Welcome Kai MaoMao Brown!

My Utah buddy, quilter extraordinaire Kim Brown and hubby Lee have a new son Kai MaoMao. Lee and Kim met Kai yesterday in Nanchang and seem to be doing great. You can follow along on their journey as their first son joins a family with four older sisters who are anxiously awaiting their return to the states to meet their new baby brother in person. Kai is going to be spoiled and loved by his sisters Hillary, Madison, Pearl and Grace. Congratulations Brown family!!

Bouncy girl Maisie

Maisie has boundless energy and like the Energizer bunny, just never stops! She had been bouncing on her bouncy ball for over two hours before this video was taken and as you can see in the video, she was still going strong!! We've been having a problem with Maisie continuously jumping on the sofa and bed, worrying that she'll bounce right off and onto the tile or hardwood floors thus hurting herself. So to give her a safe place to bounce in the house, I just today ordered Maisie this trampoline to hopefully redirect her jumping off of the sofa and bed and to a more appropriate place. I like that the trampoline is small enough that when we want, we can move it out to Maisieland allowing both indoor and outdoor use. We should have it by next weekend so keep an eye on the blog for more Maisie jumping and bouncing piccies!

Maisie, Maisie and More Maisie!

Yesterday, after a morning of partying in the potty and music class followed by a gourmet lunch of noodles and yogurt then a nice little but oh-to-short nap, we decided to head over to Deb & LiLi's house for some afternoon playtime. The girls had fun playing on the swing, in the sandbox, chasing each other around and then racing their bikes. It was a fun afternoon and Deb took some wonderful pictures of Maisie which I of course nicked from her blog yet again, thanks Deb! Check out all the wonderful Maisie piccies below.

Party time!

First a party in the potty then the girls singing and blowing raspberries at each other in the car on the way to music. Life with toddlers!

I did it!!

Those were Maisie's words after she did her very first pee pee on her potty!!

Other than reading A Potty for Me! I haven't started doing anything related to toilet training with Maisie. She though seems more than ready to start as she loves just sitting on her potty and then of course she's always interested in watching her big girl friend use the potty. This morning when Maisie asked for potty I figured what the heck, I was in the process of changing her anyhow and to my surprise she did it!! Guess potty training has begun and hopefully it will all happen faster than her final molars coming in as they're just points sticking through her gums, annoying her but just not fully erupting yet. Okay, hopefully teething and potty training will be over soon!

The picture is from yesterday when Maisie was having fun clomping around in Eammon's shoes.

My little bunny

Maisie would not get within 100 yards of the scary mall Easter bunny and in all honesty she's really not an animal person so a picture with live bunnies like last year just wasn't going to happen. Come to find out that she's not all that fond of bunny hutches either as she had little interest in helping me decorate and put the candy on our bunny hutch. In the end though, I at least got some cute piccies of her and she isn't screaming!

Wishing everyone a Happy Easter, free of scary bunnies but filled with lots of chocolate.

Saturday morning

Who needs to be looking at Eammon's broken down tire when you can look at a cutie patootie piccie of Maisie eating her breakfast bagel whilst sitting in her bus box, her newest favorite toy.

So what did I buy that arrived in such a perfect kiddie bus sized box? Check it out, it's a fantastic bargain and only 97 cents shipping to boot. We played with Maisie's new toy yesterday and she likes it almost as much as the box!!

But the dog survived

Eammon didn't have a great start this morning. In his attempt to avoid a dog that was running across the road, Eammon swerved, hit the curb and took out his tire.

The dog was not hit but the tire, well it's a goner. Thankfully it's only a tire that was hurt. Luckily Eammon was still in our subdivision so he was able to just drive the car home and I'm now waiting on AAA to come and swap the tire with the spare. Then Maisie and I will be off to the garage to get a new spare tire and start our day. Hope everyone reading has had a good start to your day.

My little mimic

Maisie has me down pat, sitting just how and where I like to sit and use my computer.

She is learning young how to enjoy computer time. Maisie's computer sometimes says "your blog is awesome, let's IM later" and when it does, it always catches out and makes me laugh.

Maisie loves her little computer and this house has never seen such an adorable little blogger!

Wassup??

I spoke with Deb this morning and she asked why I hadn't updated my blog in a while, then I received an email from a friend up north asking if we were okay and why no updates to the blog. I didn't realize that people were waiting on a post and new Maisie piccies considering I did a post last Friday, but since Maisie's fans are asking for an update, here it goes.

* This is the only decent picture I've taken of Miss M in a few days as she hasn't wanted her picture taken and when the girl wants to avoid the camera she's good and she's fast and I'm just out of luck.

* Our area has experienced some wild weather with major storms and tornadoes passing through the area. Thankfully for us we weren't directly impacted as the first day of tornadoes hit just south of us in the downtown Atlanta area and the tornadoes the following day passed just north of us.

