Christmas Hijinks

We're getting closer to Christmas break, one day of preschool left before we use the weekend to pack our bags. We have to leave here super early, to get to the airport in time for our flight. I think we have one of the first few out of springs.

Mia was officially discharged from feeding therapy on Wednesday. This is the last straw in the program. The suit she is wearing is a pressure vest, the pressure calms her down and helps her focus.

Her afternoon preschool had a gingerbread house party. I was concerned at first, but once I was able to read all of the ingredients decided it was okay to proceed. Mia had a lot of fun, though she didn't like getting the icing on her hands.

The finished products.

Getting ready for the brigade Christmas party

The balloon guy was impressive! She wanted a butterfly and that is exactly what she got!

The bouncy house

Mia and her little friend Laeney with their Pink Piggy and Butterfly. I'm telling you, that guy didn't bat an eye when they made their requests!

She's dangerous at minigolf!

She's warming up to this Santa fellow

We had pictures made since we had such a killer coupon

What negative degrees?

We had a winter storm roll through over the weekend and during the first part of the week. The temperatures were dipping below zero and the wind chill was going MUCH lower! On Monday we HAD to get outside! We had been cooped up and only left for a few hours on Saturday to go to the pottery shop and work on some unfinished projects with my friend Carolyn.
Mia wanted to play in the snow so badly, so I put a good three layers beneath her snowsuit, wrapped a scarf around her face and grabbed the sled! It was about 6 degrees I believe, so we didn't stay outside long, just enough to get a few good runs down the hill at the playground and check the mail.

This could be a scene straigt out of A Christmas Story!

Mommy's helper

5" in this particular spot

MUCH more than 5" here! The snow was blowing into foot high drifts right here.

Down she goes!

You can't really see, but she's giggling!

Mia's Visit with Santa

Mia's picture with Santa was a week in the making! I realised that I didn't tell Mia what to expect from Santa at The North Pole theme park, so of course she was afraid of the big strange man with the beard! I talked about him and mom emailed a picture of me with him when I was about the same age. Apparently I was scared witless of him but mom told me that she really wanted this picture, so I agreed that I'd put my hand on his knee for the picture. We talked about how nice Santa is and how much Mimmy and PopPop and Grandma would love to see her in a picture with him. I took her to the PX where they had a nice set up and let her watch other kids sit on his lap. Two days later she had no fear and walked right up to him. Apparently she asked for "an elephant to sleep with, but just a pretend one. Real elephants won't fit in my bed" and "a sparkly blue cinderella dress and sparkly red shoes to match" (honestly. That matches in her world!)

Santa was actually sitting in front of a green screen so they can switch the background according to what the customer wanted. I didn't remember that from our recon visit and put her in a green dress with pretty smocking of a winter sleigh that mom found. When they took the picture, her dress was see through! The photographer said that anything green would initially turn into whatever the background was, but she had a way to fix it thank goodness!

A Very Girly Christmas

I failed to take pictures at Thanksgiving this year, go Me! Everyone had a great time, the food was great and it was good to see Susie and Mark, who flew in midday on Thanksgiving Day. Instead of shopping on Black Friday, we went to Santa's North Pole at the start of the Pikes Peak Highway. It's a little Christmas themed amusement park that is open between May and January I believe. Mia and I arrived before the others so we waited in line to see Santa. I wasn't sure what she would do. Let's just say it was a big no go for sitting with the strange bearded man! She didn't want anything to do with him. She is a little adrenaline junkie though! She loved the fast spinny rides, except for the rocking rocket ship. I don't know what was so scary about that one after the crazy roller coaster and the super spinny up and down parachutes and plane!
On Saturday we didn't leave the house except to retrieve a package from the post office. We played at the big playground on the way home. When we got home we cleaned the flower beds of the dead plants and moved the flower pots to the shelves on the back porch. We did a minimal amount of Christmas decorating, just enough to get in the spirit but not so much that it's a pain to put away. Since we're going to Virginia this year we aren't dragging out and assembling the big tree. Grandma Dollman had given Mia a miniature Disney Princess tree so we just put that up on the end table beside the piano. I thought it came with ornaments but didn't see any in the box. Luckily, I kept all of Mia's fairy and Barbie ornaments totally separate from the rest of the ornaments and only had to dig out one box of ornaments! For the rest of the decorating we hung the stockings and some garland on the stair banister and brought the nutcracker out. We ordered a pine wreath from our little neighbor who was selling them in November to help pay his tuition to a home school tutoring academy and they came in the day before Thanksgiving. It has a nice, festive aroma that we get to whiff when we open the door. I rather shoddily hung some white lights around the door, firmly believing there is a reason we send the guys out to do it!

Now if I could just finish Christmas gift making/shopping. I'm having a hard time motivating this year. I got a wild hair and made a quilt for Mia in four hours, so I know the wherewithal is there, I'm just having a hard time tapping into it for the projects I NEED to finish! I think part of it is not having Gary around to cheer me on, he was my pep team last year!

