Star+Flower

She did it!

We were shopping at Target after Valentine's Day to get Grandma a gift and, of course, when you go to Target you never leave with just the thing you intended. We found ourselves wandering down all the aisles again and inevitably ended up at the tricycle area again. (First, let me just say that Grandma and Grandpa gave Mia an awesome Disney Princess tricycle for Christmas, but her legs still aren't long enough for her feet to get on the pedals properly.) I brought down this little foldable Radio Flyer trike for Mia to try and I'm pretty sure it was the same one she had tried on a previous trip. She has a scooter here at home which she's pretty good at. It's so cute watching her little feet go so fast. Anyway, so the first time she tried the trike she started scooting with it and I told her she had to put her feet on the pedals just like the little girl on the picture. She would try but didn't really understand how to get herself moving. But this time she tried it again and she got it! I was so excited I could've done cartwheels. So this little pink and purple tricycle was yet another extra splurge, but how could we not? It's been raining here like crazy so she's been riding inside the house, following Aidan around while he rides her Princess trike. She crashed on her first time trying to get around the kitchen island but she's pretty good with steering now. She learns quick! Here's a mini MOOvie from last Saturday:

Don't Call Her Princess

Mia was wearing a Disney shirt with all the princesses on it and she pointed to each one asking me what their names were. Then we had this conversation...

Me: How about you? You're a princess!

Her: Noooo!

Me: Yes, you are. You're my pretty princess!

Her: No, I'm not. I'm not a princess. I'm just Mia. I'm just a girl.

And it's good to be just a girl, isn't it? If you look at all the stories, princesses always have something terrible happening to them, only to be saved by the handsome prince. I'd like my girl to grow up being able to take care of herself. The handsome prince can be the bonus :)

The Dora Obsession has reached fever pitch. She's asking to watch all the time. She has Dora t-shirts, dolls, coloring books, story books, a Gameboy game, pillowsheets, blanket, a huge tent and she still can't get enough. She doesn't even think about Yo Gabba Gabba! anymore.

In scrappyland, I'm so thankful that I get another year to design for Prima. So exciting!

(Artwork on new banner courtesy of Aidan. It's super sweet and I love it so much.)

Miss Moo sings a song

Happy Halloween!

When I was little I thought it was fun to dress up, but now that I'm a Mom I think it's even more fun to watch your children get dressed up! Aidan wanted to be a robot, but instead he ended up with a last-minute choice of being an "evil knight".

He was playing the part here :) I had been gearing Mia up for Halloween, telling her she was going to be a Pumpkin Princess. I thought it was perfect since Allan calls her Pumpkin sometimes. Look at her brushing off Aidan's scaryness. Pshaw. It's only Kuya.

Apparently, this Pumpkin Princess has a special power of her own. She can steal your evil mask and then attack you with a stick! Halloween is so fun!

Then we went trick-or-treating around our neighborhood. Aidan kept running ahead of us because he was so excited, but Mia was a terribly slow walker. She wouldn't let people put candy in her basket and after six houses she quit. She already got what she was after anyway. A lollipop! Allan took her home while I walked around with Aidan for a few more stops.

It was perfect. Not a whole lot of candy, but it's OK because we still have half a bowl left over from tonight. Next year I want to decorate a little bit. I'm so bad with putting out decorations yet I really appreciate what some of our neighbors did to make their houses look spooky!

    

10.11.07

I'm usually a fashion don't and I'd rather not when it comes to shopping for clothes so I live vicariously through my baby girl. I love finding cool shirts and this one reminded me of the boom box my Dad gave me when I was in 6th grade and me in my bedroom dancing to Prince surrounded by all the posters I cut out from Tiger Beat. 

And these boots are from Target! I had to get them for her because she likes to water the plants with me and her feet eventually get all wet when she wears her Crocs. She loves to put them on but she had a hard time walking with them at first. She's not use to such tall shoes!

Oh, tonight she threw such a tantrum and it was all because she fell down from stepping on the toys she scattered all over the floor. She started throwing them around and then she rolled around the floor crying. We just left her alone and eventually she came over to me and put her head on my lap. She's so emotional! Yeah, I can hear Allan right now..."Because she takes after you!" 

