Family Time

We have had a great 3 day weekend hosting the Hollings at our house. Mya had a great time playing with Trent, here is a taste of the fun they had! We enjoyed one day at the zoo, the kids sure had a great time.

running and running and running...

Today Rob & I ran the Beat the Bridge 8K race in Seattle, and we were both pleasantly surprised with our final results! Good news for all the training we've been doing! Now we just have to run 2.5 times the distance... 1/2 Marathon, here we come! We are loving the amazing weather we've had. Yesterday we decided to hit the beach to enjoy the sunshine while we still have it. Mya had a wonderful time, between the boats, planes, shells and birds/ducks, I think we found toddler heaven! Once we got home, she took a 3.5 hour (usually 2) nap after all of the fun!

I had a nice Mother's Day weekend, we went to a local nursery and got lots of plants and worked on our yard for the day. I got a sweet little card and rose from Mya... including her hand print! Nothing could have been sweeter!

Cardiology Update

Friday was our first visit to the Cardiologist in 3 months. We were pleasantly surprised with wonderful news of Mya's improved heart function. For the first time in her life, her heart is operating at the low end of "normal!" We are so thankful for the news, we were thinking that she'd have to be put on a blood pressure medication if there weren't any positive changes. After a routine echocardigram last week, they've decided that no additional meds are needed! It's now been 8 months since her surgeries, and has been granted a 4 month break from Children's Hospital, the longest time away since her birth. We are so incredibly thankful for her positive improvement. God is good! We have really enjoyed the change of seasons, with all the fresh fruit! Between strawberries, blueberries and watermelon, Mya is a real fruit lover! She's also talking up a storm, with very sweet little pronunciations of the words she knows. We are challenged daily with the "new" words, it's a job to uncover what she's saying. Once we figure it out, she gets really excited, "Yeah!" It's fun to be the translator of this amazing little mind... she continues to surprise us with how much she understands. Such a little sweetie. She also prays with us, one of my favorites! The focused time is limited, but the attempt is definitely there!

Mya enjoyed a recent visit with Grandpa and Grandma Tiegs

An Amazing Week AwayWe have had such a great vacation week, just returned from staying in Chelan, wonderful time together! Part of the week was spent with some wonderful friends and fabulous weather topped it off as the perfect time away. Mya's new favorite things are ducks, squirrels and birds (other than singing). She gets SO excited to see them all! During our kayak adventure, 2 ducks (we named Bo and Luke Duck) really liked hanging around us, they stayed really close and kept her very interested. She sure enjoyed a great show! Between time on the playground, in the pool and in a kayak on the quiet lake we had a great time together.

Blueberries! YUM!

Making cookies...with lots of help.

"Num, num!"

LOVING THE SUNSHINE!!!

We have been enjoying sunshine this beautiful spring. Last weekend we commemorated the first day of spring by having lunch outside. We fired up the grill, pulled out the patio furniture and umbrella, it was such a lovely day! Mya didn't want to go back inside.

SPIRIT WEEK

This week at daycare is spirit week. We can't let this fun pass us by! So, we've been ready with the daily outfit, you'll have to check back again later this week for the other things Mya has in store.

Monday: Hippie Day

Tuesday: Hawaiian Day I couldn't believe she still had her outfit on when I picked her up, I think she enjoyed the attention her little coconut bra brought! We had not idea that this little costume would be something that could be used again, but proved to be a fun little investment from our trip to Hawaii a year ago! Wednesday: Pajama Day (Daddy forgot to take a picture and the jammies suffered a casualty on the playground, so they came home in the laundry bag... you'll have to visualize this one) Thursday: Silly Sock Day

