Happy Birthday Maya!

For the last two years, October 18 was a day I dreaded, knowing that it would mark another significant milestone in Maya's life that we were missing. For her first birthday Sean and I made a little cake and I bought her the little elephant that you saw her carry around in the Haiti pictures. The second year I think we pretended it wasn't actually that day. So you can only imagine how wonderful it was to have her HERE WITH US on her third birthday last Sunday! It brought back all of the initial feelings of disbelief that she is actually here, actually ours.

We celebrated by going to her Uncle Adam and Aunt Amanda's house. They had created a dance party in their spare room, complete with streamers, twinkling lights, and rhythm instruments. She had a blast dancing the night away.

And, of course, we had cake.
at

SNOW!

Last weekend my mom came to town and the four of us went up north to our cottage on Lake Superior (want to rent it? check out lakesuperiorgetaway.blogspot.com!). We were thrilled to wake up Saturday morning to the first snow of the season. We bunded Maya up the best we could and sent her out. She has quite the vocabulary these days, but could only say, "Cold, Cold, Cold". After she came in, she had hot chocolate for the first time and clutched that mug like her little frozen hands depended on it.

Maya Updates

Maya is finishing up her third week in child care and is loving it there! She's in a family child care setting and she loves that there are little babies as well as kids her age to play with. It's been tough to be away from her for so many hours each week but I've adjusted my work schedule to be home every Friday, so we still get some great Mommy/Maya time. She's also getting more quality Daddy time since he's the morning guy who gets her out the door and drives her to child care each morning. It's pretty adorable watching her walk out the door with her backpack on, holding her Daddy's hand. Yesterday I caught her blowing a kiss to our cat, Izzy, who was on the porch watching them leave.

She's getting more grown up every day and this week has made us very happy by dressing herself each morning! She's totally obsessed with the piano and plays it at least once each day (not always with the sunglasses seen in the latest video). She's trying to figure out to how to navigate a scooter that a very generous neighbor at the park gave her and still loves cruising around the block on her tricycle. She actually loves any kind of transportation and spends most of our car rides explaining to us that she doesn't like the car anymore, she wants to ride in a bus or a truck. We're trying to work a bus or Lightrail ride into her upcoming birthday plans!

We continue to be so grateful that she's actually here with us AND that she's such a delightful little buddy. Life is good! :)

And another instrument

Musical Exploration Continues...

Before, After, and Way After

At the top of our blog we've had our Before and After pictures from our backyard transformation, thanks to HGTV's "Landscape Smart". Thanks to the arrival of a certain adorable and very active child, our backyard has been transformed once again. Not sure how the HGTV designers would feel, but Maya thinks it's great!

Our very own "Ace of Cakes"!

There's a cable show called "Ace of Cakes" where people can request cakes in interesting shapes for special occasions. Well, now on Marshall Street in St. Paul is a shop called "The Little Cake Studio" and Sean's board president enlisted their help for a special cake in honor of Sean, which was enjoyed at their last board meeting. The image just about sums it up: Sean loves to sleep almost as much as Maya avoids it!

Thanks, Sue, for the fantastic cake! If any of you are local, give this new local business a call.