Clare's party, Nancy's party

Dear Maya and Emi,

Remember what mommy wrote the other week about cold temperatures and snow? Yeah, that again. In the meantime, mommy's dear friend Clare came to visit us this week from London. We had an early birthday celebration for her the night she arrived. Maya, you helped mommy make a cat cake, then when it was time you took charge by turning out the lights and leading us in singing "Happy Birthday" to her.

Daddy held down the fort a couple days with you guys and let mommy go out and about with Clare while she was here. It was so wonderful to have time to catch up with her and time to recharge my batteries. A long winter cooped up with you two crazy kids was wearing on me a little!

Emi, you surprised us during Clare's stay by trying to crawl the 'normal' way as opposed to the back arch fish flop method I described last week! You haven't quite gotten yourself coordinated enough and sometimes revert back to your old ways, but I don't doubt you'll master it soon!

Maya, you and mommy went to the library's Fancy Nancy tea party on Valentine's Day. You loved playing with bubbles and blocks and running around with the other kids. Also, we discovered a pretty new hairstyle for you that is durable enough and Frozen-esque enough that you kept it in all day!

 

Time for some sleep for mommy! Love you both!

Hungry caterpillar, flopping fish

Dear Maya and Emi,

Tonight's post is just going to be a quick one as we've had a busy day and mommy needs her rest! So, in a nutshell, here's what we've been up to this last week:

Maya:  You played in the snow, played with old toys unearthed while mommy was reorganizing our whole living space, and did some fun arts and crafts. These drawings are of mommy when Emi was in her belly--the one with the extra lines is some combination of me and rays of sunshine. I like it!

Emi:  You've been perfecting your unusual form of movement--instead of regular crawling, you arch your back like a fish so only your feet and one poor balding spot on the back of your head are on the floor, and push with your legs. Then you roll over to check your progress, roll back, and so on.

All of us:  We went to the Eric Carle Museum! It was a quiet weekday there so we pretty much had the run of the place. We saw a few exhibits, watched a children's book film, played with toys at the library, made a sculpture out of found items, and bought a new Japanese book for our collection. Fun!

 

 

Well, it's time for mommy to sign off. Love you both!

P.S. Mommy totally jinxed the good sleeping I mentioned last week, Emi. A day trip will do that, though, and today's multiple errands probably won't help our chances for tonight, either. Sigh...

Llama, Grandma, Pajama Enigma

Dear Maya and Emi,

Snow. Blustery snow, picturesque snow, clumpy snow, powdery snow, drifting snow. Snow, snow, snow. And low temperatures. Lots of low temperatures. That's what we've been dealing with still and are forecast to keep dealing with for a while. Aside from you going outside occasionally to shovel or stock wood with daddy, Maya, you two have been inside a lot. And we do have a bit of cabin fever, okay more than a bit, but we've been doing some fun things, too.

• Emi, you've been playing more, moving more, and eating more (peaches, green peas, etc.)

• Maya you saw a llama at the library (or more importantly, you saw your sweet Wyatt)

• Grandma and Papa Stan visited--Maya, you chose a snowman theme for Grandma's birthday

And now, to close this post, mommy has proud moments to share about each of you from this week. Maya, within a span of an afternoon you managed to master two words we'd never heard you use before--the word "seaport" to describe Cabot Cove just seconds in to a "Murder She Wrote" episode, and the phrase "Seriously?" complete with the sarcastic inflection of a teenager. Holy moly!

Emi, after going back and forth between sleeping okay and not so okay this week, you picked last night to wow us. You slept from 6:15pm to 5:50am, nursed briefly and then went back to bed until 7:30 at which point you and your sister started chattering in your beds and even harmonizing with each other. Yippeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Fingers crossed for a repeat tonight! Love you both!