Our last few weeks of freedom!

Hello all! Currently we are at Nana and Papa's in Anderson to see Casey's sister, Rebecca, who is home for a few days from her adventures in Chile. We haven't seen her in almost a year, so it was good to finally have her back home. We had prepped Maya for days by practicing Becca's name and telling her that Becca was coming to see her. I was so happy to see that it paid off - when Becca walked in the door for the first time Maya exclaimed, "Becca!" She warmed up to her right away and has been following her around all day.

Today we played with Aunt Becca, ate Thai food for lunch, took a tremendous nap, and all went out in the blazing sun to work in the garden. We picked all the food we at tonight except for the Tilapia, which was neat. We ate a huge dinner, visited with Joey, Maggie, and Julie (Casey's brother and our nieces) and then took a walk around the neighborhood. Finally little miss Maya was tuckered out and went to bed!

She did something else funny today - while Nana and Casey were in Atlanta this morning picking up Becca, Maya and I stayed at home to play. I was putting away some laundry in Nana's room and I heard the phone ring. I consequently heard, "Hewo?" and the I rushed back in the living room to find that Maya had answered the phone and was talking to the dentist about Becca's appt. tomorrow. I took the phone from her only to find the receptionist laughing hysterically and asking me how old she was. It was so cute, but now we've started something! She even hit the button while I was talking and put the receptionist and I on speaker phone! What a silly goose!

We forgot our swimmies when we came to Anderson, so we went to Walmart in search of some more. We couldn't find any, but we did find the interesting bathing suit featured in her pics above and the video. It actually works quite well, although she looks like the purple Hulk in it! She is really progressing well with her swimming.

Recent word additions:

crwasin (Craisin)
ice keen (ice cream)
juice
foke (fork)
Becca
seat
sit
inside
up
'mone (come on)
____ aroo (___,where are you?)
blanket (instead of "night")
Powwee (Polly - Nana has a ton of Polly Pocket toys Becca used to play with)
open
bowl
soot (sopt)
sheert (shirt)
yellow
pink
fwower (flower)
cwacker (cracker)
twee (tree)
puppy

Casey and I have been to the movies twice lately - we saw Batman both times. It was great! If you haven't seen it, you need to. Nana and I went to go see Mamma Mia, which was great too, especially after Batman. Batman is so depressing, and Mamma Mia is just a feel good movie! We had to have the sound track and have had a great time teaching Maya to sing "Dancing Queen" and "Mamma Mia." She has been dancing all day. Enjoy the video featuring her latest move - the "split!"

Chau!

If you're squemish about poop, don't read this!

Whew! Yipee Skippy! Today a momentous occasion took place in our home...Maya went potty! Well, actually it was only the beginning of a long road of potty training ahead. I was changing her diaper and noticed she was about to go, so I ran and put her on the potty. I showed her how to grunt, and she did and her eyes got so big when she heard the little "plop" in her potty! She jumped up and looked down and saw her poopie laying there, and she said, "mommy, poopie!" I cheered and clapped and called for Casey. He came rushing in and gave her high fives, and she was tickled pink.

If you've never watched "Jon and Kate Plus 8" on TLC you'll probably think I'm a total wierdo for posting this, but I thought it was so special that Kate took pictures of all 8 of her kids when they did their first poop in the potty. So, I thought I would follow suit. They are very tasteful - no closeups or anything! : ) Anyways, I couldn't resist documenting such a momentous occasion.

More words are flying out of Maya's mouth everyday. Here are a few new ones:

airplane

big

litlele (little)

stawbebeberry 9(strawberry)

bottle

water

pool

I know there are more but those are all I can think of for the moment! Enjoy the pics!

Home again!

Finally we have returned home to our poor poor kitties in Greenwood! We enjoyed a week with the Argos in Anderson helping Nana get a little work done around the house. We had so much fun, and Maya was spoiled relentlessly, which seems to be the theme of the summer! : ) She is going to HATE going back to school and having the attention go from her to about 10 different kids. Ugh. We are also supposed to be getting rid of the "bop" (pacie) this week, but neither Casey nor I are looking forward to it, so we continue to put if off. They don't allow bops in the 2 year old room at her new school, so I guess we'll have to do it soon.

I can't believe July is coming to a close! What a wild and crazy summer we have had, but what fun! We have been back and forth between our families and having such a great time! We are spoiled rotten. How many people get weeks off with their family in the summer! I try to remember all of this blissfulness when I'm in school and some kid(s) is driving me absolutely insane!!

