My Little Pony

"Mommy, where's your costume?"

We are gearing up for Halloween tomorrow! Yesterday, since Maya was feeling much better, we went to the Halloween party at the Bouncy House. It was so cute with all the kiddos dressed up! Maya had a great time. I assumed that she wouldn't want to go there in costume, so I was getting it packed up in my bag, so she could change into it when she got there, but she was having none of it, and wanted to wear it all morning. Silly girl. By the time I took it off of her, she was basically soaked in sweat underneath! She didn't care though. I can't wait to take her to the Halloween Fest and then trick or treating tomorrow. She's going to have a blast. She honestly just enjoys going to the supermarket lately, to see the blow up Halloween things, and the witch statues. She's not so scared...
"Mom, these belong to one of the games at the party, but I just want to carry them around."

"No, seriously, I'm keeping these."

"What's lurking around the corner there?"

"Back in my regular duds, and and playing at home."

"Like my glider? I'm really good at climbing in and out of it."

It's Wednesday...

...but I still haven't told you about our weekend! We actually spent a very quick weekend in St. Louis, as Kevin had an interview at WashU on Monday. We were there for about 36 hours, and with 2 overnight stays in a hotel, it didn't make for much time to see friends. We got there late Saturday (about 11:30, St. Louis time), spent Sunday morning at Brie's house with Dave, Owen, Alex, and Brook, and then visited with Beth at Sweet Tomatoes for dinner. On Monday morning, Maya and I met Brook for playtime at the mall, since it was raining. We left town at about 2, and finally arrived home in NH at 12:30 a.m. It was a very exhausting trip, and it definitely took a toll on Maya. She exploded with a yucky cold on Tuesday morning, but is recovering nicely. In the past 2 days (since we've been home), she has slept a lot, and has really been a trooper. She wasn't the biggest fan of flying this time around, so we are looking forward to travelling with her when she can have her own seat. I guess she thinks she too old to hang out on Mommy and Daddy's laps for 4 hours of flights... Go figure.

"On our way to St. Louis, we had a really long delay, so we spent 4 hours at Manchester Airport. They had a Fisher Price play area, which had all these fun toys, just bolted to the floor! I had a blast, and played for 2 hours straight!"

"I played so hard, I missed my nap! Mommy and Daddy were thrilled..."

"Daddy and I love Sweet Tomatoes. Mommy, too!"

"I played at the mall play area on Monday morning, while Daddy had his interview. I really love playing in cars."

Doggie Alert!

We had a very eventful weekend, but I'm going to wait until tomorrow to blog about it. For now, I wanted to mention our day of dogs last week. Grammy spent the day with us in New Hampshire on Thursday, and we ended up going to the kitchen store we like. The owner has a very sweet dog named Lou Lou, and Maya loves playing with her. We've gone there a couple of other times for the sole purpose of seeing Lou Lou. Anyway, later on in the day, we met Kevin for his appointment with the eye doctor. It turned out that one of the receptionists had brought in her 7-week-old puppy to work that day. Now this puppy posed a small problem. He looked strangely like Scuffy, and was just about exactly Scuffy's size. Therefore, Maya immediately tried to put him under her arm, just like she carries around Scuff. This was the first time she's ever tried to pick up a real dog, so I'm guessing she had no idea he was real. The problem was, this little doggie wasn't even remotely interested in being held, so he simply walked away. Maya was not amused... It was a seriously sweet encounter though...

"Hey, Lou Lou! What's up?"

"Can I touch your nose? I like wet dog noses."

"Wait, is this Scuffy?"

"I'll just tuck you under my arm, like my little Scuffster. Ahhhh... That feels just right."

"Don't run away from me! I love you, little teeny tiny doggie!"

"Phew! The nice lady brought back the doggie. Now stay put so I can hold you!"

Bored, but Keeping Busy

I don't know why I find this video at all amusing. I'm sure that when Kevin sees it, he'll tell me it's really boring, but that's okay. The best part is the last 5 seconds, but maybe I just love it because I'm her mommy...

Favorite Part of the Day

When Maya was an infant, she was a huge handful in the evenings. She'd either nurse or fuss nonstop - thus, making our evenings miserable. Now, it's a totally different story. Once Kevin comes home, Maya is like a little entertainer. It's pretty adorable. After a very messy dinner, Maya and Kevin often share an ice cream bar, which is, by far, Maya's favorite thing to do at night. If Kevin says, "Maya, wanna share some ice cream?" she'll run to the fridge and stand there until he opens it. While they share, Maya stands there flirting with us, doing all her little endearing things, that she knows we love.
"Sometimes I reach under Mommy's shirt, so I can pat the baby. Is he going to look like a belly when he comes out?"

"I can't hear you!"

"More, please!"

"Daddy is good at sharing."

"I just finished sharing ice cream with Daddy, and we took off my onesie, because it got very chocolatey."

The Winds are Blowing at the Montshire.

