Maya's 9th year recap

Dear Maya,

Oh my goodness, you're almost up to two whole hands. Nine? That really doesn't seem possible. And yet every day you show hints of maturity and intelligence beyond your years. We love you so much and are excited to see you grow into an awesome young person!

Here's the interview we've done for the last several years (8th year, 7th year, 6th year, 5th year, 4th year, 3rd year)  and here are your (somewhat repetitive!) answers:

Favorite toy: Pokemon cards
Favorite game: Pokemon
Favorite thing to do inside: play Pokemon
Favorite thing to do outside: go sledding
Favorite place to go: school, so I can see all my friends
Favorite book: Sumokitty
Favorite TV show: Pokemon
Favorite movie: a Pokemon movie?
Favorite song: "It's Snowing!" by John Farrell
Favorite animal: tiger
Favorite breakfast: Danishes
Favorite lunch: pizza
Favorite dinner: sushi
Favorite fruit: orange
Favorite vegetable: carrot
Favorite drink: you still remember the one Shirley Temple you had last year! wow!
Best friend: Juliette, Emerson, Evelyn, Kameryn, Emma, Bentley, Louis
Biggest fear: being lost and alone without family or friends (a nightmare you had)
When you grow up you want to be: a little bit of everything--a photographer, a police officer, a doctor, a vet...
Things you take to bed: lots of pillows, lots of stuffies, and my Pokemon cards

And here are some of my favorite photos of you from this year:

January

February 

March 

April

May 

June 

July 

August 

September 

October 

November 

December 

We love you so much and are looking forward to a fun week of birthday celebrations for you!

 

Lights! Music! Action-filled holidays!

Dear Maya & Emi,

The holiday season is almost over and I honestly don't know where it went! I think you both had a really good Thanksgiving and Christmas but you're hanging out with grandpa right now so I don't think I'll get a straight answer if I ask. Here's a taste of what we did, though:

Emi, you performed your ukulele in a concert! You played the Ghostbusters theme song.

School photos were taken...

We went to the beautiful Winterlights festival at Naumkeag.

We went to Grandma and Papa Stan's for Thanksgiving brunch.

Grace and William spent the day at our house the next day!

We waited in line to visit Santa. Always worth it!

We decorated our tree and our house!

You had 2 snow days in a row after Thanksgiving to play outside! (And then Emi, you were sick making your Thanksgiving vacation really long!)

After many tries, we finally got the biggest gift of the season delivered to our house--a piano from Nanny and Poppy! It's been in the family for a long time and Grandma and Aunt Sue Sue learned to play on it when they were your age!

And finally the part of the season you were waiting for--Christmas! Santa brought you both huge snow tubes and lots of other fun gifts. Then we went to Nanny and Poppy's for brunch, then Grandma and Papa Stan's for dinner. Unfortunately Baba wasn't feeling well and Mommy only pulled out her real camera for a few of these photos, but you can still feel the love!

 

Whew, that was a lot of photos! And next up is somebody's 9th birthday so lots more photos to come!