Happy 5th Birthday Mia!

Happy Birthday to our precious Mia!  She's 5 years old!

 Mia, Lily, Bama, Granna and I celebrated Monday night at Myako.  This girl loves her some hibachi style food.  She calls this the "Pinocchio restaurant" which stems from when Lily would call it the "Tokyo restaurant."

 Blowing out the candle on her birthday cheesecake.

Since Ryan is on a mission trip right now, we celebrated as a family on the Friday before her birthday.  We kept the girls home from school and then enjoyed a morning at the Movie Theater seeing Free Birds and then having lunch at Tzatziki's before dropping him off at the airport.  We also gave Mia her gift, and she immediately fell in love with her "Go-Go Pogo" stick.  She and Lily have both had a blast with it!

I cannot even describe how much joy this sweet girl brings to our lives.  She lights up every room she walks (or skips or jumps or runs) into.  She is so smart and funny, and she knows it.  She is also incredibly generous and kind.  She has such a big heart.  She loves "cuddle time" at night where she just wants you to lay next to her and hug on her.  She's not a fan of kisses though, so don't try to give her one of those!  She is debating on either "astronaut, cowgirl or mommy" as her career choice these days.  She is such a good eater; when we had lunch at a Chinese restaurant the other day with some friends, she kept asking to try all the different foods on the lazy susan.  You can often hear her singing while she's in bed either going to sleep or when she wakes up but she knows she can't get out of bed yet (we have a color changing clock to help her know).  She makes some great faces that make me laugh.  She loves to talk; I'm always amazed by her vocabulary and ability to articulate herself.  She loves to be active which is why her Little Gym class (part ballet, part tap and part gymnastics) is perfect for her.

One of my favorite qualities of Mia is her love of life; she is always living in the moment.  Almost any time you ask "what was the best part of your day?" she will pause for just a moment and then reply "right now."  It usually doesn't make a difference what you're doing, but right then, it's the best part of her day.  I feel like I could learn a lesson from her.  I can't wait to see what God has in store for her life.  I am so proud to call her my daughter.

We had her check-up yesterday and she's a growing girl.  She's now 42.5 inches tall and weighs 45 pounds, 6 ounces.  She thankfully passed her vision and hearing test.

I had fun asking her a few questions to find out some of her current favorites.  I thought it was interesting she wanted to give multiple answers for most of the questions; she didn't want to pick just one favorite thing!

Color: Pink, red and orange

TV show: Sophia the First and Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood

Movie: Brave and How the Grinch Stole Christmas (cartoon version)

Friend: Macey, Sarah and Eliana

Game: Connect 4

Place to Go: Movie Theatre

Ice Cream: Blueberry, Strawberry, Grape and Key Lime.  When I suggested that she might be thinking of breakfast yogurts instead of ice cream flavors, she adamantly states these were her favorite ice cream flavors.

Animal: Giraffe, zebra and cheetah

Food: Watermelon, Tomatoes and Yogurt

Book: Green Eggs and Ham

Song: 10,000 Reasons by Matt Redmon

I wish I could just follow her around with a video camera all day to forever capture her awesomeness. 

I saw the picture below the other day, and I couldn't help but think of Mia.  She is one of a kind, and I wouldn't change one thing about her.  I love this incredible girl, and I thank God daily for letting her be mine!



Mia's Birthday Party

Last Sunday we had Mia's 5th birthday party at The Little Gym.  It was perfect!  It made my job so super easy (which was greatly appreciated given how life has been a little crazy the last few weeks and Ryan is on a mission trip to North Africa), and Mia absolutely loves being at this gym.  She was thrilled that most of the kids from her class were able to come along with Parker and Macey.  Also, two of Lily's friends from school, Rachael and Raegan, came with their younger siblings.  It was a fun time!

 Pirate Mia was ready for her swashbuckling adventure to begin!

 Everyone gathered around Ms. Morgan to learn the gym rules (be safe and have fun!) and sing a welcome song.

 From here, it was time to warm up like a pirate.  The kids pretended to swab the deck, climb the rope, hit the deck and other fun seafaring items.

After warm up, they had a few minutes of play time while they set up for the next adventure.  Mia and her friends had fun on the uneven bars.

 Mia COULD NOT WAIT for this activity.  She had talked about it for weeks.

 There are two lines, and you get to run and knock down the huge foam pieces.  She and Lily got to lead the way.

 Mia was thrilled to end this game by getting to knock down two at once.  She did it!

 Next up was the inflatable jumpy.

 Havin' fun jumping down the track.

