8/29/2014

Mia ate malt-o-meal cereal and raisins for breakfast.  For lunch she had a bite of ground beef, ate elbow noodles topped with shredded cheese, a taste of lettuce salad, and bites of mixed fruit.  She made sure I knew she had a "taste" of the salad!  At breakfast I was letting the cereal cool off for a couple of minutes and Mia said, "Maybe I can blow it off!!"  :)

Darcy, Mia played very well this morning and I never saw any carry over from her having a fever yesterday and last night.  However, right before nap she started getting a little testy so she was getting tired and maybe the advil (or whatever you gave her) was wearing off too.

Cooper and Mia saw Lauralea take off her shoes and they were taking turns playing with them.  Lauralea stayed until 10:30 this morning because it's Riley's last day here so Lauralea was getting some extra Riley time.  (Riley was Lauralea's baby before Lauralea moved on to the University job.) This has been a tough week with Nora and Riley moving to Pre-School at the same time!!

At art today we were making a "Good Bye Poster" for Riley.  Mia was slightly dismayed because she said she wanted to take her art home!!  :)  I took this picture of Mia doing art because I wanted you to see the "rainbow" she is working on.  She has been watching what Riley and Nora have been doing the last several art sessions and the "rainbow" theme has been popular!  :)

8/28/2014

Mia ate half of whole wheat english muffin and ate blueberries for breakfast.  For lunch she ate bite of chicken, ate crackers, sweet potatoes, and cherries.  Cooper is home recuperating today after vomiting yesterday evening.  So it's just Riley and Mia here today and they played together very well this morning.

Mia and Riley barricaded themselves in the igloo and they have on their "growling" faces.  Riley said, "Gary can't get us!!"  :)

We took a walk around the neighborhood (I put a notice on the door just in case any Parent came by wondering what happened to us!) and stopped at this swing for 25 minutes.  Riley basically never quit smiling the entire time and Mia never quit talking!  Mia was done first and did several laps around the swings while Riley continued swinging!  While she was swinging Mia said, "I'm not falling off Gary, I'm not falling off!!"  :)  Well good!  I guess we'll count this as a success!

Mia also went down this slide one time.  As you well know she's a fearless little thing and scampered up the steps to the top.  There was some moisture on the slide so one time down was all she wanted! We also saw a large dog in the park - and that started Mia talking steady about TyTy for a long time.

When Mia was jabbering I asked Riley if she knew what Mia was talking about.  Riley said, "no."  Mia said, "I don't know what I'm saying about!"  :)  Back in the play room, Mia's doll got scratched and Mia said, "I fix her in no time!!"  LOL  When she hears a catchy phrase like that, she's got it!!

8/27/2014

Mia ate most of biscuit and ate peaches for breakfast.  For lunch she had three servings of baked beans, ate dinner roll, large serving of peas, and ate pineapple.  I am transitioning Cooper to the table and I was telling him to keep his belly up there.  Mia said, "I'll show you how to do it!!"  (This is her area of expertise!!  And she is quite adept at it I might add!)  She said, "That's what my hands are for - to EAT!!"  LOL

I always like watching to see what they find enjoyable.  In this picture Riley was calling this her "bridge."  And for some reason it was really funny when Mia would crawl under the bridge.  :)  And Mia gets a big kick out of making someone laugh!  :)

Riley and Mia worked hard packing all the blocks over and arranging them this way.  Riley said, "We are working, right Mia!?!"  Then to Cooper she said, "You want to help?"  When I took this picture they were just a few seconds from having used all the blocks so this project was over.  They looked at it for a few seconds and started tearing it apart and doing something completely different.  So it was obviously the process, not the completed project, that was important!!  :)

I got out these little houses because this play set has the toys that go with them.  The kids had lots of fun filling them with the toys.

Mia was frantically getting my attention and wanted an immediate response.  She said, "Gary Gary! I need you to talk!"  (to her!)  Then outside we were playing in the sand table and the one basic rule I have is to keep (or at least make an attempt to keep) the sand in the sand table.  Mia was waving her arms around and I said, "Mia, you're just wild!"  She dismissively said, "Oh Gary!  It just fine!!"  :)

Here's a conversation from yesterday afternoon I thought you might enjoy:  Mia said, "I have sandals!"  And I acknowledged her by saying, "Yes you do!"  Riley set us straight!  "No!  You have flip-flops!  Cooper has sandals!  I have Crocs!"  Ok, thank you for that enlightening shoe moment Miss Riley Details Teacher Cline!  :)

8/26/2014

Mia ate two servings of breakfast: waffle and hash browns.  For lunch she ate most of beef & cheese quesadilla, most of carrots, and ate oranges.

Riley and Mia played with the blocks a lot and Riley asked for help; "make me a S."  Then she and Mia were making an "R" for Riley and a "M" for Mia.  Then after breakfast they were making a "river."  Which basically consisted of piling all the blocks on top of the block shelf.  It looked more like an ice jam than a river!  :)

The kids were having so much fun running back-n-forth across the room and it was their "race."  I love the Toddler's version of a race; Everyone and anyone can say "ready set go" and they GO whenever they feel like it!  They were all saying it and also saying, "race race race!"

