Thursday, August 30, 2007

Mia's 1-Year Appointment


So I felt like I couldn't post without at least putting one picture, so here is a picture from a couple weeks ago even though it has nothing to do with this post. I had shared a similar one before, but I don't think she had her tongue sticking out in that one and I thought this was cute. I've been playing around with converting my pictures to black and white, so there you go...

Anyow, Mia had her 1-year appointment today. Everything looked great. Mia weighs 21 1/2 pounds and is the 60th percentile. My baby is losing her "fluff!" She is now right under 30 inches and in the 75th percentile for height-she must get that from her daddy. And of course, Mia's noggin remains in he 90th percentile!! Poor thing had to get 4 shots today!! The nurses who gave her the shots were impressed with how good she was and referred to her as "mild mannered." I had to laugh because in Mia's 1st year of life I don't think anyone has ever referred to her as being mild mannered-ha, ha!

She is also doing good with all her milestones. She is not walking yet, but cruising a lot. She is quite verbal and when we were in the office was even trying to repeat "fish" since there was a glittery one hanging in the room. She is doing pretty good with her eating and drinking, but I think my goal will be to get her to eat more of a variety of food and push those fruits and veggies. The dr. warned me that some tough times are ahead as Mia begins to assert her independence and express frustration more. All I can say is that in one year I am amazed by how much Mia has grown and changed. One day she was this helpless little baby and now she will go and get a book if I ask her-crazy, crazy!!

Visit with Grandma

So I have just accepted that I have been a bad blogger in August and I will be better in September! However, to make up for my lack of posting, I am adding 3 new ones today!

So I am now officially in the swing of things working part-time. I work 8:30-12:00 Monday through Friday. It is great. It gets me up and going and ready in the morning, and then I'm home for the rest of the afternoon. Mia seems to be doing really well at her new babysitter, although she has cried everyday this week that I dropped her off-boo!! The babysitter assured me that it isn't for long. I think Mia is just being her dramatic self. She sure seems happy when I come to pick her up.

Anyhow, my mom is now off every Wednesday, so we went and saw her yesterday afternoon. We hung out on her deck and Mia enjoyed picking a tomato off of one of Grandma's tomato plants, as well as sitting at the little picnic table. Mia also very much enjoyed the cookies that Grandma provided. :)


Eating cookies This picture makes me laugh-she was coming after my camera

We are teaching Mia the finer points of cleaning and dishwashing-soon she'll be doing it for us!Mia is finally starting to grow some hair in-what do you think of the mohawk look?

Back to the Arboretum

So on Sunday, we headed back to the Arboretum, this time with Mia. Yes, I know, we go there a lot-we are getting our money's worth of our membership. :) We went to the Children's Garden, but it was a little different this time now that Mia is up on her feet and cruising more. It was a different perspective for her and she paid attention to things she hasn't really noticed before. She especially liked the big marble water ball. She was quite the dirty, wet mess when we went home.


Josh Kelly and Sister Hazel

On Saturday Cort and I went to the Arboretum for one of their concerts. It was Josh Kelly and Sister Hazel and it was sponsored by The Mix (101.9). It was absolutely insane how many people were there. We brought our blanket, camp chairs and portable table, along with a bucket of KFC and settled in to an area with a pretty good view. The concert was great and we both really liked Josh Kelly (he is engaged to Izzy on Grey's Anatomy). Here are a couple of pictures...
Josh Kelly

The crowdCort

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Playdate at Val's

Val was nice enough to invite us over Tuesday to her new house for a playdate with Melissa and Kristy's kids. Hopefully she will invite us back after we took over her house! It was nice to have one final hurrah before school starts again.


Prior to going over to Val's, Mia went to her new babysitter for the first time while I went to school to finish setting up my room. Her first day went great, so here's hoping the rest are the same!



The kids took over the table-we had to stand and eat at the island! Little Gap Model
Mia kissing Cooper (she touches her forehead to animals)
Mom, can we get a dog?
At least someone wants to wear the bow!
Mikey and Payton
All the kids-I don't know why they always look so stunned in these pictures!

