Family Time

We made it safely to Arkansas for the holiday on Wednesday night after a fun stop in Ft. Worth at my cousin Kristi's house. Mia's having a fun time with her cousin Sadie who's 8 months older than her. They are so cute together and would be even cuter with some noise reduction head phones.  lol  They LOVE playing with each other's toys, but do not want to share said toys with each other and have not yet realized that they can easily share the same toys. Good thing they're so stinkin' cute and better yet, they sometimes even get along and play together for a few minutes.  :)  


When we first got in around 8 pm, Sadie was already asleep but her papa (my brother Dan) decided he needed to get her up to see her cousin.  :) They looked SO cute in their jammies and actually played really cute together with Sadie's kitchen and Sadie kept repeating her name in the cutest voice ever.

Jammied cousins playing with Sadie's kitchen.

Sadie helping Zeus push the cart. So cute!

Mia thought Sadie's vacuum was pretty darn cool.

Her little pig tails are so stinking cute and are getting so long!

Sadie and Mia with their matching pig tails - SO cute!

The daddies feeding the daughters yummy spaghetti last night.  :)

Another brother of mine, Michael and his wife Deena made it in last night from Washington after a day of flying. Today Michael and Deena ran errands and Zeus went grocery shopping while Dan worked so Brienne,  and I and our girls hung out at home. Zeus got home and made a BOMBAY dinner of enchiladas, re-fried beans, Spanish rice and homemade salsa. It was so SO yummy!!!  Here's some pictures of our day... as I uploaded them I realized that I should probably get more photos of the grown-ups as well, so that's my goal for tomorrow.  :)

The girls coloring today. 

..and today, again with the cute matching hairdo's. Nope, wasn't even planned, though tomorrow it may be.  :)

We played with bubbles which both girls love.

The girls had fun coloring with Aunt Deena.

And ending the day with some kitchen play in the jammies again seems to make for a good way to end the evening.  :)  Mia's sporting a pair of Sadie's outgrown jammies - hooray for cousin pass-alongs!

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.  :)

One Week, and then some, post op

Well, we made it through the first week. At points we never thought we would, but we did. Hooray! 

This past Thursday we made it to one week post op. Yay! Less than one week more of arm restraints - who-flipping-rah!!! Next Thursday we will burn the suckers! :) Just kidding. We are going to save them for her memory box so that she can see how tiny she once was, especially at the time of her lip surgery when she could even slip out of them.

Thankfully the swelling and bruising have subsided and Mia's feeling more herself for the most part, now that we are nine days post op. Here are her one week post surgery photos when she was rocking the pink and white and ruffles. We've done a bunch of pink and purple lately so her arm restraints don't clash with her outfits. Also, that way they look more like an accessory than a necessity.  :)

One Week Post-Op photo shoot

Seriously mom - MORE photos?!?!

"Toots" and her toots - thank goodness she can still reach them with her arm restraints on or things could have gotten real ugly real fast!

Awe... that's my sweet baby girl. But wait, what's wrong with this picture...???

...ah-ha! Someone is missing an arm restraint - it's there, right above her head in the crib - which is hard to see in that sea of "pinkness". Thank goodness no damage was done!

Ten Days Post Op - Saturday, November 20, 2010

This morning I trimmed her steristrip.  It was still attached to her cheeks, but had a gap on either side of her mouth. 

Mia's new little steri-strip moustache.

At certain angles, Mia can still reach to "help" with her bottle.  On rare occasions she will just lay there and tiredly eat.  Some times she is pure helpfulness and wants to help with both hands, while others she wants to play with her feet.  When both the bottle AND her feet catch her attention, what's a girl to do????

SUCH a conundrum.  Bottle or feet, bottle or feet?  Good thing she's got TWO arms so she can do one of each!

A little later I trimmed up the steristrip when I realized that the one side had a lot of unattached tape area.  I carefully trimmed it a little more so that the loose sides wouldn't get caught on anything and rip off with her stitches and cause a major catastrophe (not to mention heart failure on the part of her parents).  Fortunately it went safely.  Unfortunately, Mia's smaller little tape moustache, she bears a "slight" resemblance to, uh, Hitler.  Oh no!  Between that and the arm restraints that keep her little arms straight, it's probably a good thing we aren't currently visiting family in Germany!

Hie!

Little Adolf, I mean Mia, hanging out in her "exersaucer" - thanks to Auntie Mish not having room to take it to the UK with her.  So glad she's finally able to sit up enough to use it.

Zeus's brother Danny and his family came into town this morning.  We had to get some update photos of Mia and her baby cousin Dahnia.  Dahnia is almost two months old and Mia is almost 5 months old.

Dahnia and Mia - aka Monchichi and Toots

Two cute little cousins!

Chilling in their sunhats from Tia Bertha.  :)

Only five more days of arm restraints!!!