MIa visits with Sanat at School

Santa brought each child at Mia's school a book to unwrap. Mia was the 33 child out of 40 to be called up. She did a great job waiting paintently. She hopped right up on his lap, asked him if he has fireproof pants, (this santa did not talk) and then opened her gift and said thank you so loud everyone in the room could hear her.


Mia consistently asks us if we will turn off the fire when santa comes. (she's worried he'll get hurt when he comes down the chimmey) Shane told Mia that Santa pushes his nose to put fires out as he comes down chimmneys and then pushes it again after he is done. Our friend John told her (when she asked him after hearing daddy's explanation) that Santa has fire proof pants so when he lands on the fire he doesn't get hurt

Not a fan

Its been one of those nights. Every hour or so Mia wakes up screaming "Mom" . Ignore her I try, but eventually I find myself in her room trying to get her back to sleep by laying down next to her. When she's asleep, I get up and try to get myself back to sleep. And then it happens all over again. She has the sniffles so she keeps waking herself up because she can't breath easily. She's over tired which in a weird world makes her less apapt to sleep and she seems to be having bad dreams about the Lizard of POz

At 4:50 (my coveted alone and quiet time) I was in with her listening to her tell me "the tin man came last night and he saved me but then he melted." And immediately after that statement back to sleep she went

Not uncommon

2:30 Last night you hear Mia calling from her room...."daddy please read me stories...." Those words continued for what seemed like 10 minutes. Then little feet come down the hallway and into our room. "Mommy can I sleep with you?" By 2:50 I am sleeping on the couch as Mia has kicked me out of bed. Shane is sleeping on litterally an inch of the bed because Bunk the cat has also snuggled his way between Shane and I. How does such little creatures take up so much of the King Size bed?

4:30 I was up working on the computer. You hear "Mom can you sleep in my bed. Daddy's loud" I bring her to her own room and lie down with her until I hear her silent snoring (that is compared to loud daddy), so Shane can get some real sleep.

Musical beds in is not uncommon in our house

a wave and a wiggle

Quiet morning...Mia at 7:00, without making a peep , came into the office. She waved to me just as cute as could be from the door and then came over to my lap and wiggled her way in to snuggle.

So begins our day

Chef Mia

Mia loves to bake. THis was her halloween custom for her school party last month

Some of Mia's catchy phrases

6:01 Am Mia will wake any moment. I hear her stirring and saying "I'm done sleeping" quietly. Before she does though, I wanted to capture some of her fun words and phrases

sonverations= conversation- usually heard in this format- "stop having sonverations mommy!"
light castle= light house
north home=North Pole or where Santa lives
Lizard of Poz= Wizard of Oz, the movie
sosited= "I am so excited."
prise= surprise, usually yelled when she is jumping out at you

6:13 Mommy can I get up...Mommy all done sleeping...mommy can I be all done sleeping...i respond with a quiet yes and here comes little feet

Mommy I had a good dream i'm going to keep my nightgown on... can I watch tv Mommy

So begins our day

barking orders

5:52 "I want to stand up. I'm done sleeping. Get me breakfast . I want to watch the 'Lizard of Poz'....MOM....."


For the last 15 minutes Mia has been calling out such commands from her room.
I was hoping she would go back to sleep, but no such luck. She has just walked in to the hallway and screams out again "MOM...i'm done sleeping"

So begins our day

7:00 AM

I can hear a moaning "moooom" coming from the other room.

She has just walked out to see Shane and asked "can I watch that movie with you?" Shane replies "nope its a daddy movie. "Can I make you some eggs?

I hear no response from her...maybe she is talking quietly, maybe she is answering with head nods

so begins our day

On the ride home from Thanksgiving

Last night, after hours of being in the car, we pointed out what appeared to be an almost full moon to Mia. She asked , after looking around for it," what did he eat?"

the day before thanksgiving vacation

Mia woke up this morning and walked straight into the living room.....I went out to meet her and started with some questions...how are you today...do you know what today is......she turned to me and said "Don't talk to me yet" ..... "can i have something to drink?"

