Busy October

Here is a "random sampling" of photos from some of our recent outings.

GYMBOREE

Scott was able to join Amaya and I for a Gymboree class recently, and was pleased to see his daughter's "advanced" basketball skills.

the alioop

the jump shot

the dunk

PLAYTOPIA

Will and Amaya trying to avoid the paparazzi.

Amaya opted to sit on the floor when she learned Will didn't have his driver's license yet.

The bus driver day dreams as he waits for the roadway to clear.

Amaya wondering what the hold up is. Let's go already.

Amaya enjoying the view.

The Playgroupers

Will, Ellie, Brooklyn, Amaya, Jaxon, and Kate

We couldn't get them to all look at the camera at the same time, but atleast we got them all in the picture.

Amaya kept trying to "ride" another little girls bike while we were at playtopia.

Guess we know another future item on Amaya's wish list to Santa.

Meanwhile she'll stick to motorcycles ...

...with side cars.

As long as she has a turn to drive.

THE CHILDREN'S MUSEUM

What a fun day! I am tuckered out!

Friends of all Colors

We, at the Mitchell household, do not discriminate. We have friends of all colors. Yes, even Bear orange and navy and Viking purple and yellow. We went to Brett (Viking's fan), Mae (Bear's fan) and Brooklyn's (fanship dependant on who you ask, mommy or daddy) for the Bears/Vikings game last weekend. It was a fun way to warm up for the Packer game, since we played the late game that day (and what a game that was!). Here are a few pics of the cheerleaders.

Amaya whipping up some snacks for the game using her buddy Brooklyn's kitchen.

"What is this car doing in the kitchen?"

Amaya: "You think you know somebody." Comment is in regard to her shock and dismay at seeing her buddy Brooklyn in a Bears outfit. We've since talked to her about embracing her friends' differences and accepting them.

Brooklyn says, "gee, what's her issue?"

Amaya took our bribe (ie a carrot) and allowed us another chance to photograph her and Brooklyn. But you could feel the tension in the air. You can even see it in this photo. We are confident their friendship is strong enough to make it through the NFL season.

Pumpkin Patch/Schnepf Farm

October has been a super busy month for us. We've gone on more outings than usual. Here are pics from our outing with the Luedy's at Schnepf Farm. A super-fun place to take the kiddies. There are countless things to do there. Check it out: www.schnepffarms.com .

Amaya experiencing dirt for the first time. Too cute.

"This is the one I want, mom and dad."

Once she picked out "her pumpkin", she was off and running. She kept Scott busy running all over the pumpkin patch.

She stopped long enough to pose for a quick picture.

Amaya's first "fair-type" ride. She loved it. She was never scared. We call her our little thrill seeker and she's shows this to be true over and over.

For the next 2 or 3 days, whenever we got in the car to go somewhere Amaya would say "Bumble? Bumble? Weee!?! Bumble? Bumble? Weeee!?!" as if asking if we were going to go back and ride the bumble bees again. Too cute! (You can see Jaxon and his mommy Erin in the background. Jaxon enjoyed the "bee ride," too. They are meant for each other, what can I say?)

Here Amaya is on her first carousel ride. I don't know if it was because it was late and she was beat, or if she just doesn't like horses, but Amaya didn't like this part of the evening so much.

Jaxon on the other hand loved it. He was grinning from ear to ear the entire time.

Art Time

Here is Amaya getting ready for art time. I put one of my old t-shirts on her and let her have at it. An old t-shirt works perfect to protect their cute clothes, since at this age kids grow too fast to have any old clothes of their own. I've also learned to spread out a plastic drop sheet...taping the oversized coloring pages to a large piece of tagboard doesn't quite cut it. Amaya still managed to paint the floor during our first art session a few months back. You live, you learn. What can I say. Smile, smile.

The artist at work. She's channeling Great-Grandma Mitchell.

What a masterpiece!! Mommy helped with the smiley face.

Amaya deciding it's time for a post art time snack.

Amaya thinking, "maybe this isn't edible. It's not very good."

"It's not funny mommy."

"O.K. Maybe it is."

Marathon Blogging Time...Again

Looks like I did it again. A whole month got away from me between blogging sessions. Where does the time go? Guess we're just too busy having fun. Smile, smile. It doesn't help that football season is here. That eats up a lot of my free time. Before football season started, Sunday was the day I'd blog. Thus the transition from weekly blog entries to monthly blog entries. My goal is to get back to posting on our blog weekly. Stay tuned to see if it happens. Smile, smile.

So, what have we been up to? We had a visit from Grandma Kim and Grandpa John the end of Sept. Amaya enjoyed showing them all her new tricks. The following week Amaya got her second haircut. This time they cut it how I asked and not like a boy. Thank goodness. Her hair would be super long by now if not for the butcher job we experienced at Snip-its. So, anyway, this haircut turned out cute, a little bob. I am going to keep it in a bob until all the shorter areas from her "boy" cut are grown out. Then daddy requested that I let her grow it out. As you can see from the above picture, it's time for a haircut again. Don't worry daddy, just a bang trim and a little off the length to freshen it up. I promise to share the post-haircut pics this time.

