N: our nonstop nut

Dear Maya,

Mommy is super tired after a full weekend and lots of hot weather, so this post will be kind of short.

Pretty much every day lately you've been coming up with new words and sentences and it's so awesome and adorable all at once. Some of our favorites this week were "try it," "dance with me," "oh, man!" and "thank you too much" which you corrected to "so much" a couple days later.

You've also been remembering your new letters pretty well lately. You picked up a letter magnet mommy accidentally knocked on the floor the other day and said "Green H--H is for hat" and just about knocked mommy's socks off! Although we're not quite sure about the written forms yet, you can clearly hear the difference between the names of the letters "M" and "N" and tell us that they stand for "monkey" and "nose" respectively. Good job!

Between bouts of typical toddler behavior like making messes and being demanding, you've slowly been trying to help out more around the house. In the last few days you've helped mommy do some cleaning and helped daddy do some weeding outside. That pretty much makes up for the last few days when you had us struggling to get you to stay in your room for naps and bedtime each night. Luckily within a few minutes of implementing the techniques in our favorite sleep book, you were right back on track.

And, finally, we've had a fun run of days around here. We celebrated mommy's birthday for a few days--first a yummy dinner and gifts with Uncle Matt and Aunt Rhi on Saturday night, a fun trip to a local touristy town on Sunday, and a visit from Aunt Kelsie and Baby Grace today. She loves to watch you with her big, beautiful eyes as you run around like a nut, showing off for her. You two sweet cousins are going to have such wonderful times together!

Well, mommy needs some sleep! Love you!