Tiny Dancer

Since we found out that Mia was a girl, it has been asked whether or not she was going to take dance. I really, really don't want to push her into anything that I like to do... I mean, what if she wanted to do soccer? music? softball?

Well, I think we might have a dancer on our hands...

The other day we had this conversation:

Mia: (picks up her backpack) Bye mama! I go to dance class now.
Me: Oh? Where is dance class?
Mia: Mia room!

She proceeds to go into her room, pretend to put on dancing shoes, and then stretch. And dance. We've never told her what happens at dance class... she remembers from the ONE class she's watched and that was several months ago.

Some stills of the dancing session... notice the complete and utter joy on her face. I didn't have to ask her to smile once.

Oh, and also... Mia seems to have a bit of soul in her. This is her change in dancing when it was a rap song (we were watching a Christian station that shows music videos). Ha!

And unto us a child is born...

Merry Christmas, everyone! What a wonderful season -- we always love celebrating the birth of our Savior and contemplating the miracles that had to be in order for Him to get here and to be a sign to us. We love this verse from Isaiah that foretold His birth:

"For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace." Isaiah 9:6

We pray that He is truly your mighty God, everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace.

Mia had a fabulous Christmas this year. She talked of it being Jesus' birthday and sang "Happy Day to you" (Mia's version of "Happy Birthday") to Jesus every night. How cute is that? She loved giving and receiving presents and all the cookies that went along with the many celebrations that we were blessed to attend. Here are some pictures.

Can we please open the presents now, Daddy?

She was still quite careful opening this year.

Cheesin' and openin' A multi-tasker

Oh yeah. Santa knows what Mia likes. And Mark.

She's awfully confused by the whole thing.

But who cares?! There are choo-choos!

Cookies for breakfast. Oh yeah! The tradition continues...

She did this completely without prompting. She is officially a member of the "dork family."

Mia is approximately 16 quarts.

Oh yes, she is a big fan of the cookies.

We have more pictures from the other celebrations, but they aren't on the computer yet. Soon!

Maternity Pictures

Back in July, Mia won the photo contest over at Laurie Heath's photography blog. In an attempt to do something fun and different for this baby that we didn't do with Mia, we set up to do a maternity/infant session. See, Marble! All is well!

Laurie is amazing, you guys. If you live in our area, I recommend her so much. The session was way more fun than it should have been! Here's the blog post of our pictures:

http://www.laurieheathstudio.com/blog/2008/12/how-gorgeous-is-this-mommy-to-be.html

Enjoy!

A Winter Wonderland

It snowed! It snowed! (Though, it was a week ago, and it is currently almost 80 degrees... but that's Texas weather for ya...)

The pictures aren't great because the batteries in our camera died and we didn't have any other recharged. Grr...

Mia wasn't so sure about the snow at first. She hated it and cried and wanted back inside. She got into it later. It must not have been that bad, because she keeps asking for the snow to come back! Poor thing... it'll be awhile.

Mia watching the snow come down because she was NOT going out in it.

Venturing out later. And it stuck!

Crunch, crunch, crunch... Mia loved to hear the snow under her feet.

Part of our front yard

Yield sign in front of our house

Snowman! Yes, made on top of our recycling bin.

Yay! Snow!

Sorry for the lame resolution... we had to use Mark's camera.

Our house the next morning when our batteries were working. Some melted overnight, but it's still pretty.

So pretty! The yard was covered the night before...

Party Time! Excellent!

We had Mia's party the day after her birthday, but we just rescued the pictures from our camera. We had a "fish" theme... fish hung from the ceiling and walls and blue crepe paper made the "water". We were under the sea! Mia had a great time. She loved the cake the most... she talked about it for days before her party so we actually had cake first -- before presents, before dinner, before even going outside! Hey, it's her party, right? :)

And yes, Mark was at the party. Unfortunately, he was the photographer, as he is much, much better at remembering to take pictures than I am. And we forgot to get a picture of the three of us.

The cake! It's not fabulous, but it tasted good. And yes, it was supposed to look like a child's drawing.

CAKE! The thing Mia was most excited about.

Waiting "patiently" to blow out the candles.

Oh yes, it's not a birthday without cake.

A DORA ROBE!

NEMO!

(and the exact Nemo that we had borrowed from Jared & Gina months ago. I guess it's Mia's now.)

Posin' with Mommy & her new DORA! movie.

BACKPACK!

Out for a ride with Cloe and Jax.

The bellies! They are taking over!

Kristi (due late Feb), Heather (due mid-Feb), Melissa (due late Jan), Laura (due mid-Dec)

ELMO! Tickle Me Elmo -- the original!

Who says "used" presents aren't appropriate? They rock!

Happy Birthday, Mia!

Two years ago, our little Mia Joy arrived. All the cliches about life going much too fast are true... the past two years have flown past. I still have trouble believing that my baby girl is now potty-trained, sleeping in a big girl bed, using a booster chair, "reading" books and coloring, learning her ABC's and speaking in sentences. It's amazing what they learn in 2 years!

She's become so grown up and we are amazed to see her God-given personality emerging more each day. She is the child who, when she puts her mind to it, will jump in with both feet and never look back. She did that with potty-training and sleeping in her big girl bed. She decided one day she wanted to do it, and she did! She's still awfully slow to warm up to strangers and hates being left in a nursery or at MOPS, but is getting better. She shares well and is very caring towards babies. She's quick with a hug if she sees you are sad and loves to see people happy. She's funny, laughs loud and often, and still loves dancing more than just about anything (she's her mama's girl!). She's stubborn and her new favorite phrase is "Mia do it." But, in the end, those are good things! She is also one smart cookie. She knows all her shapes and colors, can count to twelve (and recognize numbers 0-9) and knows most of her letters, too. She amazes us everyday, and we are so blessed that God gave her to us. She is definitely "Our Joy".

But enough of the sap... on to the pictures! Here's Mia at 2, with 1 year and just born for comparisons.

Mia's 2!

Happy girl

ONE YEAR:

JUST BORN:

Going to the chapel...

My baby sister, Lindsey, got married! I participated as Matron of Honor (yikes, that sounds old) and Mia was an honorary flower girl. Which just meant that she got to dress up and be in pictures but she didn't have to walk down the aisle; we didn't think that would work out so well! Mark was all-around awesome and kept up with Mia through all the craziness and helped anywhere needed. We all had a blast and the wedding was absolutely beautiful. Get ready for ridiculous amounts of pictures...

Beautiful bride and not so excited flower girls... it was lunchtime!

Nonnie & Granddad -- they were such a help!

Family of 3.5

It was actually cold in November!

Awww! Mia loves her "yinze"

Running down the hill... she'd run, crash, run again. For about a hour. She's a maniac!

The Krebs

Sisters

That's Lindsey!

Watching birds -- or Mark's attempt to get Mia (and himself!) some rest.

Two-steppin' with Grammie & Grampy after the bride and groom left.

Back to normal

I took an unintentional blogging break in the month of November because the month was just craziness. I planned a surprise birthday party, helped plan a bachelorette party, got wedding stuff together, helped plan Grub & Games at church, traveled to Fred and arranged flowers, walked in a wedding, hosted Thanksgiving, and planned Mia's 2nd birthday party... not to mention that in the last 2 weeks of October I planned or helped plan a wedding shower and a baby shower.

It was intense.

So sorry for not letting you know that I wasn't going to be around. I kept meaning to post something and it just never happened. Unfortunately, blogging didn't always rank as high on the priority list. Sad!

Pictures coming now! I'll put things up in order o when they happened.