My Miss Maya: Maya's fifth year recap

Dear Maya,

As mommy does every year, I'm writing this post just for you to celebrate your birthday. Yesterday you turned FIVE! As in one.two.three.four.five. A whole hand. How did that happen? I feel like you've been here forever and yet, at the same time, it seems like just yesterday you were toddling around and talking to us in incomplete sentences with your little New Jersey-ish accent. And now here you are, a schoolgirl with ever-increasing imagination, vocabulary, and compassion. Whoa...

We will be having your party this weekend but we celebrated yesterday as well. First, mommy took you on a surprise mission...to your great-grandparents' house and out with Poppy to pick whatever bicycle you wanted! You love your new bike, of course, and they were so very pleased to get it for you. It was a pretty special moment for mommy, too, as I remember them buying me my first 'big girl' bike when I wasn't too much older than you!

When we came home from our outing we had your birthday dinner. You chose to have waffles for the second year in a row! Daddy made them and some custard and whipped cream toppings, plus we had some delicious homemade jams from Grandma to add on top. After dinner you opened your gifts from Aunt Rhi and Uncle Matt (very cool kits to collect, observe and study bugs) and from mommy and daddy (a really fun book and your very own Ipod!). It was a great day!

And now on to the part of this annual post where I interview you. Previous years can be viewed here and here. Today you seemed to want to list all the possible answers instead of just one, but you did better than previous years. Again, mommy will be adding some explanations in parentheses.

Favorite toy: Octonauts and miniature animals and horses and masks and... (it's hard to answer this one right after Christmas when all of your new toys are on your mind!)
Favorite game: Scrape the tree (Uncle Matt's game actually called "Click Clack Lumberjack")
Favorite thing to do inside: play with Emi (aww...)
Favorite thing to do outside: hula hoop (it's been a while so not sure where that came from!)
Favorite place to go: the park, the zoo, and school!

Favorite book: the light-up book (this is the Usborn book you got for your birthday last night that you can see hidden pictures in when you put a flashlight behind the pages--it's really neat!)

Favorite TV show: Octonauts, Wild Kratts (your pronunciation of this show you just started watching again is a little inappropriate! also, you've been loving Little Einsteins lately)

Favorite movie: "What's a movie? Um, Muppets?" (we don't do screen time on school nights, then on the weekends you tend to just watch TV shows on Netflix so you've forgotten, I guess)

Favorite song: "the frozen fractals" ("Let it Go" again) and "Christmas songs--the special ones" (not sure which ones you mean but I will really miss hearing you sing Christmas songs along with the radio, whether you knew them or not!

Favorite animal: birds, zebras, and giraffes (and cats and horses and deer and...)

Favorite breakfast: banana smoothies

Favorite lunch: tortillas with cheese and corn

Favorite dinner: turkey (hmm...I was not expecting that)

Favorite fruit: pineapple and peaches

Favorite vegetable: carrot

Favorite drink: seltzer (your occasional treat that's not great for your teeth, but you've still barely had any sugary sodas in your life so I think we're good)

Best friend: Wyatt and Emi (aww again)

Biggest fear: shots from the doctor (at first you answered "hyenas" but then changed your mind after I asked if you were actually afraid of them or whether you were just answering something scary in general--what a funny and random answer, though!)

When you grow up you want to be a: giraffe or zebra (I re-explained this question, too, but you were over the interview by then so I guess we'll just leave this as is)

Things you take to bed: (you still have very particular requirements for your bed--your "nest" which is a bunch of blankets, pillows, etc. arranged in a large circle around you--and your "friends" which are your favorite stuffed animals: Shamrock the horse who has a new family thanks to Grandma and Papa Stan, Rudolph the currently noseless reindeer who will have a new family when Grandpa and Lori get here tomorrow, an octopus, two sparrows, a monarch butterfly, a bat, a sheep and a dugong...and this list is only shortened thanks to lots of bribery and the addition of a hanging organizer for the other few dozen animals!)

That was a lot of writing so now I'll add the yearly photo recap. Usually I find photos that haven't been on the blog before, but I've been putting most of the good ones on the blog this year so I'll just share some of my favorites. I can't even narrow it down to one per month!

January