Christmas Day In The Morning, and Evening....

A lovely sight on Christmas Day, Maya loves her Rowie.
I was so busy helping Maya open presents Christmas Day while Kyle shot video, that I didn't get any photos..boo. This is what Santa left her the night before.
These are all pictures from Christmas at Great Grandma and Grandpa's house. Maya opened "The Mystery Machine" and was done with presents. She literally refused to open anymore. Can you blame her? It's the freakin' Mystery Machine Man! Her princesses ride in it too.


A whole bunch o' candy face!!

Maya loved Great Grandma's Christmas displays of tiny little things..and she loves nativity sets. "Oh, here's the baby Jesus, let him in the barn." She let the cow, donkey, and sheep in first. And of course the wise men because they have beards like daddy.

Happy New Year!!

Dieter Christmas

Before I get to Christmas, is this not the prettiest little boy ever? He's such a doll. This last weekend was the Dieter Family Christmas(es) in Ames. First a noon lunch and presents at Grandpa Greg's.











Followed by an evening soup and sandwich buffet at Grandma Jo's. The presents were past out before I could get a second photo. It was insane. This picture of Sully by the tree was the only clear shot I got off before the craziness started and my camera was set down for good.
In fact, it was so insane I have no pictures to show of it. Here are a few before and after of the girls around the house.


And if you've never been in a house with seven children under the age of six, you've never really been frazzled. I can't wait until next year when Riley and Sully really join the party...and Rowie starts in too.

Here are a couple photos from our house!



Merry Christmas from Maya and Rowan!!

Return of the Dragon

At about midnight on October 25th, my water broke at home, at 1AM after making Kyle change the sheets and take out the garbage we went to the hospital..I was 8 centimeters dilated by the time they got their hands on me...but this delivery was different. It was easier and not nearly as exhausting (having slept the night before certainly helped this time), and the pushing was spaced apart (I had "couplet" contractions because Rowan was "sunny side up", so there would be a big contraction followed almost immediately by a smaller one instead of WHAM WHAM!! OUCH! OUCH!) so getting to 8 cm wasn't so bad. I still got the epidural though. And it was such a good epidural my left side was dead, completely dead until mid afternoon, almost twelve hours later. This was not a comfortable feeling.

After pushing for a while (I got to 10 cm and contractions stopped until I rolled on my side, this was not fun to push in.) The dude that was supposed to deliver was stuck at St. Luke's so...he called my wonderful doctor who showed up, did some magic ("can we lay her down more?" and "can we turn these lights off?") and told me he'd be out by 7:30. Our Rowie was born at 7:20. Rowie at ten minutes old!

Maya is in love, she's the most "goo goo gah gah, I love you" sister ever. But she's having trouble adjusting to not being the center of our world. We often hear, "Put the baby down!" or "Put Rowie in his bouncy chair!" And my person favorite, "Momma can hold the baby!"

Rowie, as we call him, makes the same Dragon noises Maya did, but he also grunts when he stretches and also when he's trying to poop in his sleep. This makes it hard for us to sleep. His grunts are so sweet. At first when he screamed he sounded like a little screaming eagle, now he sounds like a cat drowning. It is also so sweet.

There is more to tell, but he's a cranky little lad and prone to screaming at this time of night. Currently he weighs over ten pounds, he's my fat baby. Always wanted one of those (Thanksgiving's coming up...)

playing catch up, with ketchup

Sorry I've been a bad poster for the Maya updates. The past few months have flown in some ways (new house, never a moment to myself, extremely hot, etc), and dragged in others (still pregnant, extremely hot, did I mention being pregnant? The second time you want it over two months into it...)

Here are a few highlights that I haven't shown from Maya's summer. Hopefully, I'll do better keeping up with this now that our upstairs isn't 100+ degrees.

First we have Maya in the morning sunlight on one of our first mornings in the new house. She's was my little ragamuffin all summer long. Mommy cut her hair a couple of weeks ago.

Next is Maya enjoying "farklers." Since it was a rainy Fourth of July, and Maya is scared of loud noises (loves music, cries if it's too loud) we just lit "farklers" on the porch. Good enough for her.


At the end of July we went to Vail for the family reunion, we spent the whole time chasing our kids so these are the only photos I got!!
I wanted a better picture of the three little girls playing, but Ella never stops moving. I think when she stops you are so suddenly blinded by her cuteness, so it's better if she keeps moving.

Last, are some pictures from when Chris and Kim and Nika came to Ames for a week and Maya got to spend time with her oldest cousin..whom she called Maisie until we left.






A month later she stills talks about that last day when she "boogie, boogie'd" with Nika. Oh, and now she's obsessed with Scoobie Doo because of Nika as well.

Chicago

Way back in June (sorry, it's been so hot in our little attic/third bedroom, which is a crappy place to keep a computer, that I haven't been up doing photos lately..)

we went to Chicago for a two day trip. Maya is an awesome road tripper, in between talking our ears off she would quietly play by herself. She would put her princess dresses on her fingers and "talk" them to each other. Even in traffic, she was fine..it was mommy that can't handle traffic.
Our first stop was Shedd Aquarium for their "free week." If you have a fear of hot and crowded areas, or are two years old and bored by fish, this is not the thing for you. Maya really wanted to see the penguins but they were not free, and eventually after crying and hating the aquarium exhibits, she enjoyed the gift shop and forgot all about the penguins. This picture is her happy and continent, people watching and gull watching on the hill behind Shedd Aquarium that overlooks Lake Michigan.
Our next stop was the hotel, which Maya loved. She still talks about it..along with the dreaded Rainforest Cafe visit which happened that night for supper. Maya was exhausted, and completely overstimulated by The Rainforest Cafe. All those moving animals, thunderstorms, and for some god awful reason, they stuck us right next to the waterfall. We asked to move, they brought Maya a giraffe balloon (she still talks about it), and she calmed down enough to eat a few bites of food. After dinner we walked across the street to the hotel, and Maya fell fast asleep.

The next morning I took her swimming at the pool and she loved it, and mommy loved being slightly less weight in the water. Here are pictures of Maya on the rooftop patio eating "George Snacks" and enjoying the skyline.

As we headed out of town we stopped at The Brookfield Zoo...and spent five hours there!! Maya was running on a twenty minute nap, and the day just felt too hot and boring for a two year old. Nothing we showed her excited her. But she still talks about "The Dolphin Show". And we enjoyed showing her animals that we can't go see at The Bever Park Zoo (you know, an eighty year old donkey, some goats, chickens, baby cows, ducks, etc).
Maya has this love/hate relationship with Carousel rides. She loves them!! She always wants to go on them!! But if you put her on one, she freaks out and cries!! Luckily, daddy found one that she could sit in with him and not freak out too much. (Recently her Grandma Paula took her to the Coral Ridge Mall Carousel and as she told me about it, "I freaked out momma, I freaked out.")
Exhausted and hot at The Dolphin Show (Monkeys, don't excite Maya...this is near the end of the zoo trip.)

Maya slept as we left the burbs, we woke her up to eat at a Cracker Barrel, and then she talked and talked and talked until 10:30 at night. The film Kyle took of her in the car is probably my favorite memory of the whole trip.

Her favorite things from the trip: The Dolphin Show, The Hotel, The Rainforest Cafe (because what scares us, fascinates us..I guess).