Mia at her school's Memorial Day concert. She picked out her outfit weeks in advance.

After playing in the water hose

Mia made this sweet diorama all by herself one day while I was out running errands. Shelby found her the box, but beyond that everything was her own work. She was so proud of it and wanted to bring it in to show her class because they are studying the sea. She was told that she couldn't bring it in though, because it is fantasy. Whatever, we think it's awesome!

On Walden Pond

Our Friends and Neighbors

Our downstairs neighbor, Jennifer (the Aggie from Texas) did a huge favor for me a couple weeks back and picked Mia up from a birthday party that she otherwise wouldn't have been able to go to. Mia was so grateful that when she got home and Lennon was napping, she decided on her own to write a thank you note for Jennifer and went and slipped it under her door. In the thank you note was a request for Jennifer to join us in a "sleepover party." Aunt Hillary started this tradition with Mia years ago. It has nothing to do with sleeping though. It's really just staying up late, watching a movie and painting our nails. Oh yeah, and usually involves eating some kind of treat that would otherwise be off limits. Jennifer said yes and a week or so later, we had our date. We tried watching Pride and Prejudice, but that was a little boring for Mia so we turned on Hook.

Here they are toasting with their cannoli's from a Brazilian bakery.

Jennifer brought up all kinds of fun girly stuff.

She actually bought this manicure kit just for this evening.

Lennon and Michael have really started playing well together. They both have great imaginations and laugh a lot together. A couple days before they headed out for Disney I took Michael with me and Lennon to Drumlin Farm for a morning of animal viewing and hay rides. The boys had a blast pretending to be on the run from lava and dinosaurs and making animal noises at the lambs, pigs, horses, cows and chickens.

Here they are sharing a peanut butter sandwich that Michael brought. Lennon asked for a bite when Michael was eating the first half. Michael's response, "I saved that other piece just for you." So sweet.

The boys watching the baby lambs frolick in the grass

Mia's Class Field Trip to The Aquarium

Two weeks ago I got to go with Mia's class on their field trip. It was super fun. It had been a long time since I'd gotten to go somewhere like that without a toddler on my heels. My group of kids were all really sweet. They got along so well and didn't argue at all about what to do next. The girls were a little crazier than the boys, but that was no surprise knowing Mia.

Nora, Mia, Bobby and Manuel

Playing with Sea Stars. We learned that they have a mouth right in the middle of the star and their whole stomach comes out of their mouth to eat their food and then it goes back in to digest.

A trainer feeding a giant sea turtle

Posing by the jelly fish art

Playing on the bus

Dress Up With Ella and Diva

This picture is from April 2006.

I can't believe how big these girls are getting. We've now passed down all the dress up clothes they used to play with to Bianca.

Slow Going

Mia lost her two front teeth either Christmas of first grade or Christmas of Kindergarten. I can't remember which, but either way, they are still not in. At the dentist yesterday (new dentist by the way, that I already LOVE) they took x-rays and said they are definitely up there. Apparently, she doesn't even have her 6 year molars yet, so the doc said due to the trauma to her teeth when she was almost 2 she probably just lost them early and that we should expect those teeth to come in sometime in the next 6 months to a year. So, on the down side the poor little girl will have to be without her two front teeth for quite a while longer. On the upside however, the dentist told us what we've heard over and over which is that the later you get your teeth, the stronger they tend to be. And Mia's teeth so far have been just that. Nothing but great reports from the dentist. The hygienist was about to do the fluoride treatment when I stopped her. She was really nice about it and moved right on with the rest of the protocol. A few minutes later as she was remarking about how clean Mia's teeth were she said something like, "I bet your Mommy doesn't let you have a lot of sugar and candy and that's why your teeth are so healthy! It's usually the moms who are careful with what their kids eat that don't want the fluoride." I was glad that Mia could hear another good reason to avoid excess sugar from someone other than me. Lennon was very intrigued by the whole visit and is begging for his own trip to the dentist. I'm going to make him an appointment for December when we take Mia back in.

Cousin of Toot Face

This picture is from sometime last year. It looks like our old house in the background, but when I saw it I immediately thought of little Jackson and his toot face.

