8/12/2014

Mia ate waffle and had a bite of pears for breakfast.  For lunch she ate bites of tuna, ate crackers, sweet potatoes, and oranges.  At lunch time I was having some coffee so everyone was calling their milk "my coffee!"  :)

Mia was not here yesterday so this was her first day with the toy, book, and puzzle exchange we did this past weekend.  The kids were wearing the masks, although Riley (in the foreground) had just taken off the Grandmother (from Red Riding Hood story) mask.  Mia is wearing the Big Bad Wolf mask and she was getting into character with way too much enthusiasm for Nora's taste!  :)

Here's another picture of Mia playing with some different toys from this set.  (Although she still has the mask on - it's more of a visor now!)  She has food toys in her hands, boots on, and some more food toys stuffed in her pockets!  Actually, in her right hand she has a fork and spoon wrapped in a linen napkin.  Nora told her it was a "napkin" and whenever Mia was explaining what she had she'd look to Nora with the expression; "What'd you say that was again?!?"  And Nora would tell her.  It was really cute.

Outside, the kids were following Riley's lead and took their dump trucks around the edge of the yard finding leaves and long stems of grass and other goodies.  However, Mia and Cooper quickly grew tired of that game and found it much easier and more fun just to grab things out of Riley's dump truck.  Ok kids, find your own goodies!  :)

8/8/2014

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

Lauralea did some french braiding on Riley and Mia's hair before she left.  (Nora arrived a little too late to get her's done.)  It takes extra time, but they both sat very well while Lauralea worked on it.

And I thought you might like to see what it looks like from the front view!  It's still intact (right now during nap time), but no guarantees by the time she leaves.  :)

For some reason (unknown to me) Riley and Nora were calling Mia "Pocahontas."  I have a Pocahontas book, but it's not in this toy set and it has not been out for awhile.  So it was pretty random and Mia was not real appreciative!  She said, "I'm NOT Pocahontas! I'm a girl!!"  So I steered them on to other activities that did not involve naming someone.  :)  Riley was saying it so cute: "poke-n-honna!"  I asked them why they started calling her that and of course they didn't have a clue.  (Just great big grins!)

The kids were playing on the climber and Mia was saying, "Hi Riley, hi Riley!"  (Like she'd just arrived!)  Riley was not responding and Nora said, "My daughter is saying hi to you!"  :)  (Her tone was slightly laced with motherly indignation!)

The Templeton Family (except for Daddy) stopped by while we were outside playing.  For those who do not know them, we had all three of their boys in our program, except Reed (same age as Cooper) had to leave early when Lauralea got the University job.  Bode was pulling Mia and Cooper across the yard in the wagon (pretty fast I might add!) and they were laughing so hard.  Everyone was having a great time - we even invited them to eat lunch with us, but they'd had a late breakfast!

I posted the following in Nora's journal, but I thought you all might like to read it too! -  I thought of something Tate Templeton said when he was in our program and about Nora's age.  Nora is going to be a Flower Girl this weekend and Tate was going to be the Ring Bearer at his Uncle's Wedding.  He asked this question; "How long do I get to wear the Bear Suit?"  (That's the logic of a "literal thinking" Toddler!)

8/7/2014

Mia ate bites of whole wheat thins and ate cantaloupe for breakfast.  For lunch she ate turkey, two servings of crescent roll, ate green beans, and two servings of mangoes.

Mia wanted to join Riley and Nora in their dancing, but her idea of dancing and Nora's idea of dancing are several galaxies apart!  Here's a picture of how dancing frequently ends when Mia is involved!  (Kind of a grappling/martial arts type of thing!)  Riley is flexible enough that she'll just go with it until she wants to do something else and then she has no problem telling Mia to "stop!"  Outside, Mia and Nora were both asking Riley to follow them with the dump trucks.  Finally Riley yells, "Just ONE second!"  And then proceeded to basically ignore both of them!  :)  It's not easy being a Toddler and learning social skills!

