Drinking their milk and watching their movie each morning has been their ritual FOREVER. Our friend Miss Jodi bought them these snuggies, and they have been perfect for these cold mornings!
Cousins! Cole is on the left, and baby Khloe was in visiting from Atlanta!
Mia decorating the tree
Drinking their milk from their sippies and laying in a pile of pillows. Why do pillows provide hours of entertainment?! Who needs toys?!
I swear this girl will grow up and move to the Bahamas. She only likes to wear summer clothes. Every morning, she puts on something like the outfit below and always comes down the stairs saying, "If we go anywhere today, Mom, I promise I'll change." Ha! Note the matching bow and necklace. :)
One night before bed, getting ready to read a story on Mia's bed
I love these peapods
Ha! We set the camera timer and I can't believe everyone's smiling! We didn't have any family pictures, so we decided to get one on our own. :)
Mia's birthday, I still cannot believe she is FOUR!
One of the things she got was the FurReal kitty. It looks and acts so real it is scary.
So a quick funny story about her cake... when we went to pick out Drake's birthday cake in October, she saw like a graduation/baptism/something cake while we were flipping through the pages. You know, one with light pink and other pale-colored roses on it? After that, that's all she could talk about. That when it was her birthday, she wanted a flower cake. I tried finding some, shall I say, YOUNGER, more youthful-looking flowers. Maybe daisys or something. But no, she wanted the cake with the pale pink roses. I finally found a castle cake that sparked her interest, but it was huge. So while we were looking through cake pictures, again we came upon one of the more 'traditional' cakes. She was like "Mommy, that's it! That's the one I want!" I said, "Mia, it says 'Happy 90th Birthday' on it. It's for an old lady." Ha! Anyways, we found a bakery that could make us a smaller castle cake, and here's what we ended up with. Thankfully she loved it...
We had breakfast with Santa by my mom and dad's - although the kids got about 5 feet from Santa but no closer. So I didn't get a picture of them with Santa, but there were also several activities - face painting, balloon artists, ornament making, etc. Mia got a painting on her arm...
Drake got a fishing pole balloon - it was very elaborate!! He was SO excited about it
Mia painting her jewelry box from my friend Shannon. She is totally into crafts these days!
These are our stockings, and I just have to say how cool this is. My grandma made stockings for my mom's family when they were growing up. When my parents got married, my mom made my dad's to match hers, and then she made ours when we were born. When my kids were born, my mom was going to make them ones to match mine, but then she decided to give her stocking to Mia and my dad's to Drake. She just replaced the names at the top. So Mia's stocking is my mom's from when she was little! This year my mom made Brock's to match the rest of ours, and here they all are :) You can't see it in this picture, but they are all hand-done with sequins!
The other night we made a gingerbread house which was a big hit...
The look on Drake's face in this one seriously cracks me up
The finished product...
My Mia :)
Mia has been funny as ever, telling me what the kids ate and wore during school. She doesn't miss a detail. She's been so good with Drake, too, trying to calm him down when he wakes up crabby from a nap and picking out clothes for him in the morning.
Drake has been pushing his limits more lately, and as a result has landed in timeout a bit more. The other day when I went to get him out, I said, "Drake, I love you. We're all done." Here is what he said to me with his head hanging low, "No wuv me. I bad boy. I need timeout." It breaks my heart! And yesterday he was carrying on while we were in the car. When he finally calmed down, he said, "I bad boy. I no wisten." He gets so, so upset with himself - it's so sad! He is so sensitive and has such a good heart. He is definitely a peacemaker. When he has something Mia wants and she cries about it, even though it rightfully belongs to him for the moment, he will give it to her. "Here Mimi" - and gives her a big hug. :) He reminds me of his daddy. :)
I'm sure I will have some pictures to post after Christmas!
PS, all Mia wants for Christmas is a unicorn and a cage. Say what?!
