Cast your vote...Please!

I'm still having a blast making bento for Maisie and she's loving them, eating so much better. Even though I'm still relatively new to making bento and predominately make them for a two year old, I decided to risk all and submit two of her bentos to a contest!!

So here I am begging asking you to go check out all the entries over at Not Exactly Bento's competition and cast your votes. If you happen to fall head-over-heels in love with Maisie's which are bento entries #52 & #53, I would sure love and appreciate your vote!! According to the rules you may vote for up to three of your favorites by leaving a comment with the bento entry numbers (#52 & #53) of your choice, in the post linked ~~>HERE<~~ and just a reminder, in case you missed it or I forgot to mention it earlier, Maisie's bentos are #52 & #53!!

It seems that most of the bentos are geared towards adults and so many of them look delicious and beautiful. But since I'm making bentos for my fussy little girl, I can only look, admire and learn. For now I'll be sticking to Maisie friendly foods but hopefully one day I'll be making more diverse bentos. Thanks for taking a look and for voting.

The bento pictured above was the one Maisie ate today at school. This was a new box for her and she was just delighted with it as anything Thomas is wonderful in Maisie's world. Click HERE to check out the specific contents of her bento.

First day of Wee School 2008

Today was Maisie's first day back at Wee school and she had a fabulous day!!

Oh so different from last year when she was so scared with that deer-in-the-headlights-look.

This year she was excited and smiling, ready to go and take on the day. Last year leaving her in the morning was tear filled for her and heartbreaking for me but this year she walked me to her classroom, went right in and saying goodbye was tear-free and easy for both of us. I look at the picture from last August on her first day at school and can't believe how much she has grown, my gosh she's gotten so tall.

For Maisie's lunch today I packed many of her favorite foods in her new Hello Kitty bento box. (Check out her new bento box and cute lunch at Maisie Eats Bento.) When I picked her up she was in a great mood chatting away telling me all about her day. She told me that she ate all of her lunch and how much fun she had playing with her friends. I'm so happy that she's already enjoying her class and we're off to a good start for the school year.

Cutie patooties

Today we met up with Kathy & Chani for some fun jumping time at PLAY followed by lunch at my favorite little lunch place. In the past I've resisted taking Maisie out to restaurants due to her inability to sit in any one place for more than 17 seconds. But she's grown up so much and did quite well at the restaurant both eating and sitting. Chani & Maisie were so cute holding hands each time we walked around outside. It was a fun morning and we're looking forward to our next play date. Thanks to Kathy for the piccie and more can be found on her blog.

P.I.Z.Z.A.

On our agenda for this morning was a meet-and-greet with Maisie's teachers, Miss Hope & Miss MaryJo followed by a shopping trip to Costco. Maisie took to her new teachers right away giving them each big hugs both hello and good bye. Her class is made up of six girls and six boys most of which were in her class last year so she's really looking forward to school starting on Tuesday. She was such a good girl while I was filling out all the paperwork that I decided to take her out for lunch.

I was a big spender and took her to Costco for a slice of pizza. The amazing thing, she finished the entire giant slice and still managed to taste test every sample given out in the store followed by two fruit leathers on the drive home!!

Recently Maisie has been interested in learning to spell various words and today the word was pizza. She really picks up the spelling and the finger spelling quickly. Her vocabulary that she can spell, finger spell and knows the sign for are: Maisie, Thomas (the tank engine), Mama, Baba, Dena (her coach), Emily (her coach's daughter), stop and now pizza. Sometimes she gets silly and will say "M.A.I.S.I.E that's how we spell broccoli and Thomas" or "T.H.O.M.A.S that's how we spell periphylla*." You can see her mind working trying to figure out funny things to say to the various spellings.

I've put her down for a nap which she is fighting and I'm working on getting rid of a headache so ta for now and hopefully I'll have a new Maisie moment posted soon.

* Maisie has always loved watching fish and can spend hours watching this one this two minute segment of a Blue Planet episode which shows copepods, a pea-sized gigantocypris and her beloved periphylla. It is stinking cute though when the copepods and the periphylla light up and Maisie says her version of "bioluminescence" but she's real close to saying it 100% correctly.

Nope, not going to happen!

Yesterday we met up with Kathy & Chani and Lisa & Briana at DAC Kids. We all arrived just as they opened and we all prepared to go in but as the doors opened, Maisie went into complete meltdown mode and would not walk in the door. What caused her instant meltdown? The sound of the fans on the inflatables which lined the perimeter of the room. Maisie has always had a major issue with loud noises, the vacuum cleaner, too many children being loud, horns honking, lawn mowers, thunder and the sound of the fans on the inflatables*.

I did carry Maisie in reassuring her that it was just noise but for the first hour all she did was cry as she held on to me with a death grip. We all sat in the center of the sand area as far from the inflatables as possible and gradually Maisie joined Briana & Chani playing in the sand and then on the wooden climbing structure but she still wasn't going to smile or truly enjoy herself. When Briana & Chani then wandered over to the kiddie inflatable I held Maisie so that she could see the fun they were having but being that close caused yet another major meltdown.