Monday, August 20, 2007

Mia's 1st Birthday Party

I have been meaning to post pictures from Mia's birthday party, but there are just so many!! So here are some of the many. I have to say they are not the best, and I forgot to take pictures of a lot of stuff since I was so busy. Mia's party was a rubber ducky theme. There were rubber duckies everywhere, ducky sandwiches, ducky Jello, duck punch, etc., etc. :) We had hoped the weather would cooperate, but it chose not to. It was cold and rainy, so unfortunately we were all stuck in the house. It was still a great (and crazy) time! Mia enjoyed being around all her friends and received so many nice gifts. She is one spoiled little girl!!

Decorations

Mia's Cake (this took a LONG time to decorate)
The cupcake tree
Kids' drinks
1 is Just Ducky!
Venessa and Erica
Lisa and Addison
Lisa and Erica
Addison meeting Erica
The Majerskys and the twins
Logan
Venessa and me with the girls
The birthday girl!!
Opening gifts
Mia sitting on her new chair from Pam
Mia's first purse
Kissing Minnie
Yummy!
The scramble after the pinata broke
Grandma and Mia
The favor bags
Auntie Pam and Mia
Jen and Noah

Thursday, August 16, 2007

Happy Birthday Mia!!!

Wow!! I can hardly believe it, but Mia is 1 today! It has been a year of ups and downs, but she has truly made our lives complete. Here's a little walk down memory lane...

Baby Mia Isabel Graske was born Wednesday, August 16, 2006 at 6:54 p.m.,weighing in at 7 pounds, 14 ounces and 20 inches long. She was a bit bigger than Cort and I expected, but her chubby cheeks were probably a good pound of that weight! After being induced in the morning and going through a very easy labor, I had a bit of a rough delivery, getting a bit sick along the way. This is when Mia began to show her stubborness and decided not to cooperate. Since she was being so stubborn and because heart condition, she was delivered via c-section. She didn't look a thing like we expected, so we held off naming her until the next morning. Unfortunately as I was recovering the day or two after her birth, I lost a lot of blood, so I had a blood transfusion. While it seemed scary, it helped me feel a ton better almost immediately! Like her mommy, Mia had some issues as well, she had some skin torn off the top of her head during her attempted delivery using the vaccuum, so her little head was scraped up. Because of that, the doctors expected her to become jaundice, which she did, so she spent some time under the lights to help her out. Once Mia's jaudice levels came down we were able to bring her home. It's been an adventure ever since! In one short year Mia has

Rolled over
Sat up
Crawled
Stood Up
Begun to cruise around furniture and with her push walker
Gone from a bottle to a sippy, now with regular milk!
Eaten lots of table foods, with her most favorite being grilled cheese and yogurt
Learned to play peek-a-boo, run away from mommy, and chase Zippy
Begun to talk (dad, mama, duck, cat, and a couple of other words, not always used correctly. :) )

Mia has a STRONG personality. She is very silly and will break into hysterics when you tickle her or joke around playing with her (happy of course!). She also gets frustrated very easy and will break into hysterics if she cannot get something or something is taken away (unhappy of course!). She is a loud girl who constantly wants to be on the go. She doesn't like being held for long periods of time, she rather be on the ground playing and moving around. Her newest fascination is books. As a Reading Specialist, I should be happy right? After the millionth time reading various duck and farm animal books, I'm not so sure :).

I can't wait to see what this next year brings! Here are some pictures from her first year of life if you have made it this far.

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

2 Days and Counting...

2 more days and my baby will be One!! I cannot believe it. Here are a couple more I took at the same time as my last posting. My goal was to get a 1-year "standing" picture of Mia. Unfortunately, I didn't end up getting a lot with the chair because after about 5 clicks, Mia and the chair tipped over. After that Mia refused to go anywhere near it. Who knew picture-taking could be so dangerous? I have to thank Andy and Shannon again for taking me to Hidden Lakes. It is my new favorite place to take pictures.


Monday, August 13, 2007

A New Favorite

Little Mia on the Prairie