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

We had a nice St. Patty's day celebration- early. We all participated in the St. Patrick's Day Dash on Sunday. Rob did a great job at running while pushing Mya in the stroller... up hill 1/2 the distance! Little Miss has become a camera ham, learning to pose with a smile. She's pretty sweet!I may be the first parent in history to not be ready for potty training. I'm actually not too anxious to be done with diapers... I'm not ready for my baby to be so big! Mya is sitting on the potty at school now, so we are following suit occasionally at home. It's more of a novelty at this point- she isn't exactly connecting the feeling of going potty with sitting there... but she has successfully done it a couple times at school. I think it may have been luck, but ready or not, I've gotta accept that she's growing up to be a big girl! On March 5th we celebrated the wonderful day of being DEBT FREE for the first time since we've been married!!! In 2.5 years, we eliminated $48,500 in debt. Crazy, right? The fact that we had so much debt is ridiculous, but after a lot of tears, disappointments and a whole lot of discipline- it's finally gone! We still have our wonderful mortgage... but the only bills we have beyond that are utilities. Amen to that!!! To celebrate, we enjoyed dinner at home (a meal out wasn't in the budget :)) and Mya even joined in with "cheers!" to toast the big accomplishment.

Happy Sunday

Today our lunch conversation went a bit like this: Julie: "Mya, say okay Mom." Mya: "No Mom." It may be the first time I hear "no Mom," but I'm pretty sure it won't be the last. Rob was hiding his laughter the whole time! I'm sure he'll get his little nugget of defiance soon enough. Such a stinker! But a sweet little one at that. She's giving friends a family kisses and hugs lately, it's a good thing she's so cute to cover some of the spice!

Mya has started to notice letters in signs and other things, and when she sees them, she points and starts to sing her rendition of the alphabet song. She' pretty good at identifying a few specific letters, usually "y." She only did part of it here, but you get the idea! I also got a second take of Heads & Shoulders, Knees & Toes, it's just so darn cute! I got more help than I realized... it took me about 15 more minutes than normal to vacuume the living room. Such a helper!

Can't ever be too comfortable, right???

Our Sweet little Mya has learned Head & Shoulders, Knees & Toes at daycare, she's pretty good! Sorry about the lousy camera shots... I was too interested in what she was doing!

A Wonderful Weekend

We had a great weekend- sunshine and family time! Since it was so beautiful, we decided to go to the zoo... Mya ha a blast! She was so sweet looking at all of the animals, we all had a great time watching her!

Fun with an 18 month old... The past four days have been wonderful. Thanks to President's day and a vacation day, Mya & I have been able to hang out a lot together just at home. Unfortunately Rob has had to work both days, but I needed some re-group time. We've been taking Mya swimming once a week (she's been really afraid of water), and she's gotten much more comfortable in the pool, we'll have to post pictures of her swimming in one of our next posts. We went for a run yesterday and visited some friends as well. It's been great to catch up on life! Rob & I have decided to train for another half marathon. We've been doing well to get started, and are planning to run the St. Patrick's Day dash in March. The Rock-N-Roll 1/2 marathon that we're going to run is in June and then in August we're planning to do the Run For Children's. We'll be raising money for that one, and Mya will be joining us in the stroller. We'll be donating our funds to the Seattle Children's heart center. We just had Mya's 18 month pictures taken by our friend, Brea go to http://www.cyephotography.com/blog to check them out. She's a great photographer, I'd definitely recommend her if you're in need!

We made pancakes together for dinner one night.

Our little sweet pea is a master at using utensils, her favorite breakfast now is cheerio's with milk. Such a big girl!

Since blogger is having issues with videos, I've posted the next few to youtube, hopefully that'll fix the problem.

Happy Valentines Day From our Family to Yours!

Superbowl Fun!

We had a great time celebrating the game day with 2 other families. We hosted- Six adults and five kids total...it was fun and crazy time! Three of the five kids are toddlers... amazing how busy they all are! They got to ride bikes in the garage and eat a lot of junk food, the Dads might have been able to watch the game while the Moms were able to play a board game.

It's so wonderful to have a Seahawks picture without a feeding tube in Mya's nose!

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Aunt Michelle, don't worry about getting Mya a drum, this watering can works just fine using her kitchen utensils!

STOP GROWING!!! Our little sweet pea is getting to be such a big girl! She has been wiping up her spills lately, such a good helper!