Let the love shine...

The other morning, we got all crafty with our friends and made heart shaped sun catchers. It is the month of LOVE :) The kids and ADULTS had a blast tearing sheets of tissue to bits. They they sometimes very carefully picked out little pieces of tissue to stick onto the clear contact paper. When the kids were satisfied with their art, the mamas helped close it up and cut into heart shapes...a couple of hole punches and a string of yarn later, they had beautiful sun catchers. There was, of course, some good playtime before and after. Mia and I hadn't really hosted in-home since I got knocked up, so this was refreshing and so much fun to have some friends over.

Happy Belated Balentime's Day

I'm a week late on this post, but here it is :)

Valentine's Day or as Mia calls it...Balentime's Day...was so wonderful. I went to my first prenatal yoga class....it was PHENOMENAL! It was so amazing to be in a room filled with other pregnant women at varying stages of pregnancy. Talk about beauty and connection. LOVE Yoga Yoga's after session tea. Yoga was followed by a 1 1/2 hour massage with the lovely Sara Ballard...ohhhh I soooo needed that! She's beyond intuitive and pretty much perfect....she had Valentine's gifts for her clients...I selected the beautiful daisy pictured below and a yuuuuummmmmyyyyy bar of organic almond and dark chocolate bar...um...HUGE bar!...It was GONE before I got home. Thank you Sara...you make everyone feel so special.

Later, Daryl came home with gifts for his girls. He's a firm believer that Valentine's Day is a time to shower the women in your life with love...and chocolate! Mia was thrilled and was almost vibrating as she tried to get her card out of the envelope...I LOVE that Daryl gets so much pleasure from selecting the always most PERFECT card...he spends a lot of time and thought into what he picks...Mia got a very sparkly Ariel card! Over the moon, that sent her! Then he gave her what she now calls her lovey bear. They were so cute snuggling on the sofa together...Daddy, daughter and lovey bear....Mia LOVED my flowers and even let her lovey bear smell them. Too cute!

The flowers...let me tell you about the flowers! Roses and snapdragons are my fave. My darling husband replaced the snapdragons with my new favorite flower....casablanca lilies!!! For our Lily. It took me a long while to stop crying on that one!

OK! My husband actually surprised be but BIG this year. He knows I LOVE LOVE LOVE Godiva dark chocolate....so, he gave me a big box of them, and under the cherry cordial (the first one I always go to) was a gorgeous bracelet!!!! I was totally speechless! He usually has me 'ok' a jewelry item before purchase, but this one he did all on his own and it's FABULOUS!!!!

From me? Oh, he got just what his sweet heart desired....beer :)

a few days after...those lilies really bloomed!

This man cherishes his girls every day, but on Balentine's Day, he really had fun and from the HUGE smile on his face, totally loved giving those gifts to his girls.

Mailbox FULL of Thank You Notes!!!!

I just checked the mailbox..it was FULL of Thank You notes!....notes that I had written and mailed! How did that happen?!?! ummmm, during a well planned lapse of judgment...I put Mia's return address labels where the recipient's address should have gone! I was methodical...thought I had all my bases covered! The post office actually processed them and mailed them back to me...they're so efficient :) If all would have gone as planned, some awesome peeps would be admiring some pretty sweet thank you notes right about now.

So, for those sweet folks who gave Mia a birthday gift....Mia truly appreciates and loves them all, but her mama may not be up to writing them all up again...hope you understand.

Love,
Tanya

Tribute to Allie

Last night the lovely Simon family suddenly lost a very important member....Allie. She w, as one of the kindest dogs I've ever met. She let Mia practically climb all over, squeeze, and love on her all Mia wanted. Allie took it all like a champ. Allie was the perfect dog...gentle, patient and kind. If it tells you anything, Mia refers to the Simon's home as "Allie's house"...whenever we would visit, all Mia could talk about was Allie, Allie Allie....Mia quite frequently abandoned play with the kids so she could hang with sweet dear Allie. She was such a special dog with a loving soul, and will be dearly missed.

Here are a few of my favorite shots of Mia loving on and being loved by Allie

skillz - baking & emotional

I've been so in awe of Mia lately...well I always am, you know what I mean. Like at the Heart-bakers playdate last Friday, it was way more than 'I want to do it myself'....she DID it all pretty much herself. Measured, poured, mixed, rolled, cut...used the spatula like a pro..in all she needed very little guidance. Who is this three year old who can do so much?

