A style all her own

Maisie sometimes has a style all her own. Today she was dancing around the house in a pink sweatshirt sporting remnants of breakfast & lunch, camouflage sweatpants with roses, giraffe slippers and a pretty pastel tutu. Maisie thought she was hot stuff and who was I to argue?

* We had another fun week filled with the usual activities, school, gymnastics and ballet.

* Tuesday afternoon Cameron, Maisie's 9 year old friend from our street, came over for a play date. The two of them had fun making beaded necklaces and bracelets, playing with glue and glitter and playing together outside. Maisie keeps talking about playing with the big girls and can't wait until next Tuesday when Cameron will come play again.

* On Wednesday I had fun getting together with Kathy, Lisa & Randi so that we could celebrate Randi's referral of Emma, one very cute little girl.

* My not so fun part of the week was all the phone calls I had to make dealing with the obscene number of medical bills from back in November. Fourteen days in the hospital for me, four days for Eammon, three ER visits, one ambulance ride, dozens of doctors, lab services, radiology, nuclear medicine, IV therapy, specialty services, pharmacy & drug charges, respiratory therapy, OR and surgery services and the list goes on. Well over 100K in charges, thank goodness for insurance but still a huge bill remains.

* Maisie loves to skip and she has it perfectly coordinated and she moves fast. Now everywhere we go she's off at full tilt skipping she goes.

* Friday night Eammon, Maisie and I went to an absolutely FABU Japanese restaurant/sushi place. Every plate looked like a work of art and it tasted just as wonderful. We can't wait to go back and because it was so good, I don't think we'll be waiting oh too long.

* Tonight we're off to meet friends for dinner and it should be fun because it's probably been over a year since we last saw them.

* One final bullet, Maisie is obsessed with violins. All sorts of items turn into pretend violins. She's so cute playing her pretend violin and singing along as she plays. Music lessons may be in her future but oh how I hope that she moves away from the violin as I'm not sure my ears could take the practicing.

Busy, busy weekend

As a general rule, I am not one to pack a lot of activities into our weekends but this past weekend was just one activity after another. Since we always have such busy weeks, by the weekend I'm usually happy to just do one activity or honestly doing nothing specific at all is often fine with me too. After this past weekend I'm now ready for a break... but once again tomorrow is Monday and yet again the beginning of another busy week. So, what kept us so busy?

Friday night I met up with Kathy and a few of the gals in her Moms group. We started our evening with dinner...sort of, as they somehow lost both Kathy and my dinner ticket and by time it was realized it was too late as we had somewhere else to be. We then headed over to Just For Giggles where we spent the evening painting the "Blueberry Tree." It was a lot of fun and seeing all the different variations of the same painting was very interesting and the evening did provide for lots of giggles.

Saturday for lunch we met up with John, Ann & Katie at Tasty China to celebrate Chinese New Year. Even though neither of the girls was particularly interested in having their picture taken, both Katie & Maisie looked adorable in their Chinese outfits.

The food was all wonderfully delicious and spicy. Below are a few of our selections.

Hot & numbing combination hot pot

Kung pao scallops

Dry fried eggplant

Maisie loves her noodles

Katie loves noodles too!

Saturday night I headed over to Kathy's as she hosted a Dove chocolate/chocolate martini night. Chocolate candies, truffles, dipped strawberries & marshmallows, cookies with chocolate and chocolate martinis, O.M.G were those martinis gorgeous!! It was fun spending an evening with the girls whilst enjoying so many wonderful chocolaty treats. No piccies because I was too busy licking the Dove milk chocolate and Aztec dusting powder off the rim of my glass...Did I mention that the martini was awesome!!

This afternoon Maisie's friend Tommy celebrated his third birthday. Lots of little friends running around My Gym and monkey cupcakes, a three year old's idea of heaven!! I honestly could have gone for and would have preferred another one of those gorgeous Dove martinis but that will have to wait at least until all the goodies I ordered last night at the party arrive...something to look forward to!

After we arrived home from the party, two of the "big girls" (9 years old) from the neighborhood came over to play with Maisie. Sydney, Cameron and Maisie had fun playing together out on the deck, playing catch, blowing bubbles and just being little girls. 

It was a very fun weekend but I'm exhausted and ready for bed and a good nights sleep. If you've made it all the way through this post, congratulations and you too deserve a good nights rest...sleep well.

Two years Maisie Day *

Dec. 11, 2006 ~ A family of three, ChongQing Civil Affairs Office, China
<<~~~ Dec. 6, 2007 Maisie modeling her gotcha day outfit. The shoes were too small but the outfit still fit the little peanut pretty well.























December 2008 ~~~>>
Another year and though the outfit is too short, surprisingly it still fits well enough, at least for a picture.

