My turn!" and they'd switch places.

Mia also played with her dolls (or "babies"), the food toys, and watching crows at the window with Cooper.  While they were watching crows they spotted a bug on the window.  (On the outside.)  Mia enjoyed doing stickers at art time too.