Dia de Mia Vol. 2 No. 46 Fun with Friends

Real quick: had a nice play date with friend/neighbor Lydia.

But the real fun started with Mia's first "sleepover" with buddy Luke. Ran around the house all night, watched Charlotte's Web, then Mia went to sleep in her crib, and Luke went to sleep on the floor in Mia's room. They are becoming true friends -- when they see each other they go nuts and when they are apart they still talk about the good times they had together. That's the definition, right?

Those last pictures are of Mia's pigtails. Extremely cute and extremely short lived. Fun while they lasted.

Dia de Mia Vol. 2 Nos. 45 A New Year Brings New Developments and a Fiesta Bowl Win!

Mia continues to surprise us every day. This month, she has completely learned the alphabet song and is starting to recognize some letters: m, x, o, b, and a consistently. Mia also can count to ten consecutively and with little to no skipping around. We were unaware that she was learning her numbers in Spanish until one day, mommy overheard her saying, "uno, dos, tres, quatro, cinco, seis, ocho". To mommy's amazement, she has gotten even better with practice and now often, though not always, remembers siete, nueve and diez (not necessarily in the right order). In addition, one day mommy overheard Mia saying all of the days of the week. You would think a teacher would review these kinds of things with her daughter every now and then but it didn't even occur to mommy to begin the days of the week! Our little sponge is soaking up just about everything... including EVERYTHING that we say! Uh-Oh!

We had a Brown family Fiesta Bowl party- mommy, daddy, Mia and Ulla attended and all wore our burnt orange to help the Longhorns win a victory! Daddy cooked for us and Mia stayed up for the first quarter. She sure does like watching football with us. :)


Daddy and Mia discovered the t-ball mitts at Target the other day and so we just had to get Mia her very own pink mitt. She loves to wear it on one hand and walk around the house with a ball in the other hand. There has not been too much playing "catch" yet but we're working on it!

Mia loves to watch and help mommy and daddy in the kitchen, with the CDs and has now developed a new passion for watching Pearl Jam music (DVDs) where she can correctly identify Eddie Vedder (lead singer) and Mike McCready (lead guitarist). This is daddy's dream come true. To make things even better, daddy finally found someone who will sit with him and watch RUSH videos! Mia is really into muppets of all kinds (Muppet movies and Sesame Street). We are having so much fun with her these days!

Dia de Mia Vol. 2 Nos. 43 & 44 Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Mia was lucky enough to have several Christmas' this holiday season. It all began the week before Christmas. We had our own family Christmas in Maryland where she excitedly opened a few gifts just about every day for 4 days. Friends and family sent puzzles, stuffed animals, musical instruments, a flying monkey, Betty Spaghetti, alphabet games, clothes, books, play kitchen items including cuttable fruit, pots and pans, and wooden cookies. Maryland Santa even brought Mia her very own train set. Just when it all seemed to be too much fun, we hopped on a plane to celebrate with both sets of grandparents, uncle Bob, Aunt Kris and cousins galore. Mia was quite the trendy traveler with her backpack loaded up with new toys and activities.

We arrived in cool, cloudy Arizona (no that's not a typo!) and were greeted by Grandma and Grandpa. We then had a lovely Christmas Eve dinner and though, jet-lagged, Mia certainly loved opening more presents... puzzles, books, clothes, a purple tutu, DVD, scarf and much more!

Next stop was Abi and Tata's house for Christmas day festivities. Again, Mia was surprised to see even more presents...movies, puzzles, stuffed animals, books, alphabet telephone, clothes, and more! Mia is sure grateful to have so many family members taking care of her!


She had so much fun helping Abi cook, enjoyed a couple of trips to the Railroad Park, playing dress up, and turning on the Christmas tree. While at Abi and Tata's we also celebrated yet one more Christmas with the Camachos, and caught a Suns game with the Browns. We enjoyed a tasty dinner and headed off to the Phoenix Zoo for Zoo lights. FUN, FUN!


We enjoyed a few more days at Abi and Tata's which included a visit to Diana's house where Mia got to play with all of her older second cousins and younger cousin, Fletcher. Later that night, she rocked out to the family ukulele band. Boy was that ever fun!




The second part of the trip was back at the Brown's house. Mia helped Grandma make cheese dip, went on several trips to the park including a trip to play catch with Daddy, Mommy, Grandpa and cousin, Vance, eating chips with Grandpa, playing spin Grandma around in circles and getting to know Chip and Kathi's daughter, Morgaine.

The last part of our visit included a ride on the light rail to the Arizona Center, a delicious lunch at the Elephant Bar- check out the dessert that Mia was allowed to sample, and a great New Year's Eve party with friends of our friends, Chip and Kathi. All in all, Mia was very comfortable with family and friends. She is talking up a storm and wasn't shy in the least bit. Mommy and Daddy were able to go out a few times thanks to Abi and Tata and we especially loved the warmer weather towards the end... sunny and in the 70's (just how we like it!). Alas, all good trips must end and we headed back to freezing, cold Maryland.





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Dia de Mia Vol. 2 No. 42: Tis the Season

The most exciting thing that happened last week was when we were dancing in the living room. Mia just stopped in her tracks, threw her arms back and did a full fledged somersault right on the hardwood floors! We asked her to do it again and she proceeded to do about 8 more. She is a true pro now and we look forward to her debut in a future summer Olympics.

We are trying to make the most of this holiday season with fun activities for Mia. Mommy and Mia baked their first batch of oatmeal/chocolate chip cookies and they were a hit! Mia loved using her new baking utensils and bowl (thanks Jess!) and she poured, stirred and danced throughout the entire process. We all are enjoying the best part of it... eating the cookies!


Last Saturday we had a very fun-filled afternoon. Mia went to Tom's 2nd birthday party. She played with all of her little buddies and really perked up when she saw the moon bounce. So what if it was 34F outside. She jumped around with the best of them and even wiped out face first once or twice. Her favorite part of the party was the chocolate cake and the singing of "Happy Birthday". She's really got that down.

Later that day we went to Mayorga coffee shop to hear daddy rock out with Liver Damage. She had fun listening to the band and kept saying "Daddy's guitar" when he played. They sure sounded good!

We had dinner with Andrew, Claire and Luke on Sunday and they joined us for Brookside Gardens Festival of Lights. We haven't seen anything like it! The night was significantly warmer than others so it was a good night to be out and about. Mia and Luke enjoyed the lights but their favorite part was the small trains. This is where we went to see butterflies in the summer and it was so neat to see how they converted the room into a winter wonderland.


We are very much looking forward to our trip to Arizona to see everyone. We wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. See you back on the blog in 2009!

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