Eleven months

Mia is 11 months old today. One of the paper's photographers emailed me these photos today of Mia with us. He snapped them Saturday. She's getting so big. How did that happen?








Every day I am in awe with how lucky we are. She's healthy, happy and delightful. She's figuring out how to be mischievous. She wants to be near us. She's hungry and a picky eater. She loves everyone, and the world loves her back. She's growing. Her hair is growing. She's still the tiniest person in her classroom. Leaving her in the morning is still impossible. She laughs more and gets tickled about things, like peekaboo and daddy shaking her tummy. She's so quiet but can get really loud when she has something important to say. She loves to walk holding our hands, preferably with one hand to each parent. She's almost ready to do it on her own.


I get a little emotional thinking about all of this, so I'll leave it at that. :)

Bacon

Today we went to the first bacon festival in Oklahoma. (I wrote a column about it.) This was a plate of bacon that you got. Each person was allowed four - FOUR! - full plates of bacon. Just bacon. Leigh and I together ate about half of this plate. We felt sick the rest of the day.

Mia shows off her lovely sunhat, which she immediately threw to the ground. We eventually just gave up and went and got the umbrella.

Design Star

I'm just going to be honest with myself here. I am not good at interior design in any manner. At all. I'm just proud when the house is clean. Let me correct that: I'm just proud of myself for that one time the house was clean. Literally once. It was in December 2009.


So this was kind of a big deal at the Jacobs house:





What is it? Well, folks, it's matching photo frames. Thank you, Kelli Dupuy, for having matching photo frames in your house. I stole your idea. We had mostly silver frames, so I replaced a few with new silver frames. Now look at that! And, because I was feeling ambitious, I gathered two decorations from around the house that were silver and tacked them on the end. Leigh had that clock, which I find ironic, and we got the letter J from our friends Lance and Christa as a wedding present. I mean, seriously. I felt like Superwoman. (Notice I didn't share pictures of the rest of our living room, though.)


I made Leigh come and look at it. More than once. He was as excited for some reason.

A fistful of gratitude

We took Mia to the park today to play on the equipment and walk around. She had a good time and got the chance to try all of her different crawling styles.

She's getting more interested in slides than the first time she tried one out ...

... but she's not a fan of the swing just yet.

In fact, she was so upset about the swings, she beat me up.

She's on a roll

Before work this morning ...



Busted ...



Taking it to school ...

All stretched out ...

Mia fights for her right

Last night we went to our friend Holly's place for a cookout and then to Rachel and Jake Trotter's new home for a housewarming party. Mia welcomed the Trotters home by immediately bending one of their doorstops. Yikes. Sorry about that, Trotters.



Mia made the rounds with all our friends, who loved up on her and made me smile. Mia absolutely adores our friend Mandy. She wants Mandy to carry her all over the place. Here's a picture of Mandy making Mia smile.



Later in the evening, Jake got out the infamous karaoke machine. After a fantastic rendition of "Fill Me Up Buttercup," Jake and The Captain turned the mic over to another friend. He pumped out an AMAZING version of "(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party!)." Mia loved it.

YES!

Mia's first ponytail!

To market, to market

We went to the Farmer's Market this morning to pick up some lamb and veggies. Leigh was holding Mia, and when I turned around to look, I saw the greatest thing ever. Mia's hair was blowing in the wind of the fan. She had enough hair to blow in the wind!



We got home and Mia walked the whole way from the car to the front door holding on only to one of Leigh's hands. My favorite part is when she takes a step that's too big. Her feet are too far apart, and she bends into a deep squat. She sits there for a minute, stuck, before taking another step.

LOYAL to bowling

Last night Mia stayed with Jill and Leigh and I went out with friends. It was awesome! We had supper, went to the LOYAL Link bowling event and then went to Club Rodeo, which can only be described as amazing.

Leigh with some of his fantastic LOYAL V folks ...



Lindsay Laird with her beautiful daughter Kit, whom I like to call Kittles ...



Trivia master AJ ...

Das futbol!

Leigh wore his Germany jersey today, and Mia now has a team shirt too! Oh, the random things you can find on the Target sale racks.

Our life

So tonight I documented all the regular stuff we do. I guess I did this more for Mia than for myself. I want her to know how much we love being around her and how much better she makes our lives, even when we're just hanging out and not really doing anything special.



Just as a side note, Mia does not like being strapped into the cart at Walmart. So she manages to push her way out and stand up on her seat. How does this happen so quickly? How can someone with such tiny muscles be so fast? This is a picture of her being kind of mad after I strapped her back in while we were in the check-out line.





Mia has this blue Bumbo chair that she used to sit in all the time. Now she's big enough and agile enough to maneuver her way out. She spends a lot of times crawling in, out, around and over the chair. She does some pretty impressive maneuvering in the Bumbo, but she never falls and she never cries. I tried to document her amazing gymnastics:

Someone broke into our house

It was me.

I was running late and rushed out of the house without what? Keys. Of course. Leigh was already gone, so it was just me. There was absolutely no way he could come all the way back home to open the door.

So I had to break back inside on the first day I wore heels with a skirt since my knee surgery.

I kicked my heels off on the porch and circled around back. Luckily, I was in such a rush that I forgot to close our bedroom windows and turn the air on for the dogs. I had an in. But first I had to rip out all the thorny vines in my way. I climbed up onto our air conditioner, carefully balancing my knees on the edge so the center wouldn't cave in. I pushed open the screen.

The window sill was covered in dirt on the outside, dust on the inside and bugs in the middle. I was already going to be insanely late, so I decided I didn't have time to iron another shirt. I peeked around and for once was grateful for all the greenery that we can never keep at bay. No neighbors' windows were visible.

