For real walking

Miss Maya has graduated from first steps and is walking like a pro these days! She just walks laps all day, practice practice practice. I had to share the cuteness:

Out for a Walk

 

More January Fun

Maya's first "words". You can call those words, right?

We are just getting back into routines after Christmas and Maya's birthday. I exercised today for the 2nd day in a row, woot woot! Small victories. Here are some fun things from our normal day-to-day.

 Amelia's current stick figure. She is so fun these days drawing, coloring, reading, playing pretend. She has such an imagination and plays by herself so well. I love listening in and hearing her toys say, I need to go poopies. Haha.

 I told her to smile big for a happy picture to send daddy. I love it.

 The girls pushing their carts together. Sharing has started to become a real issue. Amelia really loves to snatch any toy Maya has. And Maya is not having it, she has quite the shriek  Amelia will say to me now, I being nice mom, as she hands back Maya's toy. If only she didn't take it in the first place. 

 They love to play with each other under the door.

 Dance party with their new instrument set. So much fun.

 Being silly.

 Amelia put the princesses to sleep for the night. It cracked me up that they are face down, but I guess she sleeps on her tummy, so why wouldn't they?

Funny faces. We had a fun night with Amelia after Maya went down. She loved taking pictures of our funny faces and hers too. 

I am just loving my two girls. Amelia still has her fits and we had a recent nightmare of a Walmart trip where I just had to get things done so I had a screaming-at-the-top-of-her-lungs Amelia and a whiny-why-is-Amelia-screaming-in-my-ear Maya in the cart and I held a straight, composed face until I got to the car, then had a good cry on the way home. And yes Amelia is struggling with naps and comes out of her room 10 times at night before going to sleep. But overall she is a dream. She is obedient and pleasant and so happy and her hard times are few and far between. Yesterday at Walmart, Amelia sat perfectly in the cart as I piled food around her and she helped me load up and talked to Maya when Maya got restless. Maybe the same people were there to see that some days we do have it together. Haha.

Maya is toddling only a few steps at a time still. She is slowly making the turning point to walking exclusively. Yesterday when I took her out of her high chair, she stayed standing and slowly walked to the nearest wall. She is a sponge right now and just loving to sit on my lap to read books, and she LOVES dogs and all animals and just really watches and takes it in as I show her each animal and what they say. 1 year old is officially my favorite age.

Amelia will be 3 in 2 months. It blows my mind, but she does seem like a 3 year old. She is talking like crazy now, like she's been talking all along and who knew she was a late bloomer. She says the funniest things. My friend dropped off a Christmas gift for Amelia back in December. After she left Amelia turned to Juan and said, I'm so happy! We play her version of Candy Land and Sequence. When she is bored she'll say, talk to me mom. She is my little best friend and I adore her. She loves Maya and when she woke up from her nap yesterday she said, Maya sleeping again? And then proceeded to cry for Maya. They are the sweetest girls.

Juan is in the midst of a really stressful time at work right now. So we do all we can to send funny pictures or have a party for him when he comes home. We had friends over to watch the Bachelor last night and made cookies, so what better party is there? I just love our friends and I'm so happy Juan has such good friends here. Life is hard but there is a whole lot of good. 

Maya had a birthday!

 Maya girl turned 1 on Friday. She is getting so big! She is 20 lbs 2 oz, and 30 1/2 inches long.

 We had a couple days of beautiful weather here, so we started out her day with a picnic in the park.

 With friends.

Maya is our happy girl. She is so good at playing with her toys and being independent. 

 She loves to wrestle with Amelia. She understands everything we say and she is signing Please and More.

 Her favorite song is Slippery Fish and she does all of the actions to it, well her version of the actions. It is the cutest song introduced to us through Music Group.

 She has quickly picked up on things we do with Amelia. We do these zombie-like arms whenever Amelia eats all her food and we'll say, Banana Monster. Well Maya has started doing this whenever she finishes her food, cutest thing ever.

