Maya - 2 Years Old!

My beautiful little girl is 2 years old. She has the most spunk of any little person I know. Sometimes it is a good and hilarious thing, other times it makes me want to pull my hair out. She brings so much love and joy into our home. She loves her sister, Mama, and Dada, and is fantastic at giving us hugs and kisses. She has some funny quirks, such as needing to be able to put her right hand up the sleeve of her left arm. If she is wearing a shirt that is too tight around the wrist (or short sleeved), she can't fall asleep. She isn't talking in sentences yet, and still signs a lot of words, but she's good at trying to say words when we ask her. She still uses a pacifier, but not as much. She is starting to show signs of being able to be potty trained. I admit I think she's more ready than I am. Every new experience as a mom is daunting at first! She weighs almost 21 lbs now. We will find out height at her 2 year appointment in January (she's going at the same time Brianna has her 6 month). She loves looking at books. She likes to shut herself in her room and just look at her books for a relatively long time. Her favorite breakfast is Snackimals Vanilla cereal; her favorite lunch is ramen, yogurt, Pringles, and fruit; her favorite dinner is soup, pasta, pizza, or pork. She enjoys pointing out large and small objects (calling them Dada! or Baby!). She is, all around, the best 2 year old a mom like me could ask for!

I will let the pictures tell the story of her birthday party. She had one on the 7th with family, and a small party on the 9th (her actual birthday) that included the Davis family. Ryan brought home 12 balloons for her, and she has enjoyed playing with them everyday. She had a Finding Nemo birthday cake - I'm not artist but it turned out cute.

Happy Birthday my sweet doll!!

Thanksgiving

Here are a few things we did around Thanksgiving time:

We saw Big Hero 6. It was cute, but not cute enough to keep Maya's attention the whole time. She got bored about an hour in. Still fun though!

We made carrot cupcakes! Maya saw a picture of cupcakes and got so excited about them, we had to make them that evening. Ryan even took her to Wal-Mart to pick out liners and sprinkles. She was not disappointed!

Brianna had her first taste of solid food. She did really well - didn't gag at all! She now gets about 2 T of rice cereal for dinner every night. 

I made brioche and we had French toast on Thanksgiving morning. It was delicious and was hearty enough to keep us all satisfied until dinner at 4 PM. 

I didn't get any shots of actual Thanksgiving dinner because I was busy hosting, but the food was great. We had a fun time with Ryan's side of the family. 

We took family photos! This is just a preview. :)

And then Maya fell on her face. (At least it was AFTER we took pictures!) Pretty sad moment, but it's healing very nicely. 

We had a great Thanksgiving break! Now on to Christmas!

Brianna - 4 Months

My happy little smiler is already 4 months old! She is such a joy to be around.

Brianna has the most chill disposition I have ever seen. She is content to "take care of herself" as long as we are near by. Not to say she is ignored by any means, but she is very low maintenance. She is not sleeping through the night yet, but we are working on it. Lately, when she wakes up in the middle of the night, she cries when I try to feed her, as if she just wants to go to sleep. Maybe her little baby brain will stop sending messages to wake up so that she can actually stay asleep. Until that happens, I am going to night wean her. I have to use a timer to make sure I don't fall asleep though. One time I thought I had been in her room for about 20-30 minutes, but it had actually been over an hour. Whoops.

She has rolled a couple of times from her back to tummy, and is trying so hard to go tummy to back as well.

She drools a LOT, but there is still no sign of teeth. I think they must be coming soon!

She is starting to show a little bit of personality. She gives me hugs and kisses, and one time after she gave me a kiss (big, open, slobbery mouth on my cheek), I thanked her and she got very excited and was so glad that she had made me happy. Well, let's just say that's what happened. Maybe she was just in a good mood.

Brianna weights 12 lb 13 oz and is 24 inches long. She is in the 50th percentile across the board. Kind of fun to have an average sized baby! It is much easier to dress her and not have to guess if something is going to fit her or not. She is very healthy and there are no concerns.

I love her blue eyes. They are a great color, and I hope they remain that shade. Her bald spots are already starting to fill in, and her hair actually looks better now than it did last month. It would be kind of awesome if we already passed the peak of her baldness!

Overall, she is a very happy and easy baby. I can't wait to see how she starts to interact with Maya. There have a been a couple of instances already that Brianna starts laughing when Maya is doing something silly. It's adorable!

Love you tons, my sweet Brianna!

Happy Halloween!!

I had this post completely written but my phone wouldn't post it and then it got deleted somehow. My heart is sad, but I can write it again. :)

I loved Halloween this year. Holidays were made special to me because my mom made sure they were special. I am finding myself wanting the same for my daughters.

This year I decided to do a craft with Maya. She made a witch and pumpkin out of paper plates, finger paints, and construction paper. 

She didn't quite get, or enjoy, the concept of finger painting. She wanted me to wipe it off right away. Haha, what a girl. 

I got her a sponge brush and then she was happy to go to town. She ended up using all if the paint and lots of plates. I didn't get a picture of the finished products, but they are pretty cute. 

Nana gave Maya this cute pumpkin. Maya loved it! She even showed it her deepest love by throwing it down the stairs and then comforting it. She thinks that's pretty fun. And it didn't break! I just hope Brianna never experiences that level of love from Maya. 

And then of course there was pumpkin carving! Ryan came home early on Halloween so that we could carve then before dinner. 

Maya really enjoyed poking my pumpkin. 

For dinner we had Jack O' Lantern pizza. Although to me it looks more like a Two Circles O' Pepperoni pizza. It was pretty tasty!

After dinner we got Maya in her costume and I took her trick or treating. Ryan stayed home with Brianna because she was really super crabby that evening. 

Maya had a blast, so in turn so did I! We only went to 7 houses, but I think she could have done a lot more. I asked her if she was having fun, and she looked up at me with a huge grin on her cute little penguin face and enthusiastically nodded her head. I am so glad we decided to let her go - we almost didn't because she can't even say trick or treat. 

She got a decent stash of candy! Although, half of that is from our bowl. She poured it all in her bag when we got home. I feel awful that I didn't get a picture of Brianna in her costume this year, but it really just didn't work out. Mommy fail? Don't worry baby, I still love you. 

Happy Halloween!!