* Today we are currently experiencing more storms with heavy thunderstorms and high winds but hopefully no more tornadoes.

* Sunday we gathered with other local adopters at Trixie & WaWa's house. A fun time was had by all as we celebrated St. Patrick's Day.

* I have yet another sinus infection but I can't be bothered to go to the doc as I have a physical scheduled for next week and I figure I'll just suffer through till then.

* I'm in love with a serial-killer, or rather a television series about a serial-killer. Eammon and I have been addicted to the show Dexter and I just read that there will be a season three and I can't wait for it to start! Oh and if you're watching the watered down version of this show on CBS, don't bother as it's not nearly as good as the original on Showtime. If you don't have Showtime, run, don't walk to your nearest video store and rent season 1, well worth the price of a rental.

* Yesterday my microwave decided to stop working and I've been at a loss as to how to cook. The amazing thing is, I cook entire meals all the time without the use of the microwave but when it's not available it seems I just "need" it. The service tech just called to say he's stuck in storm traffic misery but is on his way. I'm hoping that he can fix it today but I'll bet parts need to be ordered. Luckily we have a table top microwave up in our storage room and if needed I'll clear off some counter space and use that one for a while.

* I'm exhausted as Maisie has been waking up each night around midnight and waking enough that I have to go in to sit, sing and cuddle with her for a bit before she'll go back to sleep. My problem is, if I go to sleep for an hour or two before she wakes me, I then can't get back to sleep until 3 or 4 in the morning. On nights when I stay awake until she wakes, I'm able to fall asleep by about 1am but there too with her early wake-up time, I'm still not getting enough sleep. I think she's waking because her teeth are bothering her and around midnight is when the meds have worn off. Her final molars each have one point though the gums and are just sitting there. I'm just waiting for them to fully erupt and I think this nightly wake-up routine will stop...let's hope!

* Tuesday was an amazing yet bittersweet day. I've been taking Maisie to Mother's Morning Out twice a week for the past seven months and every time I drop her off she's cried and not wanted me to leave. She stops crying almost immediately after I leave so even though I hate for her to cry, it's sort of sweet that she wants me and doesn't want me to leave. Well Tuesday morning at drop-off Maisie walked right into her classroom, turned to me and said "kiss" then turned her back to me and was off to play. Her teacher Debbie and I gave each other a look of 'wow' and I was off. Maisie's getting so big and independent, in addition she had a most excellent day!!

* The microwave repair guy just left and sure enough a part needs to be ordered. It will take about a week for the magnetron to be ordered and then he'll be back to install. Guess Eammon will be schlepping down the counter top microwave for me as I'm not going a week without a microwave considering I have a spare upstairs.

* Finally, my new blog is still being worked on. Seeing that I don't know the first thing about HTML I still somehow managed to jury-rig this blog to the nth-degree so it's taking a while to sort it all out and get it into a format where I don't lose anything and also where it's more user friendly especially for future updates. Please stay tuned as the new blog will be FABU.

* If I missed anything, guess I'll have to put it in my next post. Off to get Miss M up from her nap.

Coffee, donuts & friends

This morning Brandy & Zoe, Deb & LiLi, Lisa & Briana, Orla & Rachel and Theresa came over for some playtime and a sugar high. The little girls all had fun playing, the big girls had fun chatting and drinking coffee and everyone enjoyed the donuts. Maisie's newest thing is to stand on her head and she loves being held upside down as you can see by her big smile in the pictures. Playtime with friends was a great way to finish off the week.

No scissors were available

Thankfully, because we know what the girl has done in the past!! Maisie and I had a little playtime at Deb & LiLi's house this afternoon and the girls couldn't have been cuter as Deb so nicely shows on her newest pages for LiLi's scrapbook. Thanks Deb, as you can see I have nicked your pages again for use on my blog as they are just too cute and how could I resist a piccie of Maisie with the word "beauty" in bold letters right below her!!

(click on each page to enlarge the pictures and read what Deb wrote about the day) 

Cuteness factor continues

Maisie and I are so lucky to have so many friends, groups and play dates. Yesterday morning we were at Michelle & Logan's home for a fun play date. Also there were Karen & Alexander and Orla & Rachel so of course it was lots of fun. The cuteness factor for the week continues with more piccies.

What.Ever...

This morning Deb & LiLi came over for morning coffee and the girls had quite a time chatting up a storm and practicing their ASL alphabet signs. Then of course there was the little struggle over who was going to pick-up the Apple Jacks from under the table and eat them off the floor.

This top picture is my favorite from the morning as it's so typical of the two girls. LiLi is nicking all the green Apple Jacks from Maisie's bowl and Maisie's attitude on the situation... What.Ever!! Thankfully Maisie isn't possessive or attached to anything so she shares really well and rarely puts up a fuss when something is taken from her.