Aidan is starting to think about how he looks now. He wishes he could make his hair go "sideways" but his hair just won't cooperate.

He cried the other day because we told him that he might change schools. We have a public elementary school that's only 10 minutes away from our house, but instead he goes to a private Catholic school that takes us about 50 minutes to an hour roundtrip. Right now, we're leaning towards just letting him stay where he is. He's happy there. He's doing wonderfully well with his studies. He loves his friends. It's just that hour-long drive that gets to me. But, really, it's not as if I have to be anywhere else. I think I'm just making something out of nothing.

And I think that today was probably the worst sick day, but Aidan made me this lovely card. He knows that one of the things I love best are his drawings.

 

Sourpatch Kid

jump jump jump. She looks like she has Dora hair.

Her dollies. Most of the time she likes to pretend to put them to sleep. She'll say to them, "You sleep now," and then she'll put a blanket over them.

This is her cute pose.

All of the sudden she was different today. We were at Target and she kept crying until we let her down from the cart. She became the instigator, climbing onto a display chair and telling Aidan, "Come here, Kuya. Sit here." Then she was saying, "Go here! Go here!", insisting that we go down the bathroom decor aisle all because she saw a Dora wastebasket. At the register she wouldn't let go of this yo-yo. I had to carry her out of the store and she was crying with huge tears pouring out as if she couldn't live without that yo-yo.

During bedtime she became this crazy, little wild thing jumping, spinning and dancing. I would tell her to lie down and she'd say, "I want to play!"

Allan was there and we were asking her what her name was. Then he pointed to his nose and asked her, "What's my name?" She said, "Nose!" Then she blurted out, "Poop! Your name is poop!" I swear I did not teach her that and I have no idea where she got that from! But that had us snickering.

When she wakes up in the morning she thinks of Yo Gabba Gabba! After she watches Yo Gabba Gabba! she asks to watch it again. Then again later in the afternoon. And once again when Aidan gets home. Then again around dinner time. She has a serious obsession. Sometimes I just want to see how many shows she'll watch in a row until she gets tired of them, but I don't think I could stand it.

One thing that thankfully hasn't changed is how wonderfully sweet she can be. After she got her sillies out she put her pink kitty blanket on top of me and told me, "Sweet dreams, Mommy."

And...squeeeeeeeeee!! Big thanks to my Girlah, Amber, for pointing this out otherwise I probably would have never seen it. That's my layout of Mia on the October Afternoon ad in Creating Keepsakes!

 

 

Oh My Bubbies....

Aidan has been having a good, laid-back summer vacation. I remember last year it was a little hard because he would get bored and it was always up to me to make things unboring. This time he's totally occupied with video games. He switches from the GameCube to his DS to the Wii. Even the old N64 gets some playtime. He recently fried his computer (granted it was old) playing online games. His favorites right now are Custom Robo DS, X-Men Legends, and all things Pokemon, especially Battle Revolution. We think it's cool that you can battle against other people over the Wi-Fi connection and I admit to having played more than one Pokemon battle. (BTW, Aidan first pronounced Wi-Fi "wee-fee".) He just loves playing and since it's summer I'm letting him have his time.

When he's finally gets tired of video games, he likes to go to the backyard and play in the little sandbox or ride his scooter. Sometimes he draws. Sometimes he reads (currently James and The Giant Peach). He looks forward to his Tae Kwan Do classes and I'm proud to say he's graduated to orange belt.

I can't remember what Mia is telling me here, but an appropriate word bubble would read, "You don't have the time!" She has been walking around lately singing that part of Maroon 5's song. She loves watching music videos with Allan and that's how she learns some stuff like how to spell "glamorous" thanks to Fergie Ferg.

Today's feat of skills is especially worth mentioning. She can recognize all the upper case letters of the alphabet. We were outside Aidan's TKD class and I had her sitting inside a grocery cart just to make sure she wouldn't run away from me or walk up to strangers with her shirt pulled up to show off her bellybutton. On the window there's a list of all the benefits you can receive from doing TKD and to distract her I asked her what each of the letters were and she got all of them right. W E I G H T  C O N T R O L. That was the first line. I was so overjoyed. I didn't know she knew! I read to her at least twice a day, once before naptime and once before bedtime, usually the same two books over and over because she asks for them: Curious George's ABC's ("George?"), and Goodnight Moon ("balloon?"). I also throw a random one in so I don't get bored. During the day though she will sometimes grab her books and ask to read so sometimes I'm reading over ten different ones a day. It's a good thing they're short! Well, for sure, the alphabet knowledge came from the Curious George book. Love it.