On Sunday afternoon, we took Maya to the Montshire, mostly for lack of anything better to do. I dropped her off with Kevin, and then came back to meet them, after a quick grocery shopping trip. Maya has many favorite parts of the Montshire, but one of them, is this little nook, that has a big tube. It looks like you're supposed to talk into it, but when you lift it to your mouth, it blasts air in your face. Maya absolutely loves it.

"No, seriously, I am loving this."

"OMG! The wind is coming up from behind me now!"

"Oooo. It's a little cold."

"More, please."

"I look so serious, but really, I was deep in thought..."

I Got it!

Maya is very serious about apple picking...

8 Pounds!

Well, we ate 8 pounds of apples last week, so we decided to venture back to the orchards, just to get in one last round of apples. It was amazing, because last week the apples we abundant and perfect, and this week, there were close to none, and most of them were not pretty at all. The fun thing about the trip this week, was that
Maya rode on Kevin's shoulders, and picked most of the apples herself. This was mostly selfish on our parts, as we didn't want to climb any trees to reach the apples, and most were very high up. Maya had a blast, and even found a perfect apple. We only picked 4.5 pounds this time, because there just wasn't a good selection, but it was fun anyway!

"I love when Mom and Dad let me eat while we pick!"

"Don't touch my apple, please."

"Daddy held me up, so I could get a perfect apple."

"Mmmmmmm."

"Time to go. The orchard closes in 5 minutes!"

"I ate almost the whole thing! Then I threw it on the floor. Go figure."

Grampy's Maya B.

I know, I know, we've been missing all week. I do have a couple of very good excuses though. First of all, my dad (Grampy) was visiting for the past few days, and we were having so much fun, we didn't have time to post anything. Second of all, our laptop is having issues. Basically, the power cord broke, so we ordered a new one. When the new one came, it worked for 2 weeks, and then it broke too. We are waiting on a new one, but until then, I have to use the computer in our freezing cold basement. This is not optimal (for many reasons), so I tend to run down here for very quick trips. Anyway, Maya had a great time with Grampy. They watched many a YouTube video of the Mickey Mouse Hot Dog song, and they played and read books the rest of the time. Maya will certainly miss him. We did go to our regular playgroups, just to stay in the routine though. I'm glad, because Maya needs time with her little friends!
"I wore Grampy's hat at the Bouncy House yesterday. Thanks, Gramps!"

"There were hula hoops at playgroup yesterday. The funny thing is, by the time playgroup ended, all the hula hoops were bent out of shape and wouldn't roll anymore. I guess it was a mistake to leave them in the hands of babies..."

"Seriously, Mom - leave us alone while we are surfing YouTube for cartoons. It's not cool to interrupt with your silly camera."

"This is us on a different day, in a different outfit, watching the same video."

"After we watched it about 50 times, Grampy and Mommy said 'all done,'but I wasn't done. I'll never be done watching Mickey. See how sad I was? I got over it quickly - no worries."

"I'm happy again, with my milk and lentil soup. This is the life!"

Wait, You Live in New Hampshire??

So, this is the first weekend that we have felt like we actually live here, in New Hamp. We went to a beautiful, outdoor wedding last night in Massachusetts, but we actually slept at our house ALL weekend! What a shocker! We brought Maya to the wedding last night, which was both good and not so good. She had a great time playing outside, but the problem was that it was really cold, and we just wanted her to play and eat in the tent, with everyone else at the wedding. Oh well. I guess it was too much to ask! Anyway, we are in the middle of a very lovely Sunday afternoon. This morning, we went apple picking at Poverty Orchards. I was worried that it would be too late in the season for good apples, but I was so wrong! We picked 8 pounds of apples, before deciding we had way too many, and cutting ourselves off. We then chose a pumpkin and sampled some hard cider, before paying for our goodies and coming home for lunch. All in all, a great morning. This afternoon, we are going to visit Lucas, who is Amelia and Jonathan's brand new baby. Well, he's a week old, but I guess that still qualifies as "pretty new," right?
"Mommy, Beth sure looks pretty, but she must be freezing!"

"I'm too young to sit still for wedding ceremonies, so I'm playing in the leaves."

"Have you noticed that fall leaves crunch when you step on them?"

"Mommy finally picked me up, so I could see some of the ceremony."

"Daddy tried to keep me quieter with milk and animal crackers. It sorta worked."

"This is me with my 2 little girlfriends that I met at the wedding. Maddie is the older one, and the younger one was too small to tell me her name."

"Maddie kept trying to give hugs, which was nice, but sort of weird, since we're just acquaintances."

"When we got to the apple orchard this morning, I was sportin' my new coat, and I saw a really nice doggie."

"Look! No hands!"

"Mmmmm. Apples..."

"Daddy and Mommy thought the view was nice from the top of the orchard, but I didn't really care, because I had an apple, and was happily munching away."

"You see??! It was so good!"

"Mommy filled up 2 bags of apples. We now have enough for... well... a week or so??"