Go Greece!

Obviously, our family is a tad excited about the World Cup. Well, imagine our joy when we remembered that Mia has a Greece soccer jersey! My dad and stepmom brought her back a whole kit from their last trip to Greece. It's still a little big for her, so she's only worn it a few times here and there. But today - today! - was the perfect occasion! Things didn't turn out so well for Greece. They lost 3-0 to Colombia. But Mia has at least two more times to sport the white and blue. Opa!

Well then

A lot of change is on the horizon for Mia. She's only got another week of daycare. Then she'll spend the summer at home with me. Then she'll start a new school. And then a few months later, Socks will arrive. Long story short, she's still processing quite a bit of this. Then this happened. 

In a fit of rage, she pulled out every single toy and every single piece of clothing and threw it all on the floor. It was the worst fit of her life. Really. This photo doesn't even really do justice to the craziness. We have started cleaning a bit, but it's a slow, slow process. We are helping her, but she has to do this herself. Maybe she'll be done by the time she goes to college. Let's just hope we can all survive all the change that's ahead.

Ahhhhhhhsemayaaaabodeebesibabaaaaaa

I go to make toast; I come back to Leigh and Mia reenacting the opening of "The Lion King." It was much easier when she was a baby. 

The world's loudest sleepover

Mia and her pal Scout have been having sleepovers for quite a while. They. Love. It. So when Scout's moms went to a concert in Tulsa, it was sleepover time at our house. Here is a video of them during dinner. I thought they were screaming at random. Turns out, they were singing. Sort of.



Lovely, ladies. Lovely.

They acted crazy, played a bunch and stayed up late. I took this photo of them the next morning. So much party. So much happiness. So much passing out.

Senior Walk

This weekend, my Uncle Kelly took us for a trip around campus. I graduated from the University of Arkansas 10 years ago this May. (Um, what? How did that happen?) A lot has changed since I was there, obviously. So many lovely improvements have been made, but there were still many places that were the same. It felt nice to be on campus for the first time in a long time. Of course, we had to stop and see my name on Senior Walk. (For those of you who don't know, Senior Walk is one of the very best traditions at the U of A. The name of every graduate in the history of the school is etched into the sidewalks. No other school does it. It's really special, and something that graduates feel very proud of.) This is Mia and I sitting next to my name - Carrie Rebecca Coppernoll. My name fit in the letter limit by only two letters. Eep!

And here is Mia with my dad's name, which is on the lawn of Old Main. My dad earned his law degree five years before I earned my bachelor's. Two Coppernolls on Senior Walk! And hopefully there will be a couple Coppernoll descendants there some day with the name Jacobs.

That's enough of basketball

 

Welp. Glad that's over. Mia finished up her first season of basketball today. She never scored, and I'm still not quite sure if she ever took a shot. She did, however, have a spectacular time. She had the world's greatest coaches. The Jonses are here with the whole team. They have hearts of gold. God bless them to wrangling all these children this season. We'll see if Leigh and I can be so gracious when we take on Mia's soccer team in a couple weeks.

It's a marshmallow world

Mia has now been in dance class for four months. It's just the cutest darn thing you've ever seen. This half of the year, her class learned lots of basic dance moves and even put together a routine. They performed to "Marshmallow World" by Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, who I now realize was probably drunk every single time he was on television. It was impossible to find a video of that song on YouTube where Dean Martin wasn't drunk. But whatever. Leigh and I didn't know it, but it turns out that the last class of the fall semester is the day when the children put on their performance for the parents. I was so unprepared! I would have taken the Canon and the zoom lens to shoot photos from, you know, across the room. Damn it! That's OK. We snapped some photos on our phones, and I shot a short video of a bit of the performance. It was so darn cute. My word. 

Below, Mia is to the right of the little boy in the gold jacket. She was in a make-up class, so she wasn't with her normal group of kiddos. She was feeling a bit shy.

Mia is that little face next to the girl in the back who has her arms out.

And here is Mia performing an arabesque with her teacher, Shannon Calderon Primeau, who is a super impressive woman and an incredible teacher. Mia adores her, and even though she looks totally miserable in this photo, she was quite excited when it was her turn to do a move with Ms. Shannon.

And here's a little snippet. Mia is standing to the left of Ms. Shannon. 

Skye Bojangles

This took this photo of Skye in the backyard, and it is the perfect illustration of that dog for so many reasons. The main ones:

- Whenever we let her outside, her first order of business is to relieve herself, obviously. But her second order of business every time is to take a flying leap onto her back to roll around on the ground. She covers herself in as much dirt and grass as possible and then brings it all inside. Every. Single. Time.

- Her tongue is slightly out. She's always sticking her tongue out at least a little.

- She looks suspicious of me. She is usually suspicious of you because she thinks you're keeping snacks from her.

- She looks totally submissive because she is. From the first day she met Deter, she always embraced her role as the beta dog. Most of the time, Deter didn't even really seem to care. I don't think he was socially advanced enough to know he was the alpha dog; she just reminded him all the time, as if he cared.

Teeny tiny foot

Mia is growing every day, but this morning I spotted something that made me feel like she's still so small. Her teeny tiny foot was sticking out of the blankets on our bed. She still crawls in with us if she's feeling scared or lonely. She's so big, but she really is still so small.

A tiny astronaut

Mia may become an astronaut some day. Let's hope there isn't a height minimum.