Mia's Book

Claire recently bought Mia this Golden Books Story making set. It came with a blank book that you could fill in with stories and pictures. This is what Mia wrote:

All Princesses Can Be A Friend: A 5 Story Book Collection

by: Mia Francis

You know all princesses can be friends. Even if they are mermaids. You can be a friend no matter waht kind of princess you are. Because every princess' wish comes true. Two friends can be from totally different cultures. (Here she put stickers of Belle and Jasmine.)

Book 2:

Some princesses have evemys, some friends.

Some Princesses have enemys! "So?" They still have friends too! And there friend will stick up for them. Do you know how important friends are? There basically as important as family! They basically are family! Princesses don't have to have a favorite friend and a least favorite freind, like them all the same!

Book 3: What Matters Is The Inside Not The Outside

If one of your friends has a friend that is ugly, you can think that, but what matters is the inside. Princesses always care about other people! Buuuuut.....sometimes they forget, and -they-well..... are careless. (here she put a picture of Cinderella and another person with the person saying, "I need some..." and Cinderella saying, "Take this peasant away!")

So far, there are only three books, but I can't wait to see what else she comes up with.

Just now, as we were putting the kids to bed, Lennon accidentally bonked the back of his into Mia's cheekbone. I seriously heard a crack upon contact. She cried a lot and we iced it, but Shelby and I are both pretty sure she's going to have a black eye. Poor little girl can't catch a break. She did get her cast off yesterday though, which she was very excited about. The doctor said it was still a little swollen, but looked much improved and just to monitor Mia's pain the next few weeks and if it started hurting again to put the cast back on for another week or two.

You Gonna Come Over Here and Make Me?

We're outside having our lunch at the picnic table in the backyard. I don't have many rules, but one of them is that you cannot play in the backyard in socks alone. Either shoes and socks, just shoes or barefoot.

Me: Lennon, where are your shoes?

Lennon: (pointing to each shoe as he says) Uno, dos. (with a big grin that says, there they are, but I'm not putting them on. And, he knows the rule.)

Oh....power struggles.

Good-Bye "Party In The USA"

Today was Mia's hip hop recital, which hopefully means we won't have to listen to Miley Cyrus singing "Party in the USA" every day, fifteen times in a row anymore. Mia was awesome! The most adorable little sweetie pie in the world. She was so proud of herself and had a blast. Lennon really enjoyed to recital too. In between each song and sometimes several times during a dance he would excitedly ask "der donna be anuny un?!" (Is there going to be another one?) He loved it and clapped really hard every time.

On our way up to see her we decided she would be more excited about cookies than flowers, so we stopped and bought some cookies from the bakery...and we were right! She was so excited! We also got her a little kids kit to grow your own pumpkins. We'll be able to transfer them to the garden as long as we just use them for decoration and not for consumption because of the lead thing.

After Mia danced we went out to dinner with a coupon Gaga got us from Restaurants.com. We chose this place called Twitters at a nearby mall. We sat down and ordered our drinks and when the waitress brought them out she knocked Shelby's 20 oz beer all over me an Mia. I was wearing a dry clean only dress and Mia was wearing her recital costume, which is hand wash only. She didn't so much as apologize and the manager never came by to apologize either. I was completely wet and sticky for the whole meal. The food was okay, Shelby's was cold, but it didn't cost much and we were together so we had fun. Lennon was being a nut, but as the service was so bad, I didn't really feel so bad that he was being so loud.

We think Mia's going to do ballet in the fall at the dance school where Naomi and one other friend take. We're also going to try to get her piano and voice lessons. We'll see what actually ends up happening.

After the recital, Lennon gave her the gifts we brought her. For Mia, only cookies will do.

Mia and Chloe playing with some kind of moving, toy hamster thingy.

Daddy cuddles just before I took her up to drop her off at the school.

Strikin' a pose.

And another

And another

And another

Just before her dress rehearsal, with her sad little cast on her foot.