It amazes me how much Maisie has grown up, from a scared and timid little baby to a vibrant, smart and self confident little girl. We look forward to many more Maisie Day Anniversaries and seeing our little girl grow and change over many years to come.

*Between being sick and away for all of November & December the end of last year, I didn't get this posted back in December on our actual Anniversary but it's something that I didn't want to go undocumented even if it's a month and a half late.

Bum in a bowl

Maisie called me over this afternoon to tell me that her bum was in a bowl...silly and limber little girl!

She spent quite some time just sitting and rolling around acting silly and watching a video. I had fun watching her giggle and being silly.
It's been another busy week of school, gymnastics and ballet, I can't believe it's Friday already. Where do the days go??

This weekend we have a very busy social calender or more accurately, I'm very busy. I'm going out both tonight and tomorrow night for some fun with friends. Tomorrow for lunch Eammon, Maisie and I are meeting up with friends to celebrate Chinese New Year and on Sunday one of Maisie's friends turns three so we'll be celebrating there too.

Hopefully I'll remember my camera and have lots of piccies to post...we shall see though as lately I've been so bad about taking pictures of Maisie-the-ever-moving-target. I have taken pictures of Maisie's bento each morning and if anyone is interested you can check those out at Maisie Eats Bento. I've also finally posted a new recipe on Cook Lisa Cook. This past Sunday I made a roasted tomato, fresh mozzarella and pesto pizza which looked and smelled so awesome when I took it from the oven, I just had to share. It was so delicious and Eammon just couldn't get enough, so I ended up making it again last night, yum!

Have a great weekend and Happy Chinese New Year.

Fairy bread

Oh yeah, we went real gourmet this morning, ha!! Maisie had fun making and eating her fairy bread.
A little taste test.
This really can't be any worse or have any more sugar than cinnamon-sugar toast...right?
Oh,it looks so pretty!
And the taste...
yummy!
but a wee bit messy.

Enjoying the spoils of her afternoon

This afternoon Maisie spent some time over at our neighbor Mary's home helping to bake peanut butter cookies. Maisie had a fun time and returned home not only with a big plate of cookies but also a puzzle and a stack of books!! Maisie's looking forward to her next afternoon of baking with Mary and after eating some of the cookies, she declared them delicious!

First day of ballet

I'm a bit behind in my posting but last Friday Maisie absolutely loved her first day of ballet class! Unfortunately for me though, there's only one small window in the door where I could look in from time and I only had my cell phone with me for picture taking. But each time I did peek in, Maisie was completely engrossed, paying attention and following all of the teacher's instructions. Once class ended Maisie told me that she loved her class and couldn't wait for the next one!

Cell phone piccies

These are two pictures that I had on my cell phone from December 2008 and I wanted to remember them so I finally uploaded them to the blog.

This first piccie was taken on December 20 at the Gymnastics Winter Blast. We had been home from Aruba for less than eight hours so Maisie was sleep deprived and not 100% herself but she still had fun with her Fireflies team mates. (l to r) Tia, Aspen, Shelby, Coach Amy, Maisie and Mara. They all looked so adorable in their team leos and the fact that they're pink, shiny and sparkly just tickles Maisie.

This second picture was taken on December 29. Maisie was with me when I went for a doctors appointment and I had to have a chest x-ray. So while I was having that done, Will the vampire (phlebotomist) entertained Maisie with his video game. They were very cute together and both were well behaved during my x-ray.

Watch Mama Watch!!

Watch me Mama.
See my right leg.
I'm lifting it just like a ballerina.
See how pretty.
Look how high I can lift my let.
Now it's even higher!
Almost Mama, watch!
Ta Da!!

Tomorrow starts dance class and as you can see, Maisie can't wait to start.

In other exciting news, go check out my Utah Bloggy Bash Gal Pal Tiffany's blog to feast your eyes on and say hello to her new son Solomon.

Fashionista returns to school

Maisie was beside herself excited to return to school today. It's been over six weeks since she last saw her teachers and school mates and the morning couldn't go fast enough for her as she kept asking "is it time to go, is it time to go yet?" She had a great first day back, yeah!!

Vacation and the holidays were great but it's so nice to get back into our usual routine of seeing friends, school and gymnastics. Monday we resumed Maisie's regular gymnastics practice, which we also attend on Wednesdays, and then on Friday there's something new in our schedule and Maisie can't wait, ballet class!! It's actually a ballet and tap class and last week we went to the dance store and bought the appropriate colored leo and tights, ballet and tap shoes and even an adorable dance bag. Everything is so stinking cute and Maisie's just itching to start her class. This is shaping up to be a wonderful week for my little girl and what a great start to 2009.