I gave her some juice....she asked"what's this?" I said apple juice she replied "Sometimes I like apple juice"

Mia wakes up like her daddy many mornings...needs quite time to gear up for the day...guess I should get Shane's morning drink, coffee, ready before I start in with questions to him as well

calls from the couch

6:58 "Mom" i hear called from the sofa...she was up at 5:00, so this is like waking from morning nap #1

"mommy its a happy day" wait one minute " mommy i have dragon breath "wait 30 seconds "mommy i have dragon breath"

I am going to wait to hear more from Mia or wait for her to be a big girl and get up on her own and come to the office...a few minutes of quiet pass

7:02 "mommy I have dragon breath"

Now I hear Mis taking off her own wet diaper

"don't" then "go" is whispered under Mia's breath...she must be talking to Bunk now

"mommy i'm full..i have a wet diapie......"

So begins our day

in between grinding her teeth

Mia is tossing and turning in the other room. Its 5:31 and I would imagine she is up sooner than later. About ten minutes ago she was talking in her sleep and in between grinding her teeth she says" It is a go back to Maine day" She must miss her daddy and home, though she's having a blast here in South Carolina.

New twist to this blog

We have had months of computer problems, which have prevented us from really mainting this blog for Mia.

I am on the computer each morning, so I am going to try a different approach. I am going to try to capture Mia's first actions, words and such each morning.

Yesterday Mia was "typing" on the alarm clock here at the Folly Road beach house. Go figure 5:58 this morning the alarm goes off with crazy static. I run into to try to turn it off, before Mia wakes up. No luck she says " Mommy what happened". I tell her the alarm went off by accident....she rolls over and says "that happens...snuggle with me mommmy." I lay back in the bed and not one minute later Mia's announces "all done sleeping. Can I please watch TV?" So begins our day

Summer 09 shots

Here are a few shots taken over the course of this summer (Mia with her grandpa or Bumpa as we call him)

Mia enjoyed her first paddle boat ride one weekend in Vermont. We have been able to spend two long weekends now at the Vermont lake house.

Mia and I went to a local children's musical (The Fairy House Musical). We enjoyed wandering the trails looking for magical houses after the show.

We loved having Rah visit in July. Above Mia is using RAH's glasses and pen to help her do some work

And of course many days are spend outside barefoot this summer

Fairy House and garden update

The flower fairies have been good to us this season. Shane is making several fun fairy houses to accent our gardens. Though most of our plants are still small (wish it would stop raining) this sunflower certainly makes us happy. And believe it or not I can bribe Mia to get into the car by saying we'll get snap peas from the garden to eat.

X-mas in July

Every summer we celebrate x-mas in July. This year our party included 35 family and friends. We enjoyed a bbq, all of the kids decorated ginger bread cookies and of course the adults participated in a yankee swap. The rain held off for most of the event. Great to see everyone.

Auntie Annie visits

Auntie Annie (and this visit she was called Myannie) came into town for a fun but quick visit. We went to the farmer's market , went shopping and had lunch by the ocean......Then we played together while mommy watched a whale movie for work

See you soon myannie.......only two months until the Cape

Shane's cousin, Ashley, is staying with us

We have been lucky to have Ashley visiting us this last week. The quality time she spends with Mia after dinner and before work has been a godsend. Ashley has been interning at the SSC, which is helpful to me at work too. Win Win for me. We look forward to the next two weeks.

A spring start to flowers and fairies

Just wanted to share a few photos to illustrate the start of our garden. We created three raised beds and are filling them daily with seeds, seedlings and "slimies" (Mia's name for the worms she finds around the yard)
As you may recall we endured quite an ice storm last fall. We used to have massive cedar trees acting as a border to our property. Instead of pulling all the trunks of the trees that came down, we opted to make them into a magical fairy garden. It too, we hope, will grow and blosoom this spring and summer. Above is the princess chair Shane made Mia so she can climb, and play

while watching her garden grow. Below are the fairy houses and the connecting bridge that are taking shape too.

And yes all the neighbors stop as they walk by to see what we're creating. Its been a great way to meet the neighbors ( the kids love it and always want to see what has sprotted up) or at least get a sense of who we want to meet (from our office window we've seen one or two that seem to shake their head as they pass by)

A playdate to a local park

Mia gives playdate a whole new meaning. We joined our friends the Leavitts (Kate, Aidan and Nick) at a local park. Though the slide and the swings were fun, Mia most enjoyed hanging out with Aidan (who's a good-do-be 9yr old). She followed him around the whole morning and wanted to hold his hand any chance she could get. Boy are we in trouble since it looks like Mia takes after her mom

Dress up

Mia is just starting to like playing dress up. Often in the mornings she doesn't want to take off her pj's, but instead wants to put clothes on over them. She also is more aware of her babies (all of which seem to be called EMMA) and what they are wearing.

