Helpful Girl

Mia is my little helpful girl. She loves to do whatever I'm doing. When I fold laundry, she takes the kitchen towels to the kitchen and puts them in the drawer. She puts the bibs in the basket in the kitchen, and she takes her own clothes to her room.

When I empty the trash around the house, she takes the baskets back to each of the bathrooms. When I put laundry in the dryer, she pushes it in for me. She runs to help whenever she hears me put a pot on the stove, or bang dishes in the kitchen. She gets one of our huge kitchen chairs and pushes it across the kitchen so she can stand by the counter and help me pour things or mix things.

She's the spoon and tupperware girl when I unload the dishwasher. After a trip to the grocery store or the farmer's market, Mia will put a bag of groceries on her arm like a purse and carry (drag) it to the front door. She loves to take the canned food and put it on the low pantry shelf. She works out her muscles lifting 2 or 3 water bottles at once to put in the fridge. (Really, you should hear her grunt as she lifts them because they are so heavy).

And Troy's favorite is when she walks around the kitchen behind me and closes the cupboard doors that I leave open! She will even tell me when there is a cupboard door that needs closing that is too high for her to reach.

I love my little helpful girl! She even helps me make the bed by sitting in it and holding the sheets up. Hopefully, I can post pictures soon.

A Toddler's Memory

The other day, Troy and I decided to walk to Rite Aid and get Mia her first ice cream cone. She'd had ice cream once or twice before, but only with a spoon, never on a cone. When we entered the store, we walked to the left where the ice cream stand is and ordered our cones. The lady behind the counter scooped a monstrous one for Mia! We walked outside and decided that it would be best to sit on the curb and eat our ice cream in case that huge scoop of vanilla decided to jump out of the cone and into Mia's stroller (that's not something I wanted to clean up). We sat down on the curb and gave Mia her cone, which she had to hold with two hands because it was so heavy. Troy and I started eating our ice cream, but Mia just sat holding the cone and watching us. She didn't know what to do. We tried to show her how to lick the ice cream, but all she could figure out was to touch her tongue to it, so it was quite a slow process. Troy had to "clean up" her cone a few times. In the end, she really enjoyed it and even ate the entire cone!

About a week after our trip to Rite Aid, I had Mia with me in the car and I told her we were going to stop at the store and get a carton of ice cream to take home. She said, "Ice" like she knew what I was talking about. We got out of the car and walked into the store where she immediately tried to take a left (towards the ice cream stand). I told her we were not going that way and convinced her to come to the back of the store with me where the cartons of ice cream were. I got the ice cream and we paid and walked outside. As we were stepping off the curb into the street, Mia stopped and tried to sit down on the curb. She was saying, "Ice" over and over. Can you believe that she remembered from a week before? I was blown away. I've always wondered how much a child could remember, and this was a great example for sure!

Avila Barn

We've been hearing about Avila Barn since last October. Apparently, they give hay rides and sell pumpkins and apples in the fall. We finally went a few weeks ago. The barn has goats, chickens, peacocks, and sheep. Mia and Trinity enjoyed feeding the animals lettuce. I was surprised at how quickly Mia got comfortable feeding the animals. She went right up to the fence and let them eat the lettuce out of her hand.

The barn is in the mountains just a few minutes away from the beach area. It was very pretty and the weather was perfect.

Troy with Trinity and Mia (cousins). Mia loves being with Grammy Lin. Whenever Linda walked away, Mia would follow her to see what she was doing and then point and make noises to tell her that she wanted her to come back and play. She was Linda's shadow the entire weekend!

I Love Hugs and Pats!

Mia has been sick this weekend, so there has been lots of nose wiping and grumpiness. She hasn't been real hungry and has been sleeping a lot. As yucky as it is to be sick, I have enjoyed it because when Mia is sick, she is VERY cuddly! She comes over to me at random times while she is playing and crawls into my lap to cuddle and suck her thumby. Today while she was resting on me and sucking her thumb, I felt her little fingers tapping on my shoulder rhythmically. She was patting my back! I just melt when she does that. Then when she was sitting on my lap looking at me, she spontaneously decided to give me a kiss. (As much as we try to teach her to kiss on the cheek, she prefers to kiss on the lips, and it's really cute!) Just a month ago, Mia started to get less cuddly, so when she's sick, I enjoy every minute of her snotty nose kisses and warm body snuggles.

Words

Mia is learning so much, so fast! I'm amazed every day when she says a new word or does something we haven't seen her do before. She has lots of energy and is very animated. Yesterday, she clearly said, "doggy" and "crackers". I wish I could get more of her talking on video, but she clams up the moment she sees the camera.

Musical

Troy's family is very musical in the sense that many of them play instruments and nearly all of them can sing well. Troy's dad was a worship leader back in the day, his cousin Allen sings and plays the piano, and I've heard rumors that when they used to get the whole family together for Christmas, they would sing Christmas songs in 4 part harmony.

My family also has a love of music. That does NOT mean that most of them can carry a tune. Each week when we play cards at Grandma's house, my mother gets kicked under the table many times for singing off key, singing when the stereo is not playing anything, or singing the piano or guitar solos. On Christmas Eve we get together to "sing" Christmas songs, but everyone just kind of picks their own key.

Mia is extremely musical. At only 5 or 6 months old, she was already bopping her head along to the music in the car. One of our favorite memories is when we were listening to one of those eclectic music stations on the radio and "Low Rider" came on. We looked back at Mia and saw her rockin' out! She sings when she's going to sleep and when she wakes up. And she loves to get up on the fireplace and sing and dance with her hands waving in the air.

Yesterday, while I was at MOPS for the evening, Troy went out to the garage and brought in our old keyboard for Mia to play with. When I got home from my night out, Troy showed me video after video on his phone (why he didn't pick up the "real" video camera, I'll never know) of Mia playing the keyboard and dancing to the prerecorded background music. He said she played on the keyboard for an entire hour!

It's obvious that Mia thoroughly enjoys music, but we'll have to wait and see which side of the family she takes after in that area. Hopefully, the Vasquez genes will prevail on this issue.

Old Friend, New Playmate

An old friend from college found me on Facebook a few months back. Although lots of people connect on Facebook, this connection was interesting because we had both gotten married and had a baby girl, within weeks of each other! The girls are now 15 months old and little Lizzy came over to play with Mia for the first time yesterday. They spent the day collecting all the dolls from around the house. At one point, Lizzy had two large dolls in her short little arms and started to fuss because she couldn't hold the third one she saw laying on the floor. So cute!

They took turns putting the dollies in the bed and the high chair and surprisingly, they shared everything! They were the perfect little playmates. Here they are putting Troy's Jamaican hat on each other.

We can't wait to have Lizzy over again!