Mia's girly little Christmas tree

The quilt that appeared out of nowhere

This was taken a couple of weeks ago, she was pushing her ponies around the house, refusing to believe that she needed pants over those tie dyed tights.

Riding in the cars at The North Pole

This is on the rocket ship ride that she didn't like! Helen said she was absolutely trembling! Caden actually enjoyed it, besides the expression that makes you think she's going to toss her cookies!

I think the airplanes were too slow and bored her!

Mia was adamant that she was NOT getting on the ferris wheel, but she changed her mind after Erin and John did all of the standing in line.

The Best School Picture Ever!

This is actually the re-take, and boy was it worth waiting for! She had the most awful smirk in her first set. It was amusing, but not something I wanted to pay for and send off to family! The photographer must have been doing something very ridiculous. I had originally chosen a plain blue background, but someone made a mistake. I actually like the purple background more, it makes the colors in her outfit stand out. We also have a set from her other preschool, but I didn't plan on buying them so I didn't dress her in anything that I'd want pictures made in, so they are going back. I'm super pleased with these!

Mia's Latest Masterpiece

We are out of school again today. She is having some kind of allergic reaction in her eyes, presumably from the dust I stirred up when changing out the air filters for the furnace. One is directly across from her room and though I tried to be careful, they were nasty. I was sneezing and coughing with water eyes myself, but she actually has irritation. She had a bit of eye discharge last night but it seems to have subsided. I kept her out of school just to be safe, even though she doesn't appear to have conjunctivitis. She's just red and puffy, but an uncomfortable kid doesn't learn well so we stayed home and watched PBS. After the kids portion ended we played board games and the wii.
It turned out to have a silver lining, this staying home business. We got a call from Gary! This is twice in a week, so we're pretty lucky. Mia likes talking to him and I know the feeling is mutual.

Not much else is happening. I'm working on getting through the math final, first week of December. We're going to Helen's for Thanksgiving, with the extra treat of having Susie and Mark in town. I'm also working on Christmas presents, either buying or making them. I'm not as diligent as I was last year about DIY. I still have time but then again I don't!

We got our snow!

The weather forecast for Friday night was supposed to include snow, but we awoke to a less-than-white Saturday morning. We took that as a sign that we were supposed to go to yoga. We had a pretty full class and Mia even listened :) Saturday evening, I dropped Mia at Helen's house to share a babysitter and we went out for a few hours for some big person time! We walked around some shops at Briargate and ate at PF Changs, which has an excellent gluten free menu! It's nice to be able to eat oriental food and not feel horrible all through the next day! It began to snow before we made it to dinner and didn't stop until the wee hours of the morning. We woke up to at least two inches, many more in some areas where the snow was blowing. Mia asked to go out, which is labor intensive since it takes a good twenty minutes to get both of us into our snowsuits. She had a good hour of running around and rolling in the snow before our cheeks got too cold.

Firefighter Mia!

That's how she introduced herself to everyone on our neighborhood playground today, "Hi! I'm Firefighter Mia!" Officer Sam came to her preschool today and talked about 911 and stranger danger. This is great because I've been working with her to memorize what to tell a dispatcher if she did have to call 911. She almost has her address memorized, if I start it she can finish it flawlessly. Last night I heard her telling Cat, "If you get a fire on you, you have to STOP DROP AND ROLL to get it off." She also frequently coaches her stuffed animals on how to call 911 on the telephone. She's definitely into the idea of being a firefighter and saving people as her first career choice! It's funny because I remember wanting to be a firefighter or a paramedic when I was little. I was so enamored with the idea of saving the day and never missed an episode of Rescue 911! Tuesday nights, remember Mom? I'd be so disappointed if it turned out to be a re-run or didn't come on! I tried to upload a video of Mia talking about what she learned, but it didn't want to cooperate. Bummer!

Firefighter Mia on the playground, ready for action!

Taken a few days ago, she just smiled so beautifully I couldn't resist!

Where there is a smile, there is also a goofball face!

Halloween!

Our Halloween started early Friday morning. Ruth Washburn lets the kids come to class in costumes if they wish, and Mia chose to dress up as a ballerina in on of my old recital costumes! We added some leg warmers and a turtleneck to make it weather appropriate.

She climbed in her box and watched PBS until I got it together enough to leave!

Halloween night, she dressed up as Belle in a costume that Mimmy sent last month. We made a loop around the neighborhood. She actually said "trick-or-treat" and "thank you" this year! There were a few people in the neighborhood that had creepy costumes and props like very loud chainsaws. She was the bravest little princess! She looked at Chainsaw Guy and walked right by him to the bowl of candy that he was "guarding" and even told him "Thank you!" The only thing she didn't do was go into a neighbor's garage that was super dark and set up like a mad scientist lab...or something. We're not sure since we didn't go in! After we came back to our house we sat outside and handed out candy. I think that was more fun for her. Someone put a little miniature My Little Pony in her bag instead of candy, so it really didn't matter to her that she couldn't eat any of it! She slept with it and chose to name it Cuties!