I also love how she's communicating these days. My favorite is how she'll come up and ask, "What are you doing, Mommy?" And how she says water "wa-tay". Also, we'll mutually sniff each other and say, "Mmmmm, strawberries!" but she says, "stwawbeyees" :D   

Is it summer already??

Waaah...it's so hot. I'm definitely not a summer girl. Remember Gidget's best friend, Larue, and how she'd always go to the beach covered up and wearing a big 'ol hat? That's totally me. And it's not just that I can't stand the heat, but I'm more prone to headaches when it's bright and hot.

Anyway...some of you know I am slightly obsessed with Mia's hair and I've been ever since she was born. I submit this as evidence #1...

I've been comparing pictures of her and me. Here I am just one month before my 2nd birthday (Aug 1974).

And here's Mia now.

Mia has 4 1/2 months before her 2nd birthday, but I don't think it'll be as long as mine was. She has layers and her hair by her ears are definitely way too short. SO absolutely no scissors will touch her hair until it gets past her shoulders! And even then we'll see. It's so fun to have a real live dolly!

According to Aidan's accelerated reader test scores, he can read and comprehend like a 6th grader. That's what all the fuss was about when Allan told me about Sister Kathleen asking him if we knew how smart he was. They made him take the test twice to make sure it wasn't just a fluke, but his second test came back with the same results. So after learning this I've been on the hunt for good books for him to read. He's been checking out a bunch of Junie B. books from the library and last month he read Charlotte's Web. The other day I asked him what kind of books he wanted and he said books about the Solar System, except he already has several books about the planets and the universe. So I found this one at Target.

We've been reading several chapters every night and it's been fun so far. I'm also waiting on James and The Giant Peach. At least it gets me into reading some fiction too. I think the last book I read was The Alchemist, more than a year ago.

I do read lots of magazines though. One of my favorites is Domino. The kids like it too.

Fun, funny kids.

Proud Mama (3.28)

On Monday, Aidan received a little marker on his belt for doing something well in his Tae Kwan Do class. Allan says it was for "good form" and he had me on the phone as Aidan was getting it. He said Aidan had such a big smile on his face.

Today, Aidan lost his other bottom front tooth.

Also, today, Allan picked Aidan up from school and he told me Sister Kathleen stopped him and asked, "Do you know how smart your son is?" The story is that Aidan took a reading test today and his score was so astounding that they made him take the test again just to make sure. :D :D :D :D :D

As usual, Mia and I were in the loft this morning. The TV was on and I was making cards. She was awfully quiet so I turned around and she was propped on top of the bean bag intently watching the Teletubbies. Are they only re-runs now because for the past few days they've been the same episodes that Aidan used to watch? Anyway, she was totally transfixed. When the show ended she went up to TV and was hitting it saying, "Babyyyy...babyyyy", tears and all. So now 11 a.m. is Teletubbies time. At least they're tolerable, unlike those weird Doodlebops.

She cried again tonight when Gwen Stefani finished singing on AI because she wanted more. She stood in front of the TV for the entire song. There was an XBox controller on the floor and she picked up the end that you plug into the console and she was using it as a mic to sing along! We hear "The Sweet Escape" alot since it's so popular on the radio, plus we've got it on our iPod. Mia likes Akon's part...woohoo weehoo. It's so cute when she sings it.

When it's bedtime Mia and I lie down in bed together but it takes her forever to fall asleep. That's because she launches into superstar mode and proceeds to sing every song she knows. Tonight she had to be sitting on top of some pillows for her to sing properly (the little diva! :) then she kept singing something over and over for at least 3 minutes. I finally figured out it was "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star"! She has the first line down but the rest is all gobbledygook. When Aidan was a baby he would lay still while I sang him to sleep but this girl...she wants to be the one singing. And I can't help but smile because she totally takes after me in that way.

a mini MOOvie

Yay for Quicktime. Here she is last week singing, counting and more with me!