My Little Weirdo

I noticed Mia had been picking at a little scab on her face a lot over the last several days and thought it was a little odd. I asked her about it and finally she admitted that she was hoping it would scar. I know what you're thinking, that's crazy! She said she thought it would be cool if she had a scar on her face so that people could just tell by looking at her that she is a "rough houser." Is this really MY daughter? So strange. I would expect crazy talk like that from one of Claire's children. Claire actually hit herself in the mouth with a brick as a teenager to chip her tooth because she thought her teeth were too perfect and that she'd have more character with a chipped tooth. Totally insane, yes, but knowing Claire, it's really not that big of a shock. I don't even think Mia has heard us talking about this though, which is the really weird part. Where would she have gotten such a crazy idea? She's such a weirdo. I left her at her dress rehearsal this morning with her cast on with instructions to take it off just before going on stage and put it right back on and not to run around and get hurt. I then took Lennon to a trial of a gymnastics class at Mia's gymnastics studio which he loved. When I got back to pick Mia up, Chloe's mom told me that they had been playing and Mia fell pretty hard on her back and would probably have a bruise. Nice listening, Mia. I love you.

Poor Little Mia and Silly Little Lennon

I finally listened to my sweetie pie girl and took her to the podiatrist about her recurring foot pain. One look at her foot and the doctor recognized significant swelling and toughness. The hypothesis is that she jumped off of something, perhaps a balance beam at gymnastics, and landed badly and injured herself. Then since we didn't know she was injured we didn't do anything about it and it healed, but only sort of. So now, 6 or 7 months later she's been running and playing with her hurting foot and it's been getting more and more irritated.

Long story short, our little girlie is now wearing a removable cast and has to wear it all day for a week and then come back in to see if there is improvement. If there hasn't been significant enough improvement then the doc will take x-rays to see if there is something going on with the bones or growth or something more serious than soft tissue. Mia was excited at first about wearing the cast, until she walked around in it for a few minutes and realized that it wasn't so much fun to walk in. I felt so bad about not listening to her sooner that I took her straight to Payless to get her a pair of shoes that had a little height to them to balance out her cast which is a couple of inches high off the ground.

Then, as we had planned, we went straight to the carnival that our poor kids have been promised three times already and each time something happened that made it impossible for us to go. We all had a blast at the carnival and the kids were pooped afterwards. Mia fell right to sleep, but we're still struggling to get Lennon to sleep. Sometimes when he stays up way past his bedtime he gets so tired or something that he really has a hard time falling asleep. Hopefully he nods off soon cause we're both tired... and tired of spending an hour to get him to sleep.

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A couple of hilarious things Lennon has said lately:

As we were leaving the zoo yesterday he wanted to pee, but since I had already taken him to pee once at the zoo and it's not my favorite thing to do, going in public restrooms, I told him to wait until we got home as we live about two minutes from the zoo. When I was strapping him in his seat I just reminded him to hold it in until we got home so he didn't have an accident.

His reply: "I will. I sucked it back up. Because my penis is a vacuum cleaner."

I was swinging him on the swing set this morning. He likes to lay across the swing on his tummy and have me twist the swing around and then let it unwind. Today as he was unwinding he said: "Mommy! I'm spinning around and the ground is spinning around too. THE WHOLE ENTIRE EARTH IS SPINNING AROUND!!"

BeeDee The Motorcycle Boy

Granmommy's Visit, Randomness and Sleepovers

Lennon and I did some magnetic mosaics that Granmommy got for Mia a few years ago. I can't believe he is growing into some of Mia's old stuff already.

I love this look on his face in this picture.

Lennon in his awesome Woody hat from Gaga. It totally rules.

Mia has had so many sleep overs lately. Our next door neighbor told me she was lucky and that her mom must be really cool to let her have so many. Heck yeah! :)

Us on our 8 year anniversary. Wondering when Mia will do the math?

Naomi is getting so so big. She's almost 10 and as sweet as can be.

A couple of Lennon's art projects from his class at the Y

I have so many pics of these two girls sitting at the coffee table writing or coloring, but always smiling and laughing

Sleep over with Chloe. This was Chloe's first sleep over.

Shelby and his Mommy hanging out in the back yard. Poor Granmommy was recovering from that nasty stomach bug.

Mia and our next door neighbor Bailey, who spent the night this past saturday.

Lennon using his gardening tools from the Easter Bunny.

The Easter Loot

Coloring eggs

Lennon did all his eggs with his hands, they were pretty colorful by the time he was done. Mia was so sweet and let him color one or two of her eggs cause he had finished so long before she had.

A little reading during Lennon's nap time. Mia read this whole book in a little more than 24 hours

Snuggle time during blocks

at The RainForest Cafe

Bedtime stories with Lennon

Mia desperately wanted to dress up like a rock star and sing a few songs one night a couple weeks ago. Doesn't she look awesome.