Today I think we are just going to lay around and recover from our travels! Currently we are all piled in our bedroom on the bed watching Elmo and Sesame Street. This is a rare occurrence because Maya will only sit still for about 5 minutes!

I wish everyone a happy Monday!

Sleep deprivation

Last night was a fun night! Little Miss Maya decided it was time to play at 2am, and despite our best efforts she would not go back to sleep until daddy (my hero) put her in the car at 5:30am and drove her around to coax her back to sleep. Why, oh why must she do that? It surely brings out the worst in me, but as mom always says, be thankful, even for the stressful moments. So, here is me being eternally thankful for the sleepless nights that motherhood brings. Truly, I wouldn't have it any other way.

I was under the impression that because of the sleepless night, that Maya might be grumpy today. As a pleasant surprise, she decided she would be quite chipper, and so we had a great day. We went to Walmart in search of a big wheel for Maya to stay at Nana and Papa's, but we came home with a few more items. I couldn't resist. I think in her whole life we have bought her maybe 10 toys total, and most of those were for Christmas. We get spoiled rotten from everyone else, and we don't believe in a houseful of toys, so therefore we are not guilted into buying them often. However, I couldn't pass up a few choice items...

a baby stroller - she played with one of these at her cousin Julie and Maggie's house, and since it was only 5 bucks, I had to get it. She strolled her baby doll up and down the street, and I think those legs probably walked at least a mile on their own pushing that thing today. Even if she never looks at it again, it was worth it!

her Dora big wheel - of course I had to get one to reinforce her Spanish. And Papa insisted that she had one, so we obliged. She had a great time pushing its buttons and wheeling it around. Unfortunately she can't quite reach the pedals yet, but it won't be long before she'll be flying around the driveway.

A vacuum cleaner. Yes, I know, this will be quite an ironic present one day. There is one at her new daycare and ALL the kids fight over it. Maya LOVES that thing, so I had to get her one. It is a mini dirt devil and it is so cute. She vacuumed Nana's house several times today.

Playdough. My child, who never sits still for more than 5 minutes except while reading, played with playdough for an entire hour. Amazing!

After playing all day, Papa came home and we all went out for Sushi. Maya had teriyaki chicken, which she didn't eat a bite of. Strangely enough, she doesn't care for rice of all things.

What a fun day with my cutiepie! Thank you God for your amazing blessings!

Summer Fun

Wow! The whirlwind of summer continues. Last week we got new floors in our kitchen, living and dining rooms, and boy was that a mess. Everything was out of place, the kitties were terrified, and I was grumpy. However, in less than a day, our new floors were installed and we began the fun of putting things back together.

I took Maya up to play at her new daycare last Thursday. It seems that the coveted toy is a vaccuum cleaner, which I could only laugh about because I couldn't stop thinking about how much she would NOT want to do that one day. However, she loves it for now, so I will encourage her love of cleanliness by purchasing her her very own vaccuum cleaner. Yes, it will be a joyous cleaning frenzy!

She is exploding with more words. Apparently she remembers everything I say, and then repeats it NOT on command, but whenever she feels like it. Today she busted out with:

bububerry (blueberry)
bus
pina (pineapple in Spanish)
tratoo (tractor)
toodle (turtle)
doodle (noodle)
poon (spoon)
brush (toothbrush)
ant
bean
icken (chicken)
puppy


I'm sure there are more, but I really need to be walking around with a notebook in my pocket to get them all. My memory is terrible - it certainly was not improved by pregnancy, but it was nothing to speak of beforehand either.

This past weekend we ventured out to the festival of discovery in Greenwood. I'm not sure why its called that because the whole thing is about BBQ. Friday night we went out and met our friends the Talley's who have Gabbi, a cutie red-head a few months younger than Maya. The girls had fun dancing to the music, climbing the stairs on the buildings downtown, and eating ice cream. Casey's parents and brother's family came down for the BBQ sampling on Saturday, but it was so hot that our tasting was short lived. Someone should really think about having a BBQ festival when its cool. How can you possibly enjoy hot BBQ in 100 degree whether on black asphalt. Ugh. Anyways, it was fun, and there was some good blues music playing.

