So Fun

It has been so fun having my sister and her girls in town to play! My mom and dad flew in last night as well and the girls are busy loving on grandma and grandpa.  :)  It has been so fun seeing our daughters interact and play together. We only wish our other siblings could have made it out as well and that ALL the cousins could have been her to play together!

Sara loves holding Mia, even though they are getting closer and closer to being the same size.  lol

Mia, my cute little bug, trying to keep up with her cousins.

Hard at work on Halloween decorations for the house.

It is, apparently, VERY serious business.

This morning we got up, ate breakfast and put on our Halloween costumes to go trick-or-treating at a nursing home for a play group activity. Nothing like a little candy first thing in the morning!  :)  It made me think of a bib I saw at the store the other day that said, "The sugar made me do it!"  I think we'll have to get three of those shirts for these three cute candy-loving girls for the next few days.

My little pink caterpillar playing with mom's sunglasses before getting into her butterfly costume.  :)

Sofia, Mia and Sara - 3 little beauties! Mia's loving sitting like a big girl with her cousins.  :)

This little Butterfly is read to Trick-or-Treat rock-and-roll!

My niece Sara did NOT want to smile for the camera. I decided to use reverse psychology by telling her I wanted to take an "ugly senorita" photo so she should show me her ugly senorita face. It worked, and Sara smiled. However, Sofia took me seriously and this was the resulting photo:

Ugly senorita photo.  lol

Aren't they the cutest things ever!

Ready for trick or treating.  :)

Trick-or-Treat!

Uhm, mommy, is that MY piece of candy in YOUR mouth??? Whoopsie!

LOVE this smile! I just have to say how great her lip repair surgery has healed. We are almost a year out and her lip is so smooth that you'd never guess it was open on both sides of her sweet little mouth/nose when she was born.

And a few last photos of the girls with grandma and grandpa:

Mia getting some grandma loves.  :)

Fia chilling with grandpa...

...while grandma reads to Sara.

Still Alive

I'm still alive. It's been busy and and I've been tired on top of all the business, so that pretty much sums it up.  :)  


Last week Mia and I went to a play date that was Halloween themed. She has a darling butterfly costume and also a pumpkin costume that we got on clearance last year after Halloween for this year. Our friend that we invited didn't have a costume yet, so we let them borrow the butterfly and Mia went as a pumpkin. She looked SO cute!

Standing with mama and checking out the scene. She was actually dragging me all over by the finger since she's STILL not walking on her own.  Argh!

Mia was really interested in checking out the sand box, but not actually playing in it!

Luckily she's so dainty or she wouldn't have fit in this one!  :)

With her "stem" hat on.  :)

Afterwards Mia and I dropped our friends back off at their apartment and headed up north to meet papa for lunch at Olive Garden. YUM!

Mia has started being interested in coloring and it's so fun to watch her!

Hey dad, you can color, but stay outta my way!  :)

My sister Nikki, who is just younger than me, is in town with her girls from Germany and we've been having so much fun! Grandma and grandpa fly in tomorrow night and their papa flies in on Sunday so we'll have an even MORE full house soon. Yay!


So here's a quick sneak peek so far from cell phone photos:

Mia and Sofia checking each other out while Sara checks her watch.

We have the coolest "cows" outside the airport.  :)

Too bad there was a sign saying not to sit on them.  :(

Mia going down the slide with Fia.

Swinging on the hammock at Giddeon's house - Sara, Fia, Gid, Nik and Mia.

Mia getting ready to knock down Sara's tower.  :)

On the old fire truck that's part of the playground down town.

Getting their "crawl" on.  :)

Super Sadness

So not only do we have our 15 month appointment tomorrow, but I think Mia is cutting TEETH. Not just a TOOTH, but TEETH. When I looked in her mouth the other day I saw what I THINK was a lateral incisor on the left coming in right between where her regular gum-line meets her front clefted gum-line. Besides that, I see one lump where a molar is thinking about coming in as well as the two bottom canine teeth and maybe the top two canine teeth. That would make - if you're counting - SIX new teeth that are in different stages of coming in right now. Only one of those (maybe two) have cut through and she's seemed pretty miserable.  :(  Tonight she woke up after being sound a sleep for a few hours and was just fussing miserably. We waited for a little while to see if she would go back to sleep, but the pain must have been keeping her awake, so I went in and gave her some acetaminophen and some teething jel and then planned on snuggling her back to sleep while we waited for them to kick in and work their magic. Well Zeus couldn't stand hearing her so sad, so he came down and took over for the snuggling part - good papa!


I also realize that I haven't posted in quite some time and have a ton of photos that I just downloaded from my phone. So if you are anti-photo-mass-posting, I'm warning you now... look away!  :)


The weekend of Sept 24, I watched my friend Michelle's daughter while she had a girls' day out with some of the ladies in her family. It was fun having her and she LOVES Mia which was both a blessing and a curse for a little girl who's use to having mommy and everything else to herself for the most part.  lol

Climbing fun - Mia and Amali

 

Some together time..... and some alone time = happy friends!  lol

What'cha doing buddy?

Wow, this IS fun! Busy little heads together making plans for later.  :)

And the fun just keeps on going!

On a ride in the "buddy stroller" to the pool for some swimming!

Don't even THINK about taking your sucker back mom! MOMMY, GIVE ME BACK MY SUCKER!!!

Happiness, thy name is blue sucker!

Bath-time fun - check out how long her hair is getting!!!

Looking at photos and videos with papa on his phone.

Playing with papa - they have so much fun together!

She was teaching papa how to do THIS cool trick, but once they were both doing it I couldn't seem to get a photo, darn it!

Playing today with Gideon, the little boy I watch twice a week. It's so fun because they know each other now and play so cute together (usually).  :)

I've also been busy coming up with t-shirt designs for my new little side business called ClefTees. When Mia was born I looked all over for some shirts we could get for our family that had something to do with clefts, but never found anything I liked. Well, I made up some designs for a clef seminar we went to last month. I posted the photos on my cleft lip / cleft palate group and people wanted to see more, so I've been working on different designs. It's been a lot of fun, but also taken up a lot of time, which is part of why I've been so lax in updating the blog lately.  My first order shipped out today and I have another one going out tomorrow. I'm excited because I'm donating some of the money from each order to Smile Train, an organization that repairs cleft lips and palates all over the world! You can check out some of our designs on Facebook or by clicking on this link:  http://www.facebook.com/pages/ClefTees/234579949924954.  Here's one of my new favorites.  :)

Man do I miss that beautiful wide mile!  :)