 In some ways I feel like she is so much older than she is because she is trying so hard to be just like Amelia. But thank goodness for that little bald head, I'm always reminded she's my little baby!

 Maya doesn't say any words yet, but she definitely barks "ruff ruff" whenever we are around a dog.

 And she does the heys to the Lumineers song. Seriously, and almost gets them timed out. That is her favorite song, she absolutely loves it and claps when it comes on.

 Her favorite foods are spaghetti pie, bananas, and bread.

 She takes 2 naps a day, each about an hour long (if we're lucky).

 And she sleeps 8 to 7:30 am each night, with one wake up around 5 am where she just has to be hugged and put right back down.

 Her favorite toys are Beth her hippo, the play kitchen and taking things in and out of the cupboards, and anything she can push around. 

 She especially loves to put a book or car under one hand, and use it to "skate" around as she crawls.

 She was so excited about her cake when we set it in front of her.

 And then her hand smeared through the gooey frosting and it was over. She was miserable.

 She just cried and cried and stared at her hand in disgust! My dainty little girl.

 And this was her 1 minute later, hands all cleaned up.

 She loves her toys. She is so good at playing with toys. 

 Our attempt at getting her picture with her presents. We got half of Mike from Monsters Inc in there.

And lastly, snuggles with the Dora doll grandma sent. Such a cute doll, she loves it!

We love you Maya! Happy Birthday!

First Steps

There is nothing better in this world than watching my baby's face as she takes her first steps. So proud, so accomplished. This is the best time!

All Worth It

Vacation can be hard. A 20 hour car ride. Amelia throwing up the day we got there. Maya spending 3 full days terribly grumpy before adjusting. Naps are impossible. Schedules are thrown out the window. And still, there are those moments that make it all worth it.

1) Napping with grandpa.

2) A very serious and attentive Mary played by Amelia.

3) Christmas party with most of the family. Most memorable when we all sang Jingle Bells together to help 3 year old Benjamin who hilariously forgot how to sing it. The joy in Amelia's face as we all sang together. And again when my dad sang Chestnuts and we all joined in to sing it a 2nd time. All worth it.

4) Christmas Eve filled with caroling, new pajamas, and an exhausted Juan who must be devastated that he missed out on our annual viewing of White Christmas.

 5) Christmas morning. Amelia loved it. And so did Maya, she was delighted with each gift and would point point point until we took toys out of the packaging. They've both been playing with all their toys nonstop ever since. Juan and I were pretty spoiled as well.

One day they will appreciate my family shots and not consider it torture.

6) Temple Square. The nativity and feeling the Spirit so strongly and knowing that Amelia knew how special it was also. And the temple, it was breath-taking. A very special experience there.

7) The view from our car at any given time and Amelia yelling, Mountains mommy, mountains!

8) A visit to the temple, our first time to the beautiful Draper temple. And brunch with our dear friends Andrea and Matt and Addy (in which we were too lame and didn't take pictures).

9) Cousins in matching pajamas. We bought these while Ginger was still pregnant and finally got our photo shoot.

Both folding their little hands.

 10) Sledding. There was a moment while I was laying down with Amelia for a nap. She looked at me with such a glow of happiness and said, I went sledding mom. She just loved it. Again, all worth it.

After a tiny spill.

 11) East Canyon. Playing games. Talking. Eating. Walking to the store. Watching the girls with their cousins.  The scavenger hunt my mom does for the grandkids. It was lovely.

12) And the road trip. It goes into good and bad. Bad because it got L O N G. Good because I love my road trip memories from growing up. And quite enjoy being in that tiny space, spending time together. The girls were extremely good. A bit of whining here and there, but we really had fun with it.

I took a lot of sleeping pictures of Amelia. She is the most gorgeous sleeper.

Playing peek-a-boo. And giggling ensued. No better sounds

More silliness.

 13) And being home. Playing with their new hut and tunnel from grandma. Lots of laundry. Lots of lounging. Going on 3 days of laziness and recovery from vacation. All worth it.