The purple Christmas tree

Dear Maya,

Lots of firsts this week to report...

*First time writing the letter "M"!!!

*First time saying so many new big words and phrases: "Possible" (though you might mean "impossible"), "terrible" and "amazing" (you've got those ones right), "perfect" and "correct" (pronounced without the "t"), and "no big deal" (though it was a big deal when you gave that as your reason not to kiss daddy goodnight!)

*First time cutting your own hair: We were wrapping Christmas presents. You were using your kid-safe scissors to cut little triangles of paper. Daddy looked over and saw hair on your table. Luckily it didn't require cutting much to remedy, but the sides are shorter now. Thank goodness for forgiving curls! Sigh...

*First time sleeping in your big girl bed: You fell out a couple times the first night, only once that we know of last night, and we haven't heard anything yet tonight. You love sleeping in there and, though you required a variety of stuffed animals for sleeping for a while there, you're back to only requesting your Kermit again.

*Aaaaand, as you can tell by the photos peppered throughout this post, we decorated our first tree of 2013! We still intend to get a real tree and do it up traditionally, but we wanted one to put presents under for when Grandma and Papa Stan visit this week. After a pillow fight to warm up, we let you pick the color scheme of the tree from the various ornaments we have and you chose purple. Of course you clumped a lot of the ornaments together and you seemed to like that we compared them to grapes. You love this tree!

Well, mommy needs some shuteye. We've got a really fun Thanksgiving week ahead!

Who's this big girl?

Dear Maya,

Lately mommy stops in her tracks several times a day, surprised at what a big girl you're getting to be. Sometimes it's your ponytail that does it, sometimes it's a word or phrase I don't realize you've picked up, sometimes it's actions such as sharing or helping dry and put away silverware. I'm amazed and proud.

   

Last week we had a couple chilly days and, though we didn't get any at our house, there was snow on the ground when we went to the library and your buddy Wyatt's house. You had so much fun playing with him and had a love/hate relationship with the giant blow-up turkey on his front lawn!

Later in the week you caught a cold. It was so sad to see you with the teary eyes you often get along with your runny noses, but you didn't act very sick. Mommy let you watch quite a few shows on daddy's Ipod just so you'd sit still and relax. After a couple days you were pretty much back to normal, though.

Today was pretty warm so we went to the park next door. Mommy wanted us to get some fresh air and exercise, but also to pick up some pine cones for crafts we've been doing. You had a blast throwing pebbles in the stream and being pushed high on the swing.

Well, looking forward to all the fun ahead this week. Love you!

Artsy girl, Spider girl

Dear Maya,

We've been trying to chase away the end-of-Daylight-Savings- and onset-of-cold-weather-blues by keeping ourselves busy indoors and out. Inside we've been playing a lot with Legos and some new puzzles. We've also been doing a ton of crafting from painting to wrapping presents to making collages. You are one focused kid when it comes to art! Outside you helped daddy rake a ton of leaves and we had our last farm trip of the season. We also went to a couple different parks over this last week including a new one. What a climber!

Doesn't everybody wear a crown while practicing the alphabet?

You LOVE cutting with your kid scissors!

When talking about this you made a circle with your hands to help explain the word 'tube' which you'd forgotten

No fear

Such a good climber

Spider girl!

Trying to catch the season's first snowflakes at the park

 Well, this has been a quick post, but mommy's got lots of Christmas card photos to edit. Love you!

Mahna Mahna, Air Maya

Dear Maya,

It seems like we've been rushing around a lot this past week so there aren't as many photos as mommy would like, but the ones we have say it all! So here's the breakdown of what we've been up to, starting with what we wore for Halloween:

For the uninitiated, you were Mahna Mahna and mommy and daddy were the Snowths. These crazy characters were part of a Muppets sketch that first appeared before mommy was even born! It's been a favorite of yours on YouTube for a while now, and was the perfect way for us to match outfits!

More info: http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Mahna_Mahna_(song)
The video:

We wore our costumes to the library haunted house and did a little trick-or-treating as well, but you decided to switch to daddy's horns instead of your hat/wig for the latter part. When we went to visit your great grandparents on Saturday you didn't even want to wear that part. You didn't want to go home, either.

Your favorite things to do this week included playing with legos, dressing up, and drawing self-portraits. You also spent a good amount of time after dinner tonight jumping off a chair and trying to grab your precious new balloon  mid-air. Once we knew there were no obstacles in your way, we just had to watch and laugh.

Maya self portrait, 11/1/13

Maya self portrait, 11/4/13

 You are one sweet little active little thing! Love you!