At the dinner table, she reminds Daddy to 'thank mama for dinner'. Is incredibly empathetic. I had a rough day yesterday that resulted in some tears. Mia came up to me, snuggled me asked me if she could help...then later asked if I was feeling better. She knows the difference between a happy or sad cry :)

So, even though, Mia isn't 'in' the shot below, I LOVE that she's wielding that spatula, and it's a reminder to me how much she's evolving into such a great little girl, who does indeed have skillz!

for more love hop over to chookooloonks and The Land of K.A.

Heart-bakers

This is Liam.

He and his mama had us over to make, bake and ice cookies for Valentine's Day. It was very hands-on for the kiddos. They got to, with a little help, measure, mix, roll, cut and decorate...oh, yeah, and EAT cookies. Besides being a morning loaded with fun, the cookies came out SUPER TASTY! Lora, I NEED that recipe :)

I'm picking the following shot as my Best Shot because I love this little girl, her eyelashes, her pigtails and her ability to want to try and do everything. She wants to be elbows deep in cookie dough....and life.

for more delish best shots, hit Tracey's

Farmer Mia (guest blogger - Nana)

This child had SO much fun today!! First, she is so adored by both of us...she knows it too! And she is SO okay with it! She helped me plant corn, zucchini, carrots, and onion seeds today. While we were planting, she kept running her hand over my face and lovingly saying "Nana.....". We were planting seeds for our garden today while Pawpaw ran a tractor to dig up and grass and get the soil ready at least a foot down. Our seed planting had such a rhythm....I handed her cups full of soil, and she filled the Jiffy pots, then we smooshed and mushed until the dirt actually filled the pots. Then, I handed her cups full of water to water all the new soil.Then, Mia counted two seeds for every pot (OK, some little pots may have 70 seeds in them but hey...so what?) and dropped them into the holes I made. Then, we covered the seeds with more wet soil (she kept saying Look Nana, my hands are dirty....and they WERE!). After we planted lots of seeds, we watered some more and had some stick fights.

When we made sure that we had enough plants to feed an army, Mia and I went back to check on PawPaw. The tractor was loud and not very girl-friendly, but when he turned the engine off, Mia felt sure enough to sit in his lap. PawPaw showed her how to drop the bucket, and a new tractor operator was born. Once she got that down, the only thing left was to turn the engine back on (easier said then done with a 3 - year old in your lap. There are about 10 different things that have to be in neutral or the engine won't start.....as Tom set one thing and turned to another, Mia helped him by unsetting what he had just set.) Finally, I convinced Mia to step down for a second, Tom got all the stuff set to neutral and the tractor started. Mia was fascinated. She raised the bucket sky high and dropped it like a pro. Good thing it was a rental. Then she drove in circles until PawPaw got tired and a bit nauseous. She drove for about 30 minutes and had a BLAST. I will forward the pix I got tomorrow.

Once the tractor bit got old (for PawPaw, not Mia), the gals walked back to the house for a drink. Wine for me, juicy water for Mia. A quick rest and TV show, then off to the swings. But before we could swing, Mia had to help make dinner. A Farmer and a Cook all in one day. We put a pot roast in the oven, then went to swing for about an hour. After that, we had a duck egg hunt and found two! Success! Then, on to Elmo hat designing sessions with PawPaw. By 6, she was seriously considering a nap, but there was no time. Welcome to our world!! We still had to feed the dogs, chickens, ducks and deer. At one point, she peed and told me she needed another diaper. Now. We went into the bedroom to change her dipes, and uh oh.....WHERE IS MY CRIB?????? Did Swiper get it????? No, Nana had just put it away. Life was good.

While we waited for dinner, Mia did a movie star bubble bath with Dora and Boots. Way too much fun. See the pix I will share tomorrow. Then, a full dinner (she had to fight off PawPaw....GIGGLE, GIGGLE....NO, NO..GIGGLE) and a long snuggle with us on the sofa. By 8, she could not even start to keep her eyes open any more and curled up in my arms and went to sleep. Yes, it's true.....my heart is nothing but pudding now.

A wonderful day for all of us.....what a treasured thing. I hope your day is just as great. Happy Valentines Day!!! I love you and I love your willingness to allow Mia to share our lives. None of us will ever forget these moments. Thank you!

I love you!
Nana