Speaking of hair, Amaya is getting better about letting me do her hair and about leaving the binders/barretts in place. They never stay in all day, but they are staying in longer and longer. Yeah. What else has Amaya been up to besides hair drama? What hasn't she been up to. She's gotten more frequent visits with Grandma Cindy and Grandpa Jerry now that football season has started. Mommy and daddy prefer to spend their free time doing stuff with Amaya most of the time. But...we don't miss Packer games. And we try not to miss Jets games, now. So...there you go. Last year Amaya joined us for all of the games, but being a busy and bustling toddler now, we don't think she'd last 3-4 hours at b-dubbs anymore. So, when the games are not on tv, she cheers from afar with Grandma and Grandpa, and sometimes her boyfriend Jaxon.

Amaya continues to enjoy playdates, gymboree, playgrounds, playing mommy, cleaning, singing, dancing, chatting, climbing, climbing, did I mention climbing, barney, drawing, being friendly to passerby's, etc. She's the typical toddler. Her vocabulary seems to grow everyday. There is definitely no swearing going on in our household these days...even on game day. Smile, smile. She randomly adds a new word to her vocab here and there, so it's definitley time to keep our mouths clean.

Scott continues to keep busy with work, his girls, and sports, sports, sports. Gotta love Oct. Post-season baseball and the NFL is in full-swing. I think that's why October is the month they overseed (ie put in winter grass) the golf courses here. They figure the golfers will be a little distracted from their golf-withdrawl by the aforementioned sports. Just this past weekend I heard from my hubby, "Do you know how long it's been since I golfed? I haven't golfed since my parents were here." What? How are you still breathing? That was 4 weeks ago. I gently and with love reminded him that he use to have to go all winter without golf, therefore I thought he was going to make it. The courses have reopened and we ordered him up some emergency golf therapy for this Saturday. Unlimited golf at Poston Butte is what Dr. Becky ordered. I hope he follows my recommendation so that he doesn't suffer irreversible damage (ie a higher handicap). Smile, smile. I will keep you all posted.

Another reason I haven't been good about blogging this past month, or about replying to emails, is that I decided to hunt for another job. So...my limited computer time has been spent doing job searches and applying for jobs. Our census at work had been unusually low for an extended period time (several weeks). I guess we lost a bunch of ob's, like around 30. So...I wasn't getting to work hardly at all. I decided this was a good time to see what else is out there. I've accepted a prn day position at another hospital. I figure, why not have my foot in the door at 2 places. That doubles my chances of me getting some hours. So, I will now be working at 2 hospitals. The commitment for my new job is only 2 shifts per 6 week schedule, so the 2 jobs should balance each other out nicely.

O.K. That's enough of the boring text. It's time to go picture crazy.

Fun At The Children's Museum

Yesterday Scott had the day off, so we decided to take Amaya to check out the new Children's Museum. We quickly discovered that is was awesome and Amaya definitely loved it! It was so great we'll probably join so we can visit often. Here are some of the highlights.

Of course Amaya had to take time to play with the random ball rolling around. But she quickly discovered there were bigger and better things to do at the Children's Museum.
Here she is looking up at the cool "aerial" display of origami, seen below.
There were many artsy displays like this throughout the museum.

Amaya the adventurer sets off to go exploring.
Cute little tushy.
Whoa...there's daddy. Hi daddy.
This sure is fun, mom.
Now check out this "playhouse." Here Amaya is in the kitchen getting breakfast ready before she wakes up her babies.

She's a busy mommy of octuplets if you didn't notice.
She probably would've been content to stay and play here all day, but we had a whole museum to explore.
So, after watering
and weeding the flowers,
(daddy being silly)

we waved goodbye and set off for more fun.
Here Amaya is playing with a ball game that worked like Plinko. There were lots of different learning contraptions like this. Later on we came upon a room that had lots of different, neat "inventions" to check out, figure out, and play with. That room was probably my favorite room there.
She's ready for "The Price is Right" now.
GROCERY STORE
Next we came upon a cute little grocery store.

Amaya was more interested in the behind the scenes action. She must not have felt like grocery shopping.
Preparing to unload the truck that just arrived at the grocery store.
Notice the brooms behind the produce area. One thing I don't think I've shared yet about Amaya is that she loves to clean. At home, it's her second favorite pasttime behind playing mommy, but before playing ball. So...when Amaya saw the brooms it was over. She began by sweeping in the grocery store, but soon....
moved into cooking classroom...
then I kid you not, she left the play area and took off down the hallway of the museum sweeping. She'd done half of the third floor hallway by the time I caught up to her, causing many museum employees to chuckle, and or say thank you. Too funny.



AMAYA THE PIZZA MAKER

The pizza is done. I kid you not. She went over and took this "pizza" out of the "oven" and we watched to see what she was planning on doing with it. Well she carried it over to one of the tables as if to serve her "customers." But...
then she proceeded to crawl up onto a chair and chomped down on the fake pizza. O.K. Subtle hint to mom and dad that it must be snack time. It was, too. Actually it was 30 mintues past her normal snack time. No wonder she resorted to fake pizza.
Having a little post snack desert at the....
ice cream shop.
Yum!!!

So...needless to say, Amaya enjoyed the Children's Museum. We highly recommend it for a fun family outing. We went on to see many more "exhibits" after this, but I retired from photo taking for the rest of the day. As you can see...I'd already taken plenty of pics halfway through the morning. Smile, smile.