iiiiiiiiiiiiit's MAISIE!!

Maisie was up early and just itching to go to school way before it was time to set off. I was surprised that she was in such a good mood as she sounds like she's coming down with the horrible cold that I've had all week. 

I told her teachers to call me if she started to drag but she made it through until the 1PM pick-up and her teachers said it wasn't until lunch time that Maisie started to slow down. We returned home and Maisie took a long nap for her, an hour and thirty minutes.

The cold hasn't really set into her yet but she's definitely more fussy and slower than normal. I'm hoping that she doesn't actually get a cold as we have her classmate Sophia's third Birthday party Saturday afternoon and then on Sunday we'll be celebrating Andrew's second Birthday. Not only am I hoping that the cold doesn't set in to Maisie but I hope that I'm feeling better because being sick all week and trying to keep up with an extremely active, opinionated but totally adorable three year old is doing me in. I'm off to bed as soon as I put her down for the night.

On a different note, I'm going to be totally bummed come August as Maisie will have to start wearing a boring old uniform to school. I'll just have to plan lots of fun activities where I can dress her up in all the adorable clothes that I have set away for her and also the ones that I'm sure to acquire between now and then. Have to keep my little princess diva dressed oh so pretty!

Fashionista

Yesterday was Halloween dress up day for Maisie's class but when I asked Maisie if she wanted to wear her cute giraffe costume, some Fancy Nancy clothes, any of her Princess dresses, she was adamant that she was going to wear her pretty dress and just.be.Maisie!

She was the only child not in costume and it didn't bother her so it didn't bother me and she had a great day.

I've decided that Maisie's just a little fashionista and doesn't want to tarnish her image by wearing just dress-up clothes or silly costumes.

She certainly is a character and has mind of her own when it comes to what she wants to wear and when.

Costume or no costume Maisie's still stinking adorable and funny! 

Alexander turns two + a Halloween Party!

Saturday was one busy day.

We started by celebrating Alexander's third birthday at PLAY where Maisie and all the children, as well as some of the adults, had fun jumping on the trampoline, the bouncy castle and into the foam pit. All the activity was followed by pizza and cake, oh what a fun party!!

From the party we headed straight over to Lisa, Doug & Briana's home for an Adopters Halloween gathering. All the little ones looked so adorable in their costumes.
Then there was nap free Maisie who had no intention of getting into her adorable giraffe costume so since she was in gym wear, her costume was that of a gymnast...go with the flow. Check out all the cute piccies over on Briana's page.

Attitude

Maisie has attitude with a capital A!!

I thought that if we could make it through the terrible twos life would calm down a bit but the horrible threes are here and it honestly doesn't seem all that different... other than the fact that we've now added major attitude! Maisie has become fiercely independent wanting to do do everything by herself. Of course it's usually when we're running late and need to hurry that she gets fiercely stubborn and wants to do things her way and at her speed. It's oh so interesting when I ask her to hurry or do something quickly, how she'll immediately slow down and go as slowly as possible. Thankfully she's still small enough where I can pick her up and move her along at my speed when necessary.

I do have to admire her persistence though at working through problems one step at a time even if it does take f.o.r.e.v.e.r! She sometimes gets frustrated with problems or new situations but once we've worked it through she's set and then never needs help again. Maisie loves to learn and seems to be picking things up at record pace. She recognizes, knows the sound and also the ASL sign for all the letters of the alphabet. She can count and sign the numbers 1 - 20. She is starting to write some letters, mostly the straight line ones. She's been working on A, C, E, F, H, I, L, M, N, O, T, V, W, X & Z and when she wants, they look really good.

Maisie's command of English is amazing for a three year old, using and understanding words and concepts that are far beyond what all the books say a three year old generally uses. Even her Pediatrician commented on this fact when I took her in today for her 3 year visit. Speaking of 3 year visits, Maisie is now 36 1/2-inches tall and weighs in at a whopping 26 1/2 pounds. This puts her on the U.S. charts at 35th percentile for height and 9th percentile for weight. Overall the doctor said that she's healthy and looking great...What more could a Mom want to hear!!

At the Pediatrician today Maisie received one follow-up shot for hepatitis just after both Maisie and I received our flu vaccine in the form of a nasal mist. How cool it was that I was able to get my flu vaccine at the Pediatricians office and without a needle!!

Where's Maisie??

One day last year Eammon came home with this giant, extremely soft giraffe which has since taken up residence in our family room as everyone loves to lay on or snuggle up to him. Then last week whilst in Costco Eammon spied an adorable giraffe costume and just had to get it for Maisie. He didn't know it at the time but a ways back I had picked up some giraffe boot style slippers for Maisie which ended up matching the costume perfectly! So here's our cutie patootie giraffe girl with her giant stuffed giraffe friend and in my totally biased opinion, just too stinking cute!