Kathy had brought along some snacks so we sat the girls down and they were so cute together especially Briana who loves her food and looked for any opportunity to nick treats from both Chani & Maisie. One last meltdown occurred as we were leaving as we had to walk past the inflatables but then Maisie was happy again once we were outside.

We then headed to CiCi's for lunch where all the girls ate well and then had fun playing in the little amusement area allowing Kathy, Lisa and I some time to catch up and chat. It's too bad that Maisie's afraid of the inflatables because otherwise she would have had a really good time playing in the sand and on the climbing equipment. It was great getting together with friends though and next time we'll be going to a place that doesn't have scary inflatables!

*Amazingly and thankfully, Maisie can walk into a screaming loud gym and not bat an eye, in fact she struts into gyms like she owns them.

Fancy Ancy

This weekend was filled with fancy clothes and posh tea parties with pinkies up. We've been having fun reading Fancy Nancy or as Maisie calls her, Fancy Ancy.

We've had a great summer but here we are at our final week. I can't believe that it passed so quickly and that Maisie starts back at Wee School next Tuesday! For our final week of summer we have lots on our schedule, getting together with friends and then on Thursday we have our meet-and-greet with Maisie's new teachers Miss. Hope & Miss. Mary Jo. Of course twice weekly gymnastics continues as does all my fun times with my little Fancy Ancy Maisie.

And from my previous post, after arriving at his office at 4:30am Friday, poor hubby didn't make it home until 2am Saturday only to grab a few hours of sleep before it was back to work. So no posh pinkie up tea parties with Baba this past weekend but hopefully next weekend Baba will join in on the fun.

In her element

First let me say, it $ucks to be my husband today. Poor guy left for the office at 4:30 this morning and here it is 11:30 PM and the guy is still at the office with no end in sight. In addition he's on call all weekend so who knows if he'll get any sleep at all. I'll probably take Maisie out for a good part of the morning just in case he's able to get some sleep.

       
Maisie and I have had another great and busy week doing lots of activities together spending plenty of time at various play places and play grounds as well as doing lots of arts & crafts which Maisie just adores. Today we met up with some of our library friends and went to a new indoor gym and oh did we have a great time there. Of course Maisie spent the majority of her time on the trampoline but also had a fabu time on the rope swing, jumping into the foam pit and playing on the rings and bar.

Me and my girl

Maisie and I have been having a fun week together, much more laid back than the past nine weeks where every day was heavily scheduled with camp and gymnastics practice. The only scheduled activities this week were Maisie's twice weekly regular gymnastics practices and other than those she and I have been having some fun times together. Wednesday we didn't even leave the house until 3:30PM when it was time to head to gymnastics practice. It's crazy to think about it but that was the first weekday, in over nine weeks, where we spent an entire morning home.

Maisie is still being a super fussy eater but has been doing somewhat better since I've started making bento for her. I'm having fun thinking up new and fun ways to present her meals and even sneaking in a few new foods. For the most part Maisie doesn't eat rice, chicken, beef, fish or pork. She's also decided that she doesn't like any fresh fruit and the only veggies she'll eat are carrots and broccoli. So working with a very limited choice of foods I've had to be quite creative. Of course Maisie would be happy if everyday I just gave her noodles, Go-Gurts and quail eggs. You can check out all of Maisie's bentos over at Maisie Eats Bento.

Briana turns two!

Yesterday we celebrated Briana's  2nd Birthday. Being with friends, enjoying pizza and cupcakes, who could ask for anything better!

Maisie 

Chani 

Katie & Andrew

Happy Birthday Bri!

Final day of gymnastics camp

It's sad but true, today is Maisie's last day of gymnastics camp. Her regular twice weekly practices will continue but no longer will she spend 30 hours per week in her favorite place. Poor little girl, I know that next week she's going to have major withdrawal because even on weekends when she first wakes she asks to go to the gym and finds out that it's closed, she's so disappointed.

The gym opens 30 minutes before camp starts and Maisie loves being there during those 30 minutes as she has so much of the place to herself or only sharing with a few other children. So this morning before camp started, I took the video of Maisie doing a flip off the tumble track. She can spend hours just going on the trampoline, tumble track and jumping into the foam pit, she just loves it. There were a few of her camper friends there early too so that's the picture of Maisie with some of her friends.

What amazed me most about camp were the other children, the 5,6 & 7 year old boys especially. They all doted on Maisie making sure that she always got her turn, when she wanted to go to the bubbler one would always escort and help her, getting up onto the parallel bars to reach the rings, they would lift her up and carry her. It was just so sweet how all the older children watched over and helped Maisie. Here was a 2 1/2 year old with children 4 to 11 years old and they never left her out, in fact they went out of their way to include her. Numerous times the coaches had to tell the children not to carry Maisie around so much as they would just scoop her up and put her where she needed to be and she just went along with it. To thank all her fellow campers, Maisie gave them a thank you note today made out of cupcakes.