Rock-paper-scissors-fundraise!

Our first Rock-Paper-Scissors tournament was amazing! We had 35 competitors and raised $1,100 for Vilakazi! Last night was so, so, so much fun.

Leigh and I pose with the trophy, which I made. If I do say so myself, it's pretty awesome.


Kelli and Andrew go for it all in the final round.


Leigh hands Kelli the trophy after she won it all!

Our board is so, so, so amazing. I can't believe how lucky we are.

Why babies have pockets, 7

To keep their lotion close at hand. You never know when you'll need to moisturize in this weather.

Is that our kid?

We went to school to pick up Mia and couldn't find her. We looked around at the kids who were waiting for their parents but didn't see her. Then we realized: oh my god. There's our daughter. Right in front of us. We both - both! - overlooked her. How could this be? There are two explanations:

1. She's getting so big. It's crazy that she isn't the tiniest person at her school any more. Finally.

2. One of the teachers did this to her hair:

I might have squealed with joy. Mia isn't not having it when I try to put her hair into a ponytail. I only have one photo proving that it's ever actually happened. She still won't let me do it, but she needs to face facts. Ponytails are adorable and hilarious.

Vilakazi in the news

Our big event - a rock-paper-scissors tournament - is coming up, and we've had some wonderful stories done about us. It's been so interesting for me to be on this side of the media. Sometimes it's easy to forget how exciting it is to get your name in print. :) Here are links to two stories and a video:

• A wonderful, wonderful, wonderful story ran in The Oklahoman Gazette.
• The University of Central Oklahoma student newspaper also wrote about us.
• One of our board members, Lauren Dennison, appeared on the KAUT-43 morning show with Lance West. She did great!

Lauren also went on the News 9 morning show this weekend, but I don't have a link for that. Either way, she did great both times!

No thanks, Santa

So today we did our annual parenting duty: we took Mia to see Santa. We went to the free company Christmas party at my office. This is how excited she was about it:


After sleeping the entire way to my office, she woke up quite grumpy about being suddenly at the kind of party that requires dexterity she hasn't developed yet to make the available crafts. She was also a little mad that she doesn't have enough teeth to really do some damage at the cookie table. Nevertheless, we stood in line to greet St. Nick, who might or might not have really wanted to be there. I tried to hand Mia off, but as you can see, she was absolutely, totally not interested in hanging out with a strange man in a crazy suit.


Santa gave her a peace offering: a candy cane. As you can see, she held it. Momentarily. Then she promptly handed it back. She wanted nothing to do this with this old man.

So we'll give Santa another go this holiday season. Fingers crossed.

Sleeping like a queen

Mia sleeps like a queen when she hangs out with her Tiamo. Jill always builds her a fort of pillows so she doesn't roll off the bed. Look how tiny she is compared to this giant fortress of fluff!

Tiny hands like to grab art

No, we didn't lock Mia in jail. This time. We went to the Paseo First Friday because the weather was amazing and there were lots of great people to see. We met up with some friends but then had to make a slight deter from dinner to diaper changing. We were back on track and visited several galleries, such as this one Mia is trying to break into. We've realized that maybe we shouldn't take Mia to a gallery walk until she's old enough to understand "no" in no uncertain terms. She's so good at responding to "let's leave it" by putting whatever she has back down, but some things are just too tempting when you're 1. We took a nice family picture in front of the awesome, twinkling Christmas tree.

Then we stopped for a minute at Sauced, where Mia let me know about cold season by coughing on me. So glad Leigh captured this special moment in mommyhood on camera.

But, because we're family, we love each other no matter who coughs on whom.

Not a creature was stirring

Look at these sweet dogs. This was taken in the middle of putting up Christmas decorations. So nice. So tolerant.

Mia shares her Cheerios

For love of the vacuum

Mia loves to vacuum. Loves it. We've discovered that Mia has a keen interest in cleaning. She likes to wipe down surfaces, push around the broom and put things away when she's done playing with them. But the vacuum has a special place in her heart. She particularly loves using it for weightlifting. She also enjoys performing maintenance checks.