Maisie's just one busy little girl and moves on to the next thing without a second thought. Funny thing about the Apple Jacks this morning is that I filled Maisie's bowl no less than six times and LiLi's not at all yet at the end of the morning we had two very happy Apple Jack filled girls.

Cuteness saves the day again!

Not from the obscenely high gas prices of yesterday but in saving my sanity from hurricane Maisie Misery Guts.

Our day started at 5:30am and though early, it looked like calm sailing for the day as Maisie awoke in a good mood. She ate three scrambled eggs and a slice of bacon for breakfast so an excellent start. A little later on her teeth seemed to be bothering her a bit as her final two year molars have finally started to break through the gums, so I gave her some ibuprofen and that seemed to help.

We were heading over to Kathy's house for play date and lunch and Maisie only wanted to wear her yellow Minnie Mouse shoes and I wasn't in the mood to make it an issue so off to our play date we went. Maisie was a little bit clingy but we had fun with Kathy & Chani and Lisa & Briana. During lunch Maisie managed to polished off two full slices of pizza even after snacking on dried apples, pretzels, cheerios and fruit puffs. All three girls were adorable and both Maisie and I had a good time.

We headed home and I was happy that Maisie didn't fall asleep during the drive as I needed to get a few things done during nap time and I wanted her to sleep at home. Once home I got her into bed and she seemed sleepy, yawning and rubbing her eyes. I heard her talking to herself, singing a bit, playing with some of her crib toys then about 40 minutes later she started whimpering and then crying. It was already getting too late for her to nap so I figured I would go get her and just suffer through the afternoon with a nap-less two-year-old. Imagine my surprise when I walked into her bedroom to find her in her bed, stark naked! She had peed on the sheets so I got everything into the laundry and got Maisie cleaned up and we headed into the family room to play and that's when the real "fun" of the afternoon started.

I swear it was like the girl was on speed as she never stopped! She was running around crazy, throwing things, jumping on the sofa (which is a BIG no.no) even propelling herself off the sofa twice which is dangerous considering we have tile floors. If I had to guess, I would say that she spent a good hour in time-out, in two-minute increments. Most of her dinner she launched to the floor and when I asked her to help clean-up her musical instruments she instead opened the puzzle cabinet and dumped all on the floor then headed to her refrigerator to dump all her cut-apart food to the floor. By that point it was only 6:05PM but we headed into Maisie's bedroom where I quickly re-made her bed and got her into her p.j.'s, we did our bedtime routine and by 6:25PM the girl was in bed and within 5 minutes she was asleep.

After Miss M was put to bed I did a clean-up of the family room, popped a Dinner A'Fare meal into the oven and am now sitting with my feet up blogging, waiting for Eammon to come home from work. I'm starting to feel the stress leave my body and I'm keeping everything crossed that tomorrow is a better day, wish us luck!

Sad day

I knew that this day was coming and I avoided it for as long as possible but today for the first time I paid $3.00 or more per gallon of gas. Actually it was $3.02/gallon and I know that the price is only going to get worse, Oy!! To help ease the pain at the pump, I gathered together pictures from yesterday when Maisie and I hosted Library play date at our house. It was a gorgeous day, bright and sunny, in the 70's with a nice little breeze. Seeing all the cute little ones helps ease the sting...at least until I have to go fill the tank again.

Twirly Whirly week

Last Monday Maisie danced around the house in her twirl dress having a grand time.

Unfortunately these were the only pictures that I took all week even though we were busy, busy, busy. Monday afternoon we had our playground play date with Deb & LiLi.

Monday night into Tuesday morning we had some wild storms pass through the area causing lots of damage, trees down, power outages and road closures. Thankfully we didn't have any damage and other than a few blips we never lost power. I was able to take Maisie to Mother's Morning Out and then I got a few things done around the house. The storms not only brought high winds and lots of rain but it also brought cold temperatures so Tuesday afternoon we stayed close to home playing together. Tuesday night my parents arrived for a visit and because of some weather in their area, their flight was over two hours late so they arrived after Maisie went to bed and weren't able to see her that night. 

Wednesday morning Maisie was excited to see that Gamma & Gampa were visiting. Maisie, my Mom and I headed out to Music class and it was fun. Then after a quick trip to the grocery we headed home for nap time followed by an afternoon of play at The Playroom. Thursday morning was MMO followed by a quiet afternoon of playtime at home where Maisie got lots of fun time with Gamma & Gampa. 

Friday morning at 5am I was taking my parents back to the airport as they were already heading home. Maisie was disappointed when she woke that her two newest playmates weren't here any longer. We had a busy day though as in the morning I took Maisie to a morning play date at one of the local Churches and she did really well there with all the new people. Saturday we celebrated Eammon's birthday and then today Eammon took Maisie to the Aquarium where they both had a good time but where Maisie ran Eammon exhausted. All-in-all another fun week and we're looking forward to the same for this week coming but hopefully with more piccies.