Things to Do Inside, When It's Too Cold To Go Outside

Find days when the Art Musuem is free and let Maya run around...away from priceless Grant Wood and Marvin Cone paintings. ("You can't take pictures in there!"..."Well, I'm not leaving my camera in the coat room!"..."You can't carry a backpack (camera bag) either!".."Are you afraid I'm gonna steal a painting??!!? Then she got embarrassed, safety reasons for the art she says..) This picture is Maya seeing little kids and saying "I'm gonna get ya!" and then running away.
For some reason she plopped right down in the gift shop (where you can have back packs even though it's jam packed with breaky things) and worked at this table with this magnet toy, not for sale anywhere in the store. (In fact, no toys anywhere for sale? Who wouldn't buy a Grant Wood doll?) She worked on it for fifteen minutes until we had to leave.




Also pretend that you and Elmo are sleeping in a box.

Let Daddy put in Piggies which you pull out three to five minutes later. But they sure are cute!

Snow Days

So, everybody knows it's been cold as a blankety blank in a blanken blank right? And we all know how this affects our adult cabin fever right? Can I just say, that it's got to be ten times worse for little kids? Especially little kids that love to be outside?Maya sometimes cries because she can't go outside. When it's below zero, there's not much we can do. But here are some pictures of her first time really playing in the snow. She loved it and really wanted to go sledding!

She couldn't figure out how snow sticks to her mittens and it was like she was saying, "How does it stick to my mitten?"
"It's still there!"
"What the?, it's still there?"


In other Maya news, she's gotten really into imaginative play and uses Mommy and Daddy (leads us by the hand) as her subjects in these play times. ("Dadda, sleep now.") One of her favorite games, no joke, she made it up herself, is "Hide and Go Boo." We hide, and she comes and finds us and we jump out saying "boo!") There's nothing cuter than having a little girl grab you by the hand and say, "Hide and Go Boo Mamma?" She loves aggressive physical play, horsey rides, wrestling, tickling,chasing, she laughs and laughs.

She's stopped being obsessed with tv! She'd rather play! (Still loves Sesame Street and Yo Gabba Gabba, but the figures and stuffed animals she has are her replacement for watching hours of the shows.)

She still has this amazing vocabulary and uses long sentences. It's also equally adorable to hear long sentences with that little voice. ("Grandma's coming to get me. She's gonna get me.") And she's ultra adorably polite. "Thank you, Dadda." "Your welcome, but I'm not Dadda I'm Momma." "Pease, more Mamma Dadda?"

She has so far, successfully used her potty three times. She'll just ask to sit on it, (I go poopie.") and peed all three times. She loves the part when you flush it, she says "bye bye poopie" cause one time her cousin Lili went on the potty and said that. She also likes to sit on her potty and make farting noises thanks to her daddy's readings of her books about pottying. Actors. Even when reading books about using the potty, they're still acting.

Has the Lamb Stopped Screaming Clarice?

What you see in these pictures is a happy sweet little girl who says "Cheese" and squints her eyes when you take a picture of her. She loves to paint, a lot. She loves to run "fast" as she says. She loves noodles. She loves milk. She loves to dress like "Maisie". She says the cutest things. She's adorable as can be.

But oh, my, god. She is driving us crazy. She has serious tantrums about going to sleep. You give her the milk, she falls asleep, you put her in cribie. SHE WAKES UP AND SCREAMS, and you say "it's night night time, night night love." ARMS OUT SCREAMING. She will not back down, she will scream and cry and wipe boogers on her face for as long as you can possibly stand it. I fear we have created a monster. A screaming, milk guzzling, non sleeping, not eating, stubborn monster. I think she needs an intervention.

And I need a drink.

Christmas in Ames

Finally I've sifted thru the photos I took in Ames and they are all, except for a few here and there, photos of babies.
HIZZAH it's Christmas ol' chums.
two days apart.
Two hours to get ready every morning. It works as Shauna is pointing out in this photo. (That's why there are no photos of me, cause it's like two minutes of getting ready)

Riley and Max

She totally pushed Maisie off the piano bench with her feet. Sully and his Daddy
Grandma Jo and Ella
The Mustache That Saved Christmas, I saw it on Hallmark, I lived it in Ames.


Riley has an uncomfortable smile. I love it.

Chris and Kim
Aaron and his baby boo

Christmas in Ames. Went by like a blur, and all I really remember is holding babies, chasing my baby, holding a baby and watching a baby, looking at babies, babies, babies babies...I missed a lot of photographic moments *opening presents* because I was so busy with my baby and all these other babies.
Can you blame me, I mean come on, there's this one who slept most of the time. Making him incredibly nice to snuggle with.
Then there's this one, who spends a lot of time awake and sometime yelling but always incredibly alert like he's writing his memoirs already or something.
Or it's gas. Either way it's cute.

And then there's this one. *sigh*

I know what you're thinking. And I asked, they just refuse to give her away. Seriously, I know my baby is cute, but this is the cutest, sweetest little baby I have ever had the pleasure of wanting to steal. And eat. Look at her, she wants Maya's cookie so bad...It took A LOT of strength not to steal them both. I regret my decision everyday. LOOK AT HER!! She's a doll. And Sully is zen baby here.

And I cannot forget this guy, who is the best kid ever.

Except when he conspires with this one......And they won't let this one...

(yeah, they won't let Kyle play with them..so cruel. He cried, A LOT)
follow them around like the rock stars they are. Like it really bothered her. She still talks about them and if she sees little girls in the grocery store, "Maisie??" And little boys, "Max???" They are like her freakin' heroes man.

Max really wanted me to take a picture of this, but I kept tricking him into talking so I could get those GQ poses earlier. So I'll end with



A SCARY GHOST FACE!!!!!!!