Riley and Mia were asking for the horses so I put the horses on the patio and the kids had lots of fun with them.  Mia was saying, "Yee Haw, Yee Haw!  Come on Cooper!" So Cooper started saying, "Yee Haw!"  A couple of times I thought Mia was going to go right over on her head when she had the horse on it's tiptoes!  :)

Then Riley started saying, "My horsey's gonna puke up!"  So of course everyone else had to say that too.  Even Cooper came over to me and said, "Horsey puke!"  Mia was saying it and then told her horse, "I get medicine and I coming horsey!"  :)

Cooper was at the window with Mia when Matt stopped and waved bye this morning.  Cooper saw Matt in his pickup and said, "Pickup!"  :)

8/6/2014

No Blog for Mia today - she'll be back tomorrow!

8/5/2014

Mia ate two servings of breakfast: Whole wheat bagel and apricots.  For lunch she ate chicken, elbow noodles, two servings of peas, and two servings of applesauce.

Lauralea had announced that the Cline Family had arrived this morning and Mia was excitedly running around yelling, "The Clines are coming!  The Clines are coming!!"  :)

Riley was working on Nora's hair and then Nora wanted to switch and work on Riley's hair, but Riley said, "No, I have to go."  So she got on her "motorcycle" and left.  :)  Outside, Riley was letting Mia work on her hair and personally, I'd prefer Nora to work on my hair!  Mia is a bit more rough and wild with it!!  Riley was tolerating it all pretty well and I'm thinking;  She says "OW!" sometimes when I'm working on it, yet Mia is pushing, tugging, and wallowing it around!  :)

For Art Time today we were doing stickers and duct tape on a large piece of Art Paper.  It was too big to fit on the table so we just worked on the floor.  Mia is in the background of this picture.  (Riley is sitting in the middle helping her brother Cooper with some stickers.)

Here's a picture of the poster on the wall after we were done.  Mia is pointing at an area where she'd been working.  I found some more duct tape with Hello Kitty, Penguins, and Batman; so everyone was excited about that.  :)

I've mentioned before about our outside routine when someone has to go potty.  We say, "Potty Run!" and everyone automatically heads for the door.  (I can't leave anyone outside unsupervised.)  Yesterday, Mia yelled, "Potty Run!"  Then she stopped and changed it; "Poopy Run!"  And she did go poop.  (We'd never called it that before.)  :)

8/4/2014

Mia ate bran cereal and dried cranberries for breakfast.  For lunch she ate cheese pizza, corn, and two servings of tropical fruit.

The City had a crew of workers across the street this morning during outside time so the kids were busy watching at the fence.  (Mia is at the fence on the left.)

Mia and Cooper were playing a wild game of spinning in circles and then chasing each other around and around the igloo.  I love listening to them giggling when they are having fun like that.  :)  Outside they were doing their running up and down the sidewalk again, pushing the dump trucks wildly.  Mia fell twice, but not bad enough to make her knees bleed.  (Thankfully!)  Cooper came running over and one of the times said, "bandaid, bandaid."  The next time he also came running and was saying, "blood blood."  :)

We have a song on our iPod (I think the name of the song is "Nora Nora") and the kids always yell, "Nora's Song!" when it comes on.  This morning Mia was singing along with it, "Nora Nora open the door, open the door Nora blue..."

8/1/2014

Mia ate malt-o-meal cereal and raisins for breakfast.  For lunch she ate ground beef, elbow noodles topped with shredded cheese, maybe a bite of lettuce salad, and a bite of mixed fruit.

All the kids were watching the birds outside.  There have been lots of them - basically a feeding frenzy in the morning! We've also been hearing and seeing a pair of 'morning doves' for the past month and they were at the feeder today too.

Speaking of birds, Lauralea has a bird sound on her phone whenever my daughter texts her and this morning Mia said, "I heard a bird Gary, I heard a bird!"  Then later it was the same thing; "I heard bird again!"  :)

While I was setting up lunch Riley and Nora were looking at catalogs and Cooper and Mia were being crazy.  So I got a picture of them going head-first off the chair.  Earlier, they'd been playing with the dump trucks again and flying up and down the sidewalk.  Mia was saying, "Coop! We better go!!  Come on Cooper!!"  Cooper was running around chanting, "Mia Mia Mia."  :)

During the past 15 years of doing Child Care full-time I've had several kids (as they get older) ask me where I work.  "Where do you work Gary?"  This morning Cooper asked, "Where'd Lauralea go?"  I told him she went to work and then I asked the group where I work.  And Nora said, "At home!"  And Mia actually verbalized, "Daycare!"  I was impressed!