Miracle Treat Day

Yesterday was one of Jayla's favorite days out of the whole year - Dairy Queen's Miracle Treat Day.  In fact, she told me that it was second only to her birthday and Christmas!  Part of the reason she probably loves it so much is that she and I spend the day together visiting Dairy Queens and eating ice cream.  Who wouldn't love that?

This year, we spent the afternoon at the Fulton Dairy Queen.  Let me tell you, it was the place to be!  Shawn, Lisa and the whole team there have been working hard leading up to Miracle Treat Day.  They've sold hundreds of paper icons that were hanging on all the windows and have taken pre-orders for blizzards.

Yesterday was the big day though.  There was music, a dunk tank, balloon animals and the 2nd annual banana split eating contest.  Miss Missouri, Teppe Emmott was on hand in the morning and Miss Missouri Outstanding Teen, Shelby Steingraeber spent the afternoon enjoying the festivities.

Jayla with Miss MO Outstanding Teen,
Shelby Steingraeber at the Fulton Dairy Queen.

Jayla took an instant liking to Shelby and they ran around selling raffle tickets and playing.  Shelby invited Jayla to her send-off for the pageant, which she is very excited about.  

Jayla and Shelby were fast friends!

  

Jayla presented the prizes to the winners of the banana split
eating contest.

Jayla also helped hand out the prizes for the banana split eating contest!  We had a great time and are so thankful to everyone at Dairy Queen for their hard work!

Street Party

This weekend was the annual CMNH Street Fair.  We love to come to this event every year even though it is insanely hot.  As Jayla gets a little older, she likes to go even more because there are table after table of crafts!

This year, Jayla made a photo frame, a chalk board, sand art, a magnet and a suncatcher.  She also won a fish (yipee!) and tried very hard to dunk Cosmo, from Y107, in the dunk booth.  We also ate good food, stopped at the face painting tent and tried really hard to win the awesome prizes in the raffle.  Jayla put good luck mojo on all our tickets, but it must have rubbed off on someone else's ticket!

We also got to see some old friends - Cassidy-Rae and her mom, Renee, and our good friend Mike Halford.  A very nice woman from the hospital even hooked Dylan up with an ice pack to put in his stroller so he'd stay cool and we could stay longer!

It was a great day and, as always, a great event!  I'm sure there will be more pictures to come, but I wanted to go ahead and get a few up now.

Jayla, the Cowgirl!

For some time now Jayla has been telling us that she's going to be a cowgirl when she grows up.  She loves all things horses and has wanted the chance to ride for quite some time.  I blame myself for developing this love as I started taking her out to the barns at William Woods University when she was just a baby.  She's always loved watching the riders and visiting the stables.  That's why I knew she would be so excited when Dawn Williams, the Director of the Miss Columbia pageant, invited Jayla to come out and ride her horse.


I can say without reservation that this is the single most exciting thing Jayla has gotten to do as Missouri's Champion Child.  She was more excited about this than flying in an airplane!  When I told her we were going out to ride, she started counting the days.  When the day finally arrived, she counted the hours.  We ended up arriving a little early because I couldn't take counting the minutes!


We arrived at the Columbia Equestrian Center to meet Dawn yesterday.  Jayla was decked out in her cowboy boots and horse t-shirt... she certainly looked the part!  Dawn was so wonderful with Jayla.  She introduced her to her horse, Hannah, who apparently has allergies and sneezed on Jayla!  


Jayla was a little nervous at first.  She's quick to say that she wasn't scared... just stressed.  Dawn was very patient and led Hannah around the arena, so Jayla could get used to the feel of being on a horse and in the saddle.  Hannah was very patient too!  By the end, Jayla was much more comfortable and was looking forward to coming back to try trotting.  She had learned how to get Hannah to go and stop and got to lead her back to the barn.  Once there, Jayla was actually excited to help groom Hannah, brushing her down and combing her tail.

I fear we may have ignited a love for a very expensive hobby!  We are so grateful to Dawn for giving Jayla this wonderful opportunity.  She is already looking forward to coming back next week!