Archive for January, 2017

Maia is Three Years Old!

Monday, January 23rd, 2017

Maia’s Favorite Things 2016

Maia’s birthday update is finally here!

Maia is three years old now!  She tells us often “I’n a big girl!  I’n super tall!” (that’s really how it sounds)  It’s adorable, and so true.  She’s getting to the age that she can really plan with her brother and sister, and they have fun together!  She and Donovan have spent hours piling up pillows and other silly games.  Serenity is always good for hide and seek and “I’m gonna get you Maia” which is what Maia says when she wants to be chased.  It’s so fun!  She still loves to snuggle with Mama, in the bed or the chair or the couch, and read books or play on the little computer.  She wants Daddy at bedtime, and he has a very complicated bedroom routine.  Anytime he suggests something different to mix things up, she adds it to the list of things she asks for nightly.  There’s several songs, tucking in the Super readers, escorting Eric to the door and slamming it shut behind him.  She also still cries, even though she was the one who said good night and shut the door.  But not much crying anymore!

Maia’s favorite activities include Pillow Piling and Boinga Boinga Crash.  Those names need to be capitalized because it is a BIG deal.  She collects every single pillow and blanket from my bed, and sometimes her bed and Donovan’s bed, and makes a huge pile.  Sometimes it’s right on top of Mama, sometimes on the couch.  Then sometimes she extends the fun with Boinga Boinga Crash, which is exactly what it sounds.  If Daddy is around, sometimes the crash happens on him.  He’s always happy to have kids jump on him.  =)  Climbing is a lot of fun too! =)

She adores music class.  She runs right to her teacher, Mrs. Katherine, and gives her hugs and says “I’m here!”  At one point in the class, everyone gets a turn to sit in her lap and do tonal patterns.  When we’re doing the group tonal patterns, she edges closer and closer to Ms. Katherine, until she asks who wants to go first for tonal patterns, and then Maia pops right into her lap.  She loves instruments, and stamps, and the rainbow coop band.  It’s really cute, and great that she can follow the teacher’s instructions.  And she has memorized so many songs!  In the car, I often hear her little voice singing along.  It is too cute.  And she also knows the words to American Pie, and if you haven’t heard a three year old singing “them good old boys were drinking whiskey and rye” it’s hilarious.  She’s also memorized Hallelujah from my Pentatonix Christmas CD.

Maia climbing on rocks at the zoo =)

Maia adores her music teacher, Ms. Katherine. She is always ready to run and sit in her lap when it’s time for tonal patterns!

She also took a swimming class this year.  She doesn’t use her arms enough, but she’s fearless and she has a strong kick!  She loves to jump in.

Swinging is another activity she did a lot this year.  She fell asleep swinging in her yoga swing a few times.  And she still loves swinging in the backyard!

The rice bucket was a surprise favorite this year.  I put it together for her second birthday, and didn’t really foresee keeping it much longer than that winter.  But she asked for it regularly all year long, so I filled it with all kinds of different activities.  It was a Valentine’s tub, filled with hearts, bracelets, and other trinkets.  I buried pirate treasure once, and with construction vehicles.  Most recently I put a bunch of silk flowers, buckets and shovels so she could make it a garden.  It turned out to be really versatile and fun, and worth all the sweeping I had to do  =)

Tea Party in the Rice.  Tea Party is something she plays a lot lately too!  She loves the felt food I made!  A lot of it needs repair though.  It’s been loved a lot.

The sandbox is still a favorite =)

Maia in the pretty dress Vanaema got her =)

Books:  Maia LOVES to read.  She surprised me once when I found a set of alphabet flash cards I’d bought for Serenity long ago by reading a dozen words off the card I’d never showed her before.  She recognizes simple words, like game and stop and pop, from signs around town, but these were fairly long words like animal and balloon.  And it wasn’t a picture thing, as the words are written by themselves.  Exciting surprise!  So we started on the I Can Read books, where I read most of the words but point to a few for Maia to say as I go along.

DZ reading to Maia

Sleeping with a book =)

Her favorite books this year is a long list, but at the top of the list are the Pete the Cat books, especially Pete the Cat and his White Shoes, and Pete the Cat Buttons.  She loved those so much we used them for her birthday party theme.  She also loves Click Clack Peep and the other books from that series.  Click Clack Ho, Ho, Ho.  Unicorn Thinks He’s Pretty Great.  Whenever she says it, it sounds more like “Unicorn thinks he’s Perfect.” Which is pretty great too =)  We read a lot of the Pea books, ABC Peas.  Kittens First Full Moon.  Oh, and she still loves Christmas Books.  Pete The Cat Saves Christmas, The Mitten, Bear Stays Up for Christmas, Eight Jolly Reindeer, and so many more.  We read them all year!