All the time Riley was playing with the food toys Mia was on the floor being Riley's "puppy."  It was quite hilarious.  Riley would only occasionally pay attention to her puppy, but Mia continued the game for a long time.  Riley said to Lauralea, "That's my Bad Dog!"  LOL  Actually Mia was being a pretty good puppy except for occasionally being quite demanding!  Later Riley was saying, "Slow down puppy, slow down!"  She looked to Cooper for some help; "Let's slow that puppy down!!"  :)   Good luck with that!!

The kids spotted a bee on the patio and they were all yelling and running around in a frantic fashion.  Then Nora started saying, "He's a nice bee, guys!!  He's gone, he's gone!"  LOL  That was so funny. And of course it wasn't gone; it was right above her head!!  Yikes!  That changed the tune of her encouraging little speech!

There was more "puppy play" outside and Mia and Cooper were both being puppies.  Nora was not thrilled with her puppy (Mia) so Riley generously handed her puppy (Cooper) to Nora!  "Here, you can have this puppy!"  :)  They were trying to get 'Mia puppy' to stay in the wagon.  Mia said, "I'm not going to stay in the wagon!  I jump out!!  I'm a puppy!!"  :)

8/25/2014

Mia had bites of cheerios and ate banana serving for breakfast.  For lunch she ate cheese sandwich, drank tomato soup, and had two servings of apple pieces.  After she was done with breakfast she said, "I'm not going to eat, Gary!"  Oh ok.  :)

This picture was taken Friday afternoon and the kids were having so much fun playing in the boxes.  I'd cut "windows" in the sides of the boxes and they were sticking their heads out.  Then Riley was sticking her hand out the hole in the top and they all had to do it.  I think this is such a cute picture of Mia smiling so natural and pretty!!

We did a toy, book, and puzzle exchange and Mia had explored LOTS of stuff before anyone else arrived!  She was filling the purses full of all kinds of goodies.  She and Nora were also wearing the Tutus and dancing to the music while watching themselves in the mirrors.

Riley was not feeling well (running a temperature) this morning so we played indoors.  But that worked fine with the toy exchange as no one got too bored!  Here's a picture of Mia drawing and coloring on the dry-erase boards.  We have several different colored dry-erase markers that the kids use.

Nora was waving at her Daddy this morning and Mia informed Nora that she also has a Daddy!  "His name is Matt; he's my Dad!!"  :)

8/22/2014

Mia ate oatmeal and dried cranberries for breakfast.  For lunch she ate ground beef and large servings of everything else; elbow noodles topped with shredded cheese, peas, and applesauce.

Here's a lunch table conversation:

Mia - "Thank you for dinner Gary!"

Nora - "It's NOT dinner; it's lunch!"

Mia - "I'm not talking to you; I'm talking to Gary!"

And that's a prime sampling of their relationship!  :)

I took this picture of Mia's hair after Lauralea braided it.  Look at the thickness of the braid - and you can see it's only from the circle of hair on the top of her head.  Pretty impressive!

Mia, Riley, and Cooper were having a blast with the masks this morning; Mia was wearing the wolf mask and growling and chasing Cooper and Riley.  They were laughing, running, and playing this game for at least 20 minutes.

Mia was in the chair and was whining because Cooper was bugging her.  (So I moved him away from her.)  Nora was trying to fix it and walked over to Mia and said, "I'm a nice girl; do you want me?"  (Do you want me to sit by you?)  Mia ignores the gesture and leaves.  Nora said, "You don't want anybody?"  (Apparently not!)

8/21/2014

Mia ate whole wheat english muffin and three servings of blueberries for breakfast.  For lunch she ate two servings of turkey sandwich, ate green beans, and two servings of strawberries.

Mia was here for 45 minutes before anyone else arrived and finally she asked, "Where's Riley, Cooper, Jamie, and Nora!?!"  Notice she included Jamie in the list - which made Lauralea and I laugh.  :)  Hey, she's part of the Day Care Family too!

Here's a picture of Cooper and Mia being very sanitary!  Actually Riley is the one who started this; every time it rains Riley has been running to all the climbers yelling, "lick lick lick!"  I know this isn't very sanitary, but it's dang cute!!  Cooper and Mia were saying, "lick lick lick!"  So after the picture we moved on to something different!!  :)

The kids were at the play house on the patio and Riley was serving them all "ice cream."  Cooper came running to me and was upset because Mia ate all the chocolate ice cream!!  :)  He was whining, "chocolate, chocolate, chocolate!"  Riley, please give brother Cooper some chocolate ice cream - and life was good once again!  :)

At first Riley was calling it "brown" ice cream.  So I asked Mia what flavor was brown ice cream.  She answered, "Chocolate!"  I was impressed so I asked her what flavor is "white" ice cream.  (even though it's not really white!)  She answered, "Chocolate!"  :)

At lunch time I was warming up my coffee in the microwave and the microwave is really loud.  The kids can hear it running and also hear it beep when we're in the lunch room.  (I can't!)  So Riley always alerts me when she hears it beep!  I said something about the microwave "running" and Mia said, "It running fast!!"  LOL  (The daughter of a Track Coach!)