He's Growing What?

Owen has been drooling and chewing on everything for the past month and Maya is continually asking what he's doing and why. If I'm standing next to him he'll lean over and chew on my jeans, chew on my feet, chew, chew, chew on just about anything he can get in to his mouth. I have been telling Maya he's growing teeth so she always wants to look. Today I was tickling him and he opened up his mouth to a big ol' silly baby grin and I realized the bottom two teeth have made an appearance! Luckily he hasn't seemed too agitated by the whole process and slept better the 3 nights prior to the teeth appearing than he had...well in his entire 6 months of life. I have to admit it made me sad for a split second...I want to freeze time and keep him, well, my baby(I will keep the sleeping though).

Dress Up!

Tonight we all participated in one of Maya's favorite activities, dress up! Owen was a French Chef...oui oui! Je suis un petit chef (de cuisine)! Then he was a pirate. Maya was a chef then Princess Tiana. I was a pirate and a flower. Chris was a chef but mostly played photographer. Maya loves dress up so we all had fun. Well, Owen mostly tolerated it and chewed on the pots from Maya's kitchen. So much fun!

It's an.....A!

We've been working on letter recognition lately and Chris bought Maya a letter tracing workbook. We have been working on the letter A. Today Maya wanted to draw letters on her aquadoodle pad. Low and behold she drew a recognizable 'A' next to my examples!

The Zoo

We love, love, love the zoo and go often. Well, as the weather permits! We lucked out and were able to go two weeks in a row. One week Maya brought her penguin Penny to meet the penguins at the zoo. Our favorites tend to be the gorillas (because there is a baby in the exhibit), penguins, elephants, giraffes, hippos and a visit to the carousel.

"Singing has always seemed to me the most perfect means of expression." Georgia O'Keeffe

Maya loves to sing. She has always loved music (playing it, singing it, and listening to it). She surprises me by singing whole songs I don't even know she knows. It always makes me smile. She has two Tinkerbell soundtracks that she likes to listen to in the car. The video is of her singing one of her favorite songs to sing in the car. She got a little quiet when the camera came out though. She is usually belting it out and asking us to sing along too. Yes, I know all the words too!

Tents

In an effort to entertain Maya we recently introduced her to building 'tents' in the house with old sheets and blankets. Every time we build one she pretends they are something different. The other day our tent was Tinkerbell's balloon from Tinkerbell and the Lost Treasure complete with a compass (large clock off the wall), baskets and a costume. Some days they are circus tents but this particular tent was just a fort that was built while Owen was taking a nap in an attempt to keep the girls (Maya and her cousin Charissa) downstairs and semi quiet while he got some sleep in.

Marriage

I am officially married to my friend's 2 1/2 year old daughter Emilie...Ok not really. The fact that Emilie decided we were married made me wonder. What it is about this age (2 1/2-3) that makes kids so interested in marriage. Maya has been bringing me a wedding picture which sits on a cupboard in our entry to tell me all about my wedding (she points out who is in the picture, our dresses, our flowers, etc.) then asks about getting married. It's always the relatively same conversation as she tries to digest exactly what marriage is all about but it makes me smile and laugh. She decided one day she would marry me though on most she wants to marry her daddy (she is SUCH a daddy's girl). By the way, Emilie decided she would marry Owen after her mommy told her that I am already taken. (BTW the picture is obviously from my honeymoon....)

Bouncy, bouncy, bouncy

Today we went to the bounce house! Wooooo Hoooo! We have been pent up for just about the entire month of December while Maya, Owen and I all cycled through two colds a piece. It's been a long, long winter already and I am ready for summer. However, with just a cough left for Owen, we decided to venture out with grandpa and Charissa to the bounce house to burn off a month's worth of energy! I love this place and the girls had a blast.