Teacher Tins :)

I made five of these adorable tins for Mikayla's teachers at school and for her swimming teacher too. This was a really fun project to do, they started out as plain red buckets.

3 Year Reflections

Here are some of Mikayla's latest things. I was taking a moment to reflect on how far she's come.

She is really getting into the whole Santa thing, I tell her that Santa brings good girls presents but not bad girls (bribing for behavior modification… whatever works, right) so now in the middle of whatever she’s doing (that she’s not supposed to be doing) she says “and I’m a good girl too”…… then bursts into tears

She still absolutely loves playing dress up.

She has to bring a baby everywhere we go, it’s much more then it used to be because they have become real to her.

She loves to play teacher, she even makes us all line up and she walks backwards (guess her teacher does that) and says “line up everybody”…..

She absolutely loves putting people, babies, the dogs, her animals, anything and everything in time out. Most often for hitting, meaning, they hit her.

Oh she loves to have her fingernails and toenails painted.

She is sooo sweet when I ask her whose birthday Christmas is… she says it’s Baby Jesus’ birthday.

She loves shower time and now after all the cleaning business is tended to, I close the door for her and she loves her shower time for singing or bossing whatever imaginary friend is in there with her at the moment.

Right now her favorite movie is Tinker Bell, we watch it EVERY day.

She loves to help cook dinner and bake.

She is very crafty and loves stamping and cutting paper.

She loves to talk on the phone.

Her vocabulary is amazing, she really understands everything.

WE GOT SNOW!!!!

I can't believe it. It was too late to go play in it though (Mikayla had wet hair, we have no hat, no gloves, no boots, or even shoes that she can wear socks with, so essentially no winter wear) so we went ahead and brought the snow in to her. She got two snow balls and was holding them and sort of playing with them until her hands got cold then we gave her a container to hold her snow ball in it... then she ate it!!!

She was soooooo excited she was quivering and doing her little girl scream!!! What a fun way to end the day.

A beautiful memorial

At my dad's church, every year they have a Christmas memorial service for everyone that has lost loved ones. You purchase an ornament and at the ceremony, every person is called up individualy to pay honor to their special someone and place the ornament on the tree. I hung the ornament for my sister Leslie, Michael hung the ornament for his dad and Mikayla hung the ornament for my mom. It was very special and a very touching ceremony.

For my sister I said, for my sister and best friend, this is our second Christmas without her and we miss her very much.

Michael said, for my dad, he's been gone six years and he was a really great and fun loving guy. I miss him.

For Mikayla I said, this is for her grandma, this is our third Christmas without my mom and our third Christmas with Mikayla. We miss her very much.

Mikayla hung the ornament and was so cute and intent while doing it. She has asked me before where my mom is and where Aunt Leslie is (because I talk about them and there are pictures in the house). I tell her they're in heaven, a couple of weeks ago when we were talking about Leslie and she said, "you know, I'd really like to go see her." It made me so sad.

I really wish they were here to be with us too. Here is the memorial tree. It's just a cell phone picture but it really has such special meaning.

Christmas Crafting

I have been working hard, some things I can share here.... and some I just can't. But here is the latest creation. It started out as your ordinary cookie sheet. Now it's a 25 days to Christmas count down creation. The snow flakes across the top are magnets to mark the days. I can't wait to do this with Mikayla.

Down at the boat!

We went down to our boat last weekend and we've been having a north wind which blows the water out of the bay so we couldn't go out, it was too big of a risk of getting stuck out there. The water was down at least 2 feet in our slip and we were almost on the bottom in there so we just got to hang out and play for a change. We all really had a great time! (oh and it really wasn't that cold but she wanted to wear the hood..... LOL )

ta daaaaa!!

My little swimmer!!!

I was able to take Mikayla swimming this week and boy did she have a great lesson, she was really showing off for me :) I loved every second of it. I wish I could take her every week!!!

Here are some pictures, please note the shoes in the first pic..... she wears them EVERYWHERE!!! I love it, she is so happy when people comment to her about them. She very proudly says "thank you" and we go on our merry way.