Pete pa Cat

Maia’s favorite shows include the Backyardigans, Team Umizoomi, SuperWhy, Paw Patrol, and Sophia.  She really got into these shows this year.  She would sing all the songs with Backyardigans, and she’d dress up like Sophia in her “purple princess” dress a lot.  She recognizes shapes and patterns with Umizoomi, and SuperWhy is obvious in her alphabet and reading focus.  Paw Patrol is something she shares with Donovan.  He loved it so much we had all the pups and cars, and she has played with them at least as much as he has.

Purple Princess Sofia. I made Maia that crown for Christmas =) And she got her Amulet, which she says “amoolet” =)

Maia loves Forrest. He’s such a good pup. =)

Maia has probably watched more movies with me than either of the other two!  They just don’t like full length movies much.  She, on the other hand, watched Frozen all the way through with me!  Twice! And she adores Elsa and Anna, especially the music.  The weekend the rest of the family went to DC, we had a Tinkerbell Marathon.  We watched three or four of the Tinkerbell movies on Netflix, and she let me put her hair up in a Tinkerbell style.  So cute!!!

Favorite Apps: Cookie Doodle, Endless ABC, and SuperWhy.

IMG_8578 IMG_8579

Favorite Crafts: Play-doh and Stickers.  I bought sticker packages like crazy this year, and she would patiently sit and stick them all in a huge pile on white paper.  It was my go-to activity to keep her busy when we needed to get something done.

Maia in February

Favorite Toys: Frozen Wand, Paw Patrol cars/figures, Lego Duplos. Little People Abc creatures, ABC boxes.  Puzzles.  We spend a lot of time with the Duplos especially.  “Mama, wanna build?!?”  Usually the answer is yes =)  She recently got some Sofia legos and Doc MacStuffins so we’ve been building with those a lot.

Lego Duplo =)

Maia loves Elsa! She will actually watch the movie with me =)

ABC blocks

ABC books. Hard to believe she was still in a crib at the beginning of the year!

Woodland birthday! Now she actually wears all those masks! She says “Fox Power!” or “Deer Power!”

Dress up Crazy: Maia has started combining the most awesome dress up outfits.  I love how she lets them evolve, and then always wants to put them together that way again once she decides they are awesome.  She wears her Halloween costume I made her when she was one, finally.  It was a Skye costume, with a fleece hat with ears and goggles (although she usually puts it on backwards) and airplane wings.  She started adding fairy wings to it most of the time, and her purple shoes with the big pink jewel.  Then she needs her pumpkin bucket to complete the ensemble.  I also love her Elephant Queen costume, which combines her Elephant ears and tail, the purple felt crown, and sunglasses.  Adorable.

This outfit made me a little nervous about her plans =)

Wearing her Skye costume to music class

She still loves the rice bucket =)

Favorite Phrases: Some of my favorite things she said this year, that I just want to remember exactly as she says them.  “Pete pa cat.”

“I comin’ Serenity!  I comin’ DZ!” She’d say this in our house or in the car on the way to get them from school.  She usually cried when we’d drop them off, but she was always happy to go get them back!

“Maia Power!”  This one is from the end of the year, and it is TOO cute!  She would yell, Maia Power! And then do some daring and exciting thing, like jump off the couch or run really fast.

Whoopsie Daisy Me.  This is beyond cute.  Instead of just oopsie daisy, it’s “Whoopsie Daisy Me.”  I’ve started saying it sometimes myself =)

One of the phrases from the beginning of the year would come right after a kiss.   She’d give a kiss, and then say “Happy  Mama!”  Or happy Daddy, or happy Papa, whoever she happened to be kissing.  Sometimes it would be “Lucky Mama!”  And I AM so lucky to be her Mama!

Pete pa Cat

 

 

 

Maia Month by Month

Maia in January

Maia in February

Maia in March. March was the beginning of the selfie fun =)

Easter 2016

Maia in April. Sleeping with her Deer Pillow

Maia in May. Heather Warren takes amazing pictures! =)

Maia in June at our neighborhood playground.

Maia in June. She’d done this several times, but by June I was comfortable enough to step back and take pictures instead of hovering =)

Maia in July. This strawberry outfit is one of her favorites! She wore it all through winter too =)

Maia in August. Wearing her Skye nightgown in Papa’s teeter totter

She was so proud she climbed on the stumps! I played with this photo in prisma =)

 

Maia in September

 

Jogathon! Maia in October

Maia in October at the Pumpkin Patch

Maia in November

Maia in November at the Botanical Garden

 

 

Say CHEESE pigtails!

Maia plays with the big kid legos too! She especially loves anything with a key, and this set had Santa! She loves Santa. She even gave the Santa at the mall a hug this year! She played with her Santa WOW car a lot, and the santas from the lego set. She’d say “ho ho ho!”

Maia in December in her reindeer jammies