 Soon it was time for pirate cake.  Look at that red face from all the fun!

 Happy birthday sweet girl!

 We headed back out to play a few different hula hoop games.

 This was one of the few pictures I snapped that wasn't completely blurry.  These kids were having so much fun as they ran everywhere; my shutter wasn't fast enough to catch them!

After all the games, we wound down with a treasure hunt.  There were several clues hidden around the gym that the kids hunted together.  It ended by going out to the lobby to receive their goodies.  We gave each of the younger kids a book called "Shiver Me Letters: A Pirate ABC" while the older kids received "Pirates Go To School."  We have both of these books at home already and love them, so we thought we would share with our friends instead of doing goody bags.  They all seemed pretty excited about that.

We headed home (yea for no clean up!) and Mia opened all her presents.  She received so many fun toys, movies and games, and we appreciate her friends' thoughtfulness.  What a fun way to celebrate our little pirate girl!

Recent Miscellaneous Things

Lily wrote this note to me last weekend.  We had enjoyed just a wonderful weekend of time together; you can believe this was absolutely the best way to end it!

 We bought Lily a new Precious Moments Bible last Sunday.  She loves it.  She has been reading it every day, and is in early Genesis now.  She took it upon herself to fill out the beginning.  A few notes on this. When I asked why it said "Bama and Pop" next to "Father's Parents" she replied "Because I didn't know how to spell Grandpops."  Interestingly though, the next line asks for the mom's name and it says "I do not know how to write my mom's name."  When I asked what "the lego song" is, she sang something about how much she loves to play with them; she apparently made it up.  I also love that her favorite Bible verse is 1 Corinthians 13:4 "thoow" 8A.

 Silly girl!

 Lily with Racheal and Danae at the Chattahoochee Nature Park.  She really enjoyed this class field trip.

 Mrs. Keesee's Kindergarten class gave me this "round of applause" when I spoke to them about my recent China trip.  Love it!

Big news!  Lily lost her first and second teeth!  They were both wiggly but not coming out.  The permanent tooth was coming in behind one and getting pushed backwards because the baby tooth wasn't coming out.  We went to see Dr. Aaron about it, and we opted to pull both of them in the office.  Lily did great, and she was so excited to have these out!

 ACCA recently participated in the national DEAR Day.  This stands for Drop Everything and Read.  The kids love it because they get to wear their pajamas to school.  Here's a picture of Lily reading The Boxcar Children between Raegan and Avery.

 Mia decided her new career aspiration is "superhero cowgirl."

 Today was Macey's 5th birthday party, and they made princess frames.  Love these girls!

Funny little story.  Earlier this week on the way to school, Mia said how excited she was to be 5 now.  Lily looked at her and calmly stated "You know Mia, when I was 5, I was your age."  I busted out laughing; that is exactly something Grandpops says to them!

Early November

Fun from the first week of November...

 

This cracked me up.  I went in to check on the girls before going to bed, and I found Mia sound asleep INSIDE her pillow.  What in the world was she thinking?!

 Mia's class performed at chapel for the first time last week.  I was so proud of her!  Two kids in her class had a little meltdown beforehand and couldn't make it on stage.  Mia sang loud and proud though!

 We went to visit Meme last night.  We know this is precious time with her, so I'm glad each time we're able to visit.

 Mom and Dad took the girls and Wayne's kids to see the Rockettes and have dinner at Hard Rock Café today.  I know my kids loved it!  They also loved that Granna and Papa bought them souvenirs at Hard Rock!

Happy Halloween!

We decided to join in the Halloween festivities a day early and go trunk or treating at a nearby church.  Both girls went as princesses this year.  Lily dressed up as Ariel and Mia dressed up as Sophia.

 Love these girls!

 Even though it was crowded, the girls had fun collecting candy from lots of cars at Smyrna First Methodist.

 We convinced the girls that staying home on Halloween and handing out candy would be awesome.  Really, with Halloween falling on a Thursday, we just couldn't stay out or up late and still expect to sleep well and have a good day at school the next day.  Thankfully, Grandpops and Grandma Jan sent the girls Halloween cards that had these super cute masks in them.  They were more than happy to put these on and greet the couple of trick or treaters that came to our door.

 I tried making a cute little Halloween meal for dinner: jack o lantern burgers, pretzel/cheese broomsticks and banana ghosts.  We also made Halloween punch that was bright orange and tasted similar to an orange vanilla smoothie.  It was a fun and yummy dinner.

The girls enjoyed collecting the candy but of course eating it was their favorite part.  I think the fun dip was probably the biggest hit!