Quick update on Miss Mia and her perpetual development:

1. We are fully headed into the world of solid food. “Solid” is a bit of a misnomer but that’s what the books call it so we’ll go along. We started a few weeks ago trying to feed Mia rice cereal with a spoon. We quickly aborted that after (a) tasting the nasty crap ourselves and (b) learning that she darn well wasn’t interested yet. So, last week we tried First Peas and she took to them like a kid who didn’t want us to try the cereal again. After a few days of peas and no signs of pea-related trauma, Shaunna tried carrots. Not so much. It probably wasn’t the carrots so much as timing but the resulting expulsion of fluids would make anyone abandon that. We are now onto Sweet Potato with better success. Long live the sweet potato.

2. We actually took a mini-vacation to Seattle a few weekends ago and got to spend a wonderful day with Aunt Marci and Mia’s cousins, Leah and Aaron. Mia received plenty of presents, attention and photo ops. It was great to see the family again since it’s been a few months! We then cruised over to Michelle and Kerry’s for a fabulous dinner party of yummy Indian food. Mia refused to nap and turned into a crazed party animal some time around 8 PM. Grabbing faces, yammering and grunting like a drunken frat boy. So, off we went to the Edgewater for the night. Sunday we saw Jorji, Jason and the girls (pics to follow soon) and then headed home. All in all, a dandy trip.

3. Jillian and Mia headed down to Eugene for a late Christmas visit and spent the day with Nika and her family and then Chris and his family. Again, pics to follow when I can commandeer the camera for a day.

4. And this weekend Jillian, Mia, Dixie and LadyBear are off to Bend for a weekend with Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle Mark and visits with friends. I will be staying home with my list of “to dos” and a very empty house except for Pico and Zoe.

Yesterday Mia met with Dr. Tomkoria for her regular check-up and immunization shots. She was a real trooper with the shots and only hollered for a few minutes. She also managed to flip herself over on the exam table several times, happy to display her new abilities!

Maybe our nickname for her should be Stringbean instead of Butterbean. Mia is now 13 lb, 11 oz and is 26.5 inches tall (or I guess you say long if she can’t stand up.) She is in the 25% percentile for her weight and the 90-95th% for her length! (Note to all Grandmas: if you are buying clothes, look for ones with long legs and torso!)

All systems check out just fine, and the doctor is even happy with her weight as she has stayed in the same percentile while growing in length. Thankfully our baby girl is healthy and we have no worries at this point other than the rapidly increasing need to baby-proof the house.

Next doc visit will be in two months…

It is hard to believe but Mia turned 5 months on January 1. We’ve celebrated her first Summer, showed her the leaves turning in the Fall, dressed her up in goofy clothes for Halloween and gave her her first taste of Sweet Potato Casserole at Thanksgiving. For her first Christmas Grandma Judy and Grandpa Julius and Uncle Mark braved the winter weather over the mountains from Bend to bring us goodies and presents. Because it is such a special year for us, we even got a white Christmas, complete with icicles hanging off the roof (Bonnie wondered why she had bought fake ones to hang!)

Mia is growing so fast we almost weekly go through her clothes and see what still fits. At Thanksgiving she was sitting up well with a little support and practicing her finger and hand dexterity. By early December, when Gran and Nana came from Florida (Bonnie’s mom and grandmother) she was having “fun” experimenting with her vocal cords and blowing raspberries. I say “fun” because it is very cute – until you are locked in the house 24/7 due to weather and she’s practicing her high-pitched squeals! I’m pretty sure there were a few dolphins off the coast that were turning in confused circles.

The week of Christmas Mia mastered the art of rolling over – something she had done more by accident in the past, but now happens on a regular basis. Just this past week she started pushing herself across the floor – backwards. Thank God for Google. We quickly researched and found out this is entirely normal and we won’t have to put her in physical therapy.

While the first few months Mia was an angel when it came to eating and sleeping peacefully, she’s recently decided that EVERYTHING is more interesting than a bottle or going to bed. Everything includes the ceiling fan, the dogs, the interesting cloud-shaped spit up on our clothes, the cats, the dogs, the dogs. We now sit in a blackened room with no animals, lights or other stimuli in order to get her to bed – and even then her dreams are so full she has to wake up every few hours to tell us about them. Caffeine and eye drops are our friends.

We recently learned that two of our closest friends are pregnant and both are due in June –  we are excited that Miss Mia will have new playmates soon.  Funny how after just 5 months of parenthood we are the “experts” new parents turn to for recommendations on which stroller to buy, do they really need a diaper wipe warmer, and what the terms “onesie” and “Boppy” mean.  I remember the first time we entered the Babies R’Us and saw the Wall-O’Bottles and almost ran out of the store.  Who knew there were so many to chose from?  But now we confidently discuss the benefits of the rapid-flow nipples and drop-ins.  Mia Lynn has taught us well.

But with good reason. For those of you not in the Portland area, we’re having a bit of a snow issue here and we’ve barely been out of the house for a week. Last Sunday we got about a 7 inches of snow and that finally melted on Friday. Unfortunately, we got another foot yesterday and that isn’t going anywhere for a while. Check out the pics on Flickr to get the details. It’s hard to tell from the pics but let’s just say the snow drift on our back deck is 30″ high. We’re going to try and get the picture uploads caught up since we suddenly have SCADS of time on our hands. That is assuming we keep power tonight. Freezing snow and high winds in the forecast so we’re hunkered down and hoping we don’t have to eat PB&J for dinner!

Happy Holidays!

Hard to believe it but Miss Mia is already 3 months old. She makes us laugh each day for new reasons but if we’re honest, mostly it’s her hair. She is “talking” constantly and cackles at our goofy faces. We’ve had a few sleepless nights but mostly she crashes out for 6 or more hours a night and for that, we are thankful!

Mia finally learned the subtle art of turning over. It seemed to happen in a couple of days and she’s still working out the details. Sometimes she just gets stuck on her side and decides that’s close enough. We have to pay close attention at all times so Dixie doesn’t take the opportunity to give her a full face kiss. Well, that or steal Mia’s pacifier… We’ve lost a few pacifiers over the last month thanks to Dixie (see photos for proof.)

Yesterday, we took Mia to Sears for the obligatory photo shoot because we wanted to get pictures of her hair in full height. Of course, her hair didn’t cooperate so the pics make her look like she’s been on the ski slope for a few hours. One of the pics we’ve named “Sven, the ski instructor” for just this reason. Mia was extremely patient with the crazy lady who kept trying to get her to smile – which she flatly refused to do. Between the giant flashes of light in her face and Jillian holding her upright by the back of her sweater, Mia was pretty much over the whole process after an hour – as were we.

All in all, it’s been a beautiful month. We spent a weekend in Bend after visiting Nika and her family in Eugene for a couple of hours. The drive to Bend was, shall we say, noisy. I don’t know which was worse when trying to navigate the winding mountain pass roads – Mia crying or Jillian singing to her. The best I can say about that drive was that Jill finally learned all of the lyrics to “Itsy bitsy spider.” The weekend was wonderful and we got to get away for a few hours while Jill’s parents watched Mia.  I have to say, Oregon is underrated in the list of “Places to See Beautiful Fall Colors.”

That’s all for now. We really are trying to keep the pics updated but hear (often!) that we need to get them posted faster. So, we’ll do our best to keep you updated as time permits.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN, YO!