This weekend we're going to our local adopters group Halloween party and there might just be a very cute giraffe in attendance. We'll see if she'll wear the giraffe costume again or want to be Fancy Nancy or a Princess, then again she could just want to be Maisie...we shall see.

Party number three for the three year old!

Thank goodness we have reached the end of the party weekend because we're all partied out but oh was it a blast!! Today was Maisie's big birthday party with all her friends, which was held at her favorite place, the gym! Three coaches, I don't even know how many adults, seventeen children, padded floors, beams, bars, rings, foam pit, trampoline, obstacle course and even medals with as much running, jumping and noise and any toddler could care to make, followed by cake...It was awesome and all the kids, big and small, seemed to have a great time!! Thanks to everyone who shared in Maisie's birthday and helped to make it so special for my little princess Maisie Miao Miao!

Maisie and all her party guests receiving their medals.

Briana 

Aspen

Claire

Chani

Andrew

Happy 3rd Birthday my sweet baby Maisie.  

Happy 3rd Birthday my sweetie girl Maisie Miao Miao

Today you are three! It seems difficult to believe because it feels like just yesterday you were turning two and in my mind, it was mere weeks before that where you were that scared little girl who was being placed in my arms. Where has the time gone? My sweet little baby girl you are growing up so quickly. You are smart, talented, feisty, independent, opinionated, demanding, lovable and the best snuggle bunny in the world. You are my best little girl and I'm the luckiest Mom in the world to have you as my daughter. Happy 3rd birthday my sweet girl and I wish you the best year ever.

Let the partying begin!!

Today was the first of three days of parties as Maisie celebrated her birthday at school with pink cupcakes because the birthday girl wanted PINK! Maisie looked so cute wearing her Birthday crown when I picked her up at the end of her day.
Of course she looked adorable when she started her day too, here she is dressed and ready to go to school. Not only was it Maisie's birthday party day but it was also orange day so all the children were supposed to wear something orange.

Moments with Maisie in bullets

• Last Wednesday for the first time in ages, drought stricken Atlanta experienced some decent rainfall. Maisie and I were driving home from gymnastics and Maisie said to me, "Mummy your tires are on water that means you're hydroplaning." Sure enough she heard the sound of me hitting a puddle and a tire was hydroplaning. I know I've told her about this in the past but it's been ages since we've had rain and that she remembered it blew me away!

• Last Thursday I spent the morning doing a deep cleaning in Maisie's bedroom because that afternoon her big girl bed mattress & box spring were going to be delivered and I wanted to move out and clean up as much as possible. Thursday and Friday nights Maisie was totally despondent that I wouldn't allow her to sleep on her new mattress. On top of that she was totally out of sorts sleeping in her crib as I had moved it to the opposite side of her room.

• Friday I had to email Eammon to let him know that Maisie was really his child. Why do I say that? Because Maisie was walking around the house talking about a Van de Graaff generator. See one time after sliding down a plastic slide Maisie's hair was standing on end and Eammon happened to mention to her, that she was generating static electricity and that the slide was acting as her own personal Van de Graaff generator. I'm telling you, the girl never forgets anything.

• Saturday Maisie's big girl furniture was delivered and her bed was put together. She was so excited but a little afraid and wanted Mummy to sleep in bed with her. Thankfully I bought for her, the most comfortable mattress I've ever slept on. We snuggled together in her new Princess bed and had a fun little sleepover.

• Saturday morning after her furniture was delivered Maisie and I headed to the Dairy to spend the morning with friends. Immediately following the dairy, Maisie and I rushed home to pick up a birthday pressie for one of Maisie's classmates and then headed to Peyton's fun birthday party.

• On Sunday Eammon was cleaning out the pool and he asked Maisie if she would like to help him. Her response: "No, but thank you" I love how she answers things.

• Though Maisie napped alone Sunday afternoon in her big girl bed, at bedtime she wanted her Mummy. I did lay with her until she fell asleep but she then spent the remainder of the night alone.

• When someone does something that just isn't the brightest thing to do or they really screw up, I have a tendency to say, "are you kidding me??" Well Maisie has picked that phrase up from me. I have to laugh when she uses it especially since 95% of the time when she'll use it, it's times where I would have used it too, it's not just something she's saying for the heck of it.

• Tomorrow begins three days of celebrating as Friday is Maisie's 3rd birthday!! I can't believe how much she has grown and what a big girl she is become. Party piccis will hopefully be up in a timely manner!!