I pulled of my shirt, flung it in the window and took a nose dive through the frame and onto the bed. All that remained was my bare feet sticking outside.

Mission accomplished. I'm a ninja.

Don't cross her

Mia is a fighter.

This morning when Leigh dropped her off, one of her teachers, Ms. Kelly, said, "She's tiny, but she's fiesty."


Apparently Mia has been going head-to-head with a cute little boy named Troyce. Another teacher, Ms. Joanna, told me a few weeks ago that Mia and Troyce always fight over who gets to sit in the little blue chair. They knock one another out of it and take over.


I guess this culumated yesterday when Mia and Troyce were locked together, attacking. Baby fight! Ms. Kelly said it was like they were two drunks fighting outside a club. Yes!


Is this bad? Not yet, Ms. Kelly said. They're all just figuring out how to share (or not) and make friends (or not). They'll figure it out, she said. Hopefully they do before one of them gets the tiniest black eye ever.


I don't think our friend Megan Elliot knew how prophetic this shirt would be when she made it for Mia:

Do it like Skye

It was time for Mia to wash up, so Leigh took off her clothes and diaper. He set her on the floor so she could pull herself up to stand against the bathtub, her favorite place in the house. I turned the water on and she peed all over the rug. Just when we get Skye to stop peeing on the carpet, we're going to have to house-train another family member.

Doggy hairstyling

This is the kind of hairstyle you have when you're tiny, you hang out on the floor all the time and your dog loves you. Hairspray? No. Dog spit? Yes.

Zebra killed in dog attack

We got Mia this really adorable wooden toy in South Africa. It was a zebra with wheels. She played with it maybe twice before it was decapitated and its wheels stolen like it was Bryan Dean's car.

Sweet feet

I took some photos of Mia napping today. (The light is low, obviously, so please ignore the grainy texture.) She always sleeps with her booty up in the air. It's so adorable. Every time we put her down on her back, she just flips over and tucks her knees underneath herself.

What was that?

Usually Leigh takes Mia to school in the morning, but today I took her. I was driving Leigh's car because that's where the car seat base is. I reversed out of our driveway, put the car in drive and started to move forward. As I did, I heard an eeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrr. I stopped. The noise stopped. I drove forward. The noise started again. What followed was a series of starts and stops, while I tried to figure out where this noise was coming from.

The back seat.

Mia was growling every time the car moved forward. I thought it was some kind of engine trouble. Nope. Just a growling baby.

The more Previch the better

Our pal Chadonald emailed us some photos that Linda "The Saint" Previch took during our lunch with the fabulous folks from Deerborn.

Mystery of the thumb

This week Mia has decided she wants to suck her thumb. It was like BAM! all of a sudden. She does it mostly when she's tired, but the thumb also makes its move throughout the day. For example, while we were swimming:




The all-knowing medical book we have said it's totally normal and more than 9 out of 10 kids do it at some point in their lives. We're just at a loss for why it started now.

Reasons to wear a pretty dress

There are two main reasons to dress up in a pretty dress if you're Mia Marianne Jacobs:

1. If Chad Previch's fantastic parents are in town. You have to look your best for Linda and Don Previch!

2. If you're lifting weights at Ouma's house.

Push it!

On the way home from daycare today we spotted a garage sale by a family with young girls. We bought some super cute clothes and the greatest toy ever: a push car. Mia loves it. I think she might actually love it more than she loves us.

Mia feeds herself

A typical dinner time at our house: sweet potatos, crackers, chaos.

Bonus bloomers!

Even though Mia isn't even 1 yet, Leigh and I have had to say, "Our bad, Mia," on many occasions. The latest was because of this adorable dress from Marc. She's worn it several times but this time, we discovered something bad. Turns out, there were bloomers attached on the inside of the dress. This thing has been through the washer multiple times. She's worn it multiple times. Oops. Our bad, Mia.

Evil genius

Turns out, our daughter is an evil genius. I'm pretty sure this is true of all children who are in the pull-up/crawling/walking phases.

Mia broke our toilet. She broke is more than it already was.

See, Mia loves the bathroom. She loves taking baths, running her hands under the shower or faucet and pull herself up on the side of the tub. She's even been known to splash in the toilet while a parent is brushing his/her teeth. Yikes! So it's no wonder that while she was playing around in there while Leigh was trimming his beard, she dismantled the toilet.

Our toilet is famous for failing. The last failure was when a certain person who shall remain nameless (but is known as "Scammer" in certain circles) tried to "fix" the toilet despite protests from Leigh and me. He replaced the flusher when it wasn't broken. At all. And now it falls off at random. Well, Mia gave it the last straw. She yanked it off and happily banged away on the toilet lid.

But her malfeasance aside, look at the joy she gets from it! Evil genius.

Softball with the Guncles

This weekend we went to Dallas with Marc Bell and Clay Barrett, whom we lovingly call Mia's guncles.

Leigh played in a softball tournament with them and sadly enough, Mia and I didn't get to see him play at all! It was so hot. (I estimate the temperature to have been about 150 degrees with a heat index of Scalding.)

I decided that for Mia's health that we probably should only be outside for the first and last games of the tournament. In between, she and I would go to the best outlet mall ever; Grapevine Mills was just down the road. (Hey! Someone had to take one for the team!) Well, Leigh didn't get to play in the first game, and then the team they were playing against in the last game forfeited because it was so ridiculously hot.

Mia had lots of fun, though, even though we didn't see Leigh play. She especially enjoyed wearing a cold, wet towel on her head like all the players.