Nothing special just Mia in the morning

Wanted to give you all a sense of Mia just babbling away on a random Thursday morning

Mia loves "dobsters" and seafood

Daddy cooked Mia and Mommy "dobsters" the other night- What a treat. There was of course a biology lesson or two before dinner Mia actually helped me the other day teach a lobster lesson to the pre-school next to our house. She has no fear of them (usually) and can tell you where they pee

Not only does Mia love "dobsters", she was a mussel eating machine. She pulls the mussel out from the shell, pops in ito her moth (without dipping it into butter) and then dives into the next one.

YEAH MIA

Mia's first fun run

Our friend Kerrie organized a great event, a fun run to raise money for cancer research and her PMC ride. Mia when asked how old she was at the registration table of course said nine. There were almost a hundred kids at the event. Mia just loved the warm up session where all the big kids were swirling around her

Here you can see that Mia decided to start the race on her time. Mia took off well before the start whistle blew

She stopped only long enough to pick up her medal and smile for the camera (not mine)

And she just kept on running......

Mia's like a big kids these days

She's swimming on her own....getting into cabinets to find the food she wants to eat.....she can pull herself up onto our bed....her vocabulary is no longer just words, but sentences...I can't believe how quickly she's becoming a little kid/person instead of feeling like she's a baby.

The hoopla of the 2nd B-day weekend

Mia enjoyed visits with friends during her b-day weekend. Thank you to Elissa, Michele, Gordon, Mary and Maeve, Grandma, Anna, Bumpa, RAH, Annie, Jean, Pete and of course "Skees" for helping us celebrate

Maeve and Mia of course played with "ahdo" and with magnets

There were Tea parties with Rah

And of course there were naps after it was all said and done in Sleepy Hollow ( the new name for Mia's Vermont house)

Mia helped mommy decorate the b-day cake

So Mia and Mommy set out to decorate Mia's 2nd Birthday cake.

Believe it or not, Mia tasted more frosting than mommy (it was close though) Above is what the final cake looked like. We had to include the little nugget of information letting people know that mia is not infact 9. Below is what Mia looked like after decorating the cake

By the time we got to party time (below) everyone was cleaned up and ready. Mia asked to blow out the candles several times ("mommy onemortin")

Warm wishes GG

Mia seems to be a bit more pleasant, caring and creative this morning. Amazing what a good rest will do for a kiddo. So we recorded this get well message for GG (Shane's nana on his mom's side). At the end of the video Mia heads off to actually look for GG. All morning long she has said "Whereareyougg?"

GG get well

We wanted to put together a cute video letting GG (Mia's great grandmother) know that we were thinking of her while she's in the hospital. I am not sure this is Mia's best moment. But alas get well GG. We love you

Mia's first day at "playschool"

Yes pictures were taken outside of Mia's new daycare...I'm hoping we're not the first

The snow here in Maine is up to the mailboxes

Here you can barely see Mia...waving goodbye to mommy yelling "haveaoodday" No tears were shed by her

The first toy she grabbed was a fake phone that looked like a remote. The staff at Foothill thought it was hilarious that she was trying to turn on the ceiling light and fan with a remote. Little did they know that she mastered this skill at Situ's house over thankhahakamas.

Mia of course had to check everything out. She ran around and checked out the kids, the staff (giving the staff many of whom she had just met big hugs) and then off she went to see the kitchen and to see the potty

Shane called around mid morning to check in on her. They had been outside already. We gather Mia was a little cranky and cold outside (Can you blame her its is 20 degrees out) She grazed well at lunch, slept (how did they do that?) and played with "kidz" as she calls anyone bigger than her and "babies" as she calls anyone smaller than her. Shane picked her up around 2:30. Good day for all. Thanks RAH

Obama is now President

This blog entry is going to be more text based than pictures. I want to make sure I capture our sentiments about this day in history. So Perrin watched the festivities while at work. Her boss was crying, some of her colleagues were hugging. All came together and paused to witness a new President take office. Shane watched from home, while Mia slept. He said he even teared up on occasion. That evening at home Mia decided that she had to wear this outfit this way. Watch out world there's no stopping us is I think what she was getting at with her determination and style choices. She watched the parade and kept pretending to march and play a drums. When Obama was on the TV she would say '....see a daddy....ook a daddy...." It was refreshing to hear her describe our new President in that manner. She would also yell (with some prompting) "...yeah baMa.."