The Amazing Maisie at the Maize Maze

Sorry, it should have been titled something like Maisie and friends at the farm, but I couldn't resist the alliteration and the homonyms.

Oh what fun we had on Saturday when we met up with Kathy, Matt & Chani and Lisa, Doug & Briana for a morning at Cagle's Dairy Farm. Our original intention for meeting up was to do the whole pumpkin patch/picking out the pumpkin thing but the morning turned into so much more. We had absolutely gorgeous weather, sunny and warm with a cool breeze and some big fluffy white clouds in the sky, we couldn't have asked for better.

We decided to start by taking a trek through the maize maze where we took a few wrong turns but in the end we successfully managed the maze without having to raise our distress flag even once!

Chani loved the distress flag and in the end didn't want to give it up having a grand old time walking around with it. She looked so cute with it and without even trying, it matched her outfit perfectly!!

The girls then spied these really cool jumping pillows so that was our next stop. The farm has two jumping pillows, one being quite large and then a smaller one for those under 45-inches, which is the one we chose.

I thought that Maisie would be all over it as she loves jumping on trampolines but Maisie chose to just observe while the other little girls and boys jumped away. It looked like great fun especially watching Chani trying to keep on her feet and Briana going at it full force, landing any which way and laughing the entire time.

The pony ride was our next stop and Bri and Chani were chomping at the bit to get on the cute little ponies for a ride. Maisie though is not an animal person and no amount of cajoling, coaxing, bribery or peer pressure was going to get Maisie up on one of those giant creatures. Bri and Chani were all smiles riding and sure had a blast!!

Lunch was next on our agenda and then Maisie and I stopped back over near the jumping pillow where she had fun riding on the little pedal tractors trying out four or five of them making sure to ride on at lease one in every color.

I would say that our next stop was the pumpkin patch but first came two or most likely three trips to the bathroom for Miss M. She wanted to go time and time again as all the sinks were at her height and as she loves washing her hands, it served as a great excuse to use water.

Maisie enjoyed climbing on the big pumpkin and having her picture taken but when I asked her if she wanted to pick out a pumpkin to take home she said "no, but thank you for asking." Now that was stinking cute!

Kathy and Lisa got to realize how "lucky" they were to have their children still in diapers because after yet another stop at the bathroom and more adventures in hand washing we then headed over for a dairy tour and hay ride.

Our first stop was the calf barn where we learned about the breeds on the farm, Holsteins and Jerseys and about how they are tagged. We saw two of the calves being fed milk from a bottle and we were given cabbage to feed the calves but Maisie kept her distance and the little boy who I handed the cabbage to was delighted to have extra opportunities to feed the calves.

The milking barn demonstration was our second stop and all the children sat up front for the up close and personal view. All but Maisie that is, as she was more comfortable being held high and far away from the giant cow safe in Doug's arms!

The final tour stop before the hayride was the processing plant. Well that was a quick tour for Maisie and I as the noise of the facility freaked her out completely. Even before everyone was in the building I had Maisie in my arms, I grabbed some chocolate milk and we waited out on the lawn for everyone to finish and join us. This was Maisie's first taste of chocolate milk and she thoroughly enjoyed it thinking it a great treat.

Finally what Maisie had been waiting for, the hayride! All the little ones thoroughly enjoyed the hayride and the various stops along the way. Especially fun was to watch the pig races as they raced around a track vying to be the first to get to the chocolate milk treat at the end.

Also fun was to see the cows being herded up to the wagon so that they could feast on strategically placed buckets of hay. It was amazing seeing the cows so close and to realize how huge they really are.

After alighting from the wagon they handed us some feed for the goats. Much to my delight and surprise Maisie took the feed and then held her hand out for the goat to feed. I think this may have been one of the highlights of the day for Maisie as she spoke about feeding the goats for much of the ride home and once seeing Eammon, it was the first thing she told him about her day.

The first time we were at the jumping pillow, Maisie just chose to observe but over the course of the morning she asked to go back time and time again. The first time back she didn't want to jump but that was the time she rode on the tractors At the very end of our time at the dairy we made one last trip back to the jumping pillow while everyone else was purchasing their pumpkins. Finally the time was right as she had the entire pillow to herself. It must have been what she'd been waiting for because she climbed right on and just had a blast jumping and jumping.

It was such a fun day and especially now that the weather is so beautiful, we can't wait to do more days out with friends!

I am so far behind on blogging and so much has been happening that I want to document and share, so I'm going to have to make time and get online over the next few days so stay tuned and check back often for more Moments with Maisie!