We managed to stay home for a few days before coming to visit Casey's parents in Anderson. We'll be here through Saturday, and Maya is already having a ball being spoiled rotten again. She and Papa worked in the garden this evening, ate cherries, ice cream, and lots and lots of blueberries. I think they might be her favorite fruit, but a close rival to strawberries. Note to self: I must devise a way to get her on video camera saying all of these cute words. She becomes such a mime when the camera comes out.

School is fast approaching so we are trying to enjoy the last bit of our summer. Hope everyone is having a great summer too!

Never Use Wallpaper!!!!!

After our wonderful week of vacation, we are finally doing something constructive! Casey and I left Maya one more time in Columbia with Grandmama and Grandaddy, so that we could get ready for the flooring people, and paint a bathroom. The bathroom in our room was painted (yes, by me) a horrible royal blue color, and it had to go. It had originally been decorated in a most attractive wallpaper that was straight out of the seventies, with shades of mustard yellow and brown and green. Ugh. So, I thought I would be a good home improvement person, and actually remove the wallpaper before painting. Big mistake. Last time I just painted over it and didn't worry about it. Consequently, the bathroom never really got finished. That meant more work this time. Casey and I worked on it for hours - spackling, sanding, priming, again and again and again!! AHHH!!! Finally we got to paint the two coats of actual paint, and it looks good...at last! Why people ever put up wallpaper, I have NO idea. You certainly will never find me hanging it, unless its the paintable kind.

So, poor Maya is an orphan again, but being spoiled rotten. Some of the new words she has mastered:

uva (grape in Spanish)
ookie (cookie)
apple
teetoh (cheetoh)
beet (feet)
toe

When she sees something that she wants to know the word for, she grabs my face and says "mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy" until I tell her what the word is.

Currently she is loving baby dolls, legos, reading books, kit-kitty, her fire truck, and running around in general.

Her most prized possession is her "bop" which is her pacie. Unfortunately we must get rid of this before August 12th, when she has to return to daycare. She'll start in the 2 year old room, and no pacies are allowed! She also loves her "night" which is her blankie. One of her favorite games is to tell everyone "Night, night mommy; Night night daddy; etc" and you have to pretend you're sleeping. Then she screams and you have to pretend you're waking up. I think I might have already written that in the blog. Sorry!

One more note - an answered prayer! I finally got released from Ware Shoals and will be teaching at Greenwood High this year, which is only a mile from our house! Thank you, thank you God!

Hope everyone had a great holiday weekend!

Our summer adventures!

Happy Independence Day everyone! It has been a wild two weeks, and there is still more craziness to come. Casey and I came to Columbia last Thursday to pick up Maya, and then we drove to Edisto beach with my parents to stay in a house that my cousin had rented. It was so nice! We were right on the beach and we had a blast. Maya was hesitant at first, but soon she was racing up and down the beach and chasing seagulls. She didn't really seem interested in playing in the sand, so we took her out in the water where the waves weren't so rough. She had a great time floating in the water in her floaties, riding waves with Casey, and accumulating as much sand as she could in her britches. I have some great video, which I will attempt to post soon.

We came back to Columbia on Monday, and we have been here all week. Casey and Daddy went to Greenwood Wednesday to check on the kitties and rip up our flooring in the kitchen, dining, and den. We're having new flooring installed on Monday, thanks to our kitties who have decided that our living space is now their giant litter box. Hopefully having the laminate installed will deter them from further "incidents," and if not, they are all going outside! Maya and I spent Wednesday reading for hours, napping, and then going to visit Grandmama Bailey. It was a fun day!

Thursday we went to spend the day with Grandmama Ott, and to see Aunt Ashley and Uncle Todd. It was an all day event, and we were exhausted, but it was well worth it!

For the fourth, we attended the Bailey reunion for the first time in years, swam, and ate way, way too much. Shocker, I know!

Maya has become an avid swimmer. She nows seeks out the steps in any pool in order to jump off of them and plunge herself underwater, where she comes up spitting in her attempt to hold her breath. She does this over, and over, and over. She has NO fear of the water at all, and she is really improving. It is so fun to see the look on her face when she knows she is floating and no one is holding her. She shakes her head back and forth, bears a grin showing all of her teeth, and makes this "EEE eee" sound while giggling. It is SO cute!

She is really progressing in her speech as well. Yesterday while playing in the tub she shocked me by saying "Mommy, I see a bubble!" I couldn't believe it and praised her so much that she repeated this sentence all day long, regardless of whether or not bubbles were involved! We are having a great summer!