Mia's Recital

Last week Mia had her mid year recital last week.  She absolutely loves her combination gymnastics, tap and ballet class that she takes each week at The Little Gym.  It is so fun to watch her have such a great time!

They started with gymnastics.  Look at the big smile on her face as they galloped all around the big red mat! 

 Mia was very proud of her arabesque on the balance beam; she said this was her favorite part.  I loved watching her flip over the uneven bars too.

 We moved over to tap next.  She was so cute intently watching Miss Morgan and tapping along.

 Next up was ballet.  This is when I remembered her ballet shoes are too small, and we need to buy new ones.  We went without shoes :-)

 My sweet little ballerina.

 Mia loves this class so much, and it's been so cool to see her skills improve over the last few months.  We're so glad there is a Little Gym near us!



Happy (Belated) Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!  I hope you and your family were able to count your blessings and celebrate.  We typically celebrate at my cousin's house, but we decided on something a little different this year; Thanksgiving at the beach!  We didn't go in October like normal, so we decided to go over Thanksgiving instead.  It was wonderful!  We started out in Birmingham where Ryan and I went to the Alabama concert; that was a lot of fun.  The next morning we visited with Kendall, John and their precious new baby girl; Josh, Amy and Liz joined us too so it was nice to have the whole family together.  After some time with them, we headed down to the condo.

 

We decided we needed to decorate like we would back home, so we put up window clings all around.

 We decided to eat out a couple of times instead of eating in each day.  One of our favorites was Lamberts.  The girls had never been before, and they were very excited to catch a roll.

 We also enjoyed a yummy meal at The Hangout.

 This is in simply because I love the girls wearing clothes about loving Mommy and Daddy.

We made lots of craft projects this week.  Here are a few of them.

 We also spent a little time at Fort Morgan which was interesting.  Unfortunately, it was REALLY cold, so we didn't stay out too long.  We enjoyed walking though the museum though.

 We made it out to the beach a couple of times, but it was pretty chilly.  The first time, we only stayed for about 15 minutes because it was so cold.  The second time, Kendall, John and Caroline were with us; they were in the area visiting John's family, so they met us for lunch and then came back to introduce Caroline to the beach.  That was a much nicer day, so we spent about 45 minutes or so out.  The girls had fun running around and digging.  Since we couldn't go to the beach as much, we hit the indoor pool a couple of times which the girls loved.  It was a great way to burn some energy!

 We always enjoy reading lots of books together.

 The girls were excited about their light up bracelets!

 Of course, we ate in for Thanksgiving dinner.  We kept it low key so it wouldn't be a stressful time.  The menu included Honeybaked Ham and Turkey, corn soufflé, lemon green beans, cheesy mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, rolls, orange wedges and apple slices.  It was delicious!

 Of course we enjoyed some beautiful views.

One of the beautiful sunsets we enjoyed too.

This was such a wonderful week of much needed family time.  I am so thankful for my family!

Picture from North Africa

Is this not an amazingly gorgeous picture?  On Ryan's recent trip to North Africa, they had one sight-seeing day where they visited several interesting sites and cities.  This was by far my favorite picture though.  This is a coffee shop looking over the Mediterranean.  Wouldn't you love to just sit here and stare for hours?

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!