SO BIG!

Look at how big this kid is getting! She started soccer a couple of weeks ago, and I took this picture last Saturday before her second game. So far she seems to have my athletic skills. I'm very sorry about that. So very sorry.

But you look cute in your uniform, so, yay!

It's not all that bad.

She starts out strong at the beginning of the game, and really haves fun with it. Unfortunately, only 4 or 5 of her teammates have been showing up for the games, so there aren't enough kids to rotate and everyone has to play the whole game. When she gets tired, instead of being the kid that stands in the middle of the field staring at butterflies, she's the kid that slowly wanders after the ball and just looks at the ball whenever someone kicks it to her. She's definitely trying. I'm just wondering what it's going to be like when she starts basketball in a couple of months.

Really Ought To Cut Back On The T.V.

Maya: Can you turn the t.v. on?

Me: No, because you're about to get a bath.

Maya: Awww, snap!

Team Maya

Maya earned Buddy's loyalty pretty early on. If we tickle her and get her laughing, Buddy is next to us in a beat making sure she's ok. If we're chasing her around the house, Buddy is right on our heels, trying his best to knock us to the floor in a valiant attempt to save Maya. He's always looking out for Maya.

And that includes a game of basketball.

He plays a good defense.

First Day of School

My monkey is a kindergartner. I thought it was going to be difficult walking her in for her first day of school, but since she's been in "school" since she was two, it was extremely easy. At least for that first day. I started feeling some apprehension on Wednesday when Maya's teacher reminded us that the kids need to start walking to class by themselves. I would be lying if I said I didn't have to keep myself from blurting out "Do you have kids? Do you really know what this feels like? Why do you assume my 5 year old can walk to class ALL BY HERSELF???" Thankfully I was able to stop myself from being labeled as "that crazy mom."

So, yeah, maybe I could take it down a few dozen notches.

Maya painted and cut out her hand print the night before school. As we were preparing to leave, she announced that she made it for her teacher so she could know how big she was. World's cutest kid? Definitely.

Five

I'm really glad we had Maya's big party during the school year, because I did just as good of a job staying in touch with everyone from her school as I did updating this blog.

It's a wonder I can even remember their names.

So on the big day, we kept things pretty low-key. We spent most of the day in the pool, and Maya's only requirement was about the cake. It had to be exactly as she wanted it.

Maya has her own little cookbook that contains a few cookie and brownie recipes in it. One of the sections shows different ways to decorate the brownies and she wanted her cake to be decorated just like it. She insisted that she had to help with the cake and that really took the pressure off of me when I had to make some substitutions. In the end, the cake was pretty cute and delicious!

What do you think? I think we got fairly close to the picture. There were going to be more M&Ms on the cake, but Maya was in charge of that and for every M&M that went on the cake, one or two (or five) went in her mouth.

I was able to talk her out of one request: birthday brownies. She wanted the cake pictured above, but she also wanted to have brownies so that if anyone wasn't in the mood for cake, they could opt for brownies instead. She thinks of everything.

Summer Birthday, Spring Party

Speaking from experience, summer birthday parties can be a pain. No one is ever in town at the same time, ourselves included. So we thought we would throw Maya a birthday party two months early so that her classmates could come. We also had an ulterior motive. Jason wanted to start offering birthday parties at the store and this would be the perfect dress rehearsal/advertisement. Honestly, I felt a little guilty using my little girl's birthday as a promotional tool, but the whole reason we moved here was to help turn things around at the store. Everyone is making sacrifices, so I decided I would relieve my guilt by making sure this party was extra awesome.

Maya wanted so very, very much to have everyone in her class at her party and I was feeling guilty, so we invited everyone in her class. All 15 of them. Plus one friend from last year who was in a different class, and we had invited 16 kids. Jason convinced me that there would be enough room. He would make enough room. Maya could invite her whole school and he would make sure to accommodate them. I was skeptical, but not worried because they wouldn't ALL come. I have notoriously bad luck with scheduling parties. Conflicts always arise. I just hoped that at least 5 kids would show.

As it turned out, I wouldn't have any idea who was coming until the day before the party.

I made the R.S.V.P super easy. Call or text. You don't even have to talk to me! No human involvement! No problem, right? Whatever. I had to go up to people and ask them personally if they were coming. I have a feeling that they will never forget to RSVP ever again. Don't get me wrong, I didn't want to do it. I would rather chug a gallon of predigested protein (have I told you about that? I'll get to that in another post) than face that many awkward encounters, but you can't throw a party with your guest list being anywhere from 6-17 kids. So as it turns out, there were 9 confirms. 10 kids is alot, but we could handle it, right?

The store doesn't have a party room- the party would be taking place on the sales floor. Awkward? Surprisingly not. Jason set everything up in a quiet area in the back, right in front of fish (that department is not doing so well, so we may as well throw a party!) and we were in our own little world.

Do you see what's weighing down the balloons? Dog bones. How cute is that?

Pawprint cupcakes I made using Oreos and Hershey's Drops. They had me at Oreos.

The whole idea behind the parties is that kids will be able to get up close and personal with all the animals as well as learning about their habitat. The best part? Giving your kids the experience of being able to touch a snake, rat, turtle, bird, ferret, hermit crab or whatever else you can find in the store and not have to deal with it yourself.

Of course, the parents are always invited to get in on the fun.

I. Am. Fearless!!!

(Ok. I did threaten Paul with his life if he let that tarantula go anywhere except across my palm.) The tarantula was the biggest hit. All the kids wanted to look at it and several of them held it. To be completely honest, I didn't hold it until after one of the 5 year olds did.

It wasn't limited to just creepy-crawly critters. They did pull out some bunnies, hamsters, and, of course, puppies. Going into it, I was worried that there wouldn't be enough activities for 4 and 5 year olds, but the kids had a blast playing, poking, and petting all the animals and taking turns with the face painters who, and I cannot emphasize this enough, were awesome.

So awesome! All the kids looked amazing, and the girls were totally into it.

Maya managed to be the only one who was uncomfortable getting her face painted. Even the boys sat still and didn't scrunch up her face.

She was pretty thrilled with the results though.

It didn't take long to figure out that the paint would be very easy to take off.

The face painters presented Maya with a beautiful bouquet of flowers- made from balloons. They were so cool.

Maya kept telling Jason how silly the party was because of all the animals running all over the place. I think my guilt may be gone.

Never Enough Chocolate

The Easter Bunny made his annual home invasion, and normally there is a lot of candy. Sooo much candy. In the basket, hiding around the house, stuffed in the freezer, candy is left everywhere, but this year he did things a little differently.

Instead of a tremendous amount of candy, there were potted flowers, colored eggs, and lovely gifts, but all of those wonderful things didn't keep Maya from expecting candy. Neither did the candy filled basket that Granny and Papaw gave her the day before or the candy filled egg hunt she had at school 3 days before Easter keep Maya from expecting even more candy from the Easter Bunny. One would think that all the wonderful gifts from the Easter Bunny would more than make up for the lack of candy.

Well, one would be wrong.

Luckily the Easter Bunny did leave this little guy stuffed with some chocolate. Smart bunny.

Despite not being made of chocolate, Maya loved her new easel.

Updates!!!

Can you believe that I've been juggling such a ridiculously busy schedule that I was finally able to work in some "blog time" for the first time in like, 6 months? Well, then can you believe that I completely forgot about the blog? OK. Fine. I kept procrastinating until it got to the point that I would much rather hide under the covers than deal with updating this thing.

I should point out that I was able to find the time to do this by putting off my Biology homework. These are the sacrifices I am willing to make.

This year Maya attended her very first Teddy Bear Tea. The adults had standard tea sandwiches while the kids dined on a specially made selection of pb&j, turkey, and ham salad sandwiches.

Every boy and girl at tea were presented with their very own teddy bear.

Even Santa stopped by for tea.

Her basket of desserts. You can't see it because I was taking the picture, but I had the same expression on my face.

Inspecting her food. It didn't take her long to declare it edible.

Maya during her dance recital performance. These were some seriously cute flowers.

Maya's dance recital ended with a special visit from Santa.

Enjoying the snow in Tennessee.

Halloween Recap

This Halloween, Maya was in charge of the pumpkin designs. She decided that she wanted one to be scary and the other happy. Jason did the scary jack-o-lantern, and the next day I was supposed to make the happy one with her. Well, the newspaper happened to have some pictures of really cool jack-o-lanterns that I showed to Maya and she changed her mind. She decided on something a little, nontraditional:

It looked pretty cool all lit up:

Jason's was much creepier:

Maya is our little princess. She loves all things princess, and has memorized every princess movie she has ever watched. Whenever she puts on a dress, she declares herself to be a princess, walking around in her dress-up shoes and tiara. We have picked out her costumes for the past few Halloweens, but this year would be her pick; we were prepared for a princess Halloween. We were in Target, looking for supplies for her Halloween party, when she spotted a costume. THE costume. She new immediately that she had found what she wanted to be for Halloween and wouldn't think of anything else. Maya was so excited when she got to wear it to school:

When she was two, a little boy in Maya's class dressed up as Spiderman and it really scared her; she was afraid of people in masks ever since then. When she held up her costume she said, "Look, I'm not afraid anymore! I'm not afraid of Spiderman. I am Spiderman!"

This kid is totally awesome.

It's Like This, Every Day

Maybe you just have to live in the same house as Maya and Buddy, but I cannot stop laughing at this video.

*Note* This video is of a complete stranger. I do, however, appreciate that everyone who thought it was Maya had no problem laughing their butt off while watching the video over and over. I love that we have that in common.

Yay!

Preschool started this week and we couldn't have been more excited. The past few weeks have been a little hectic since Maya's dance and gymnastics classes ended and left us without some organized play time. Also, my classes started a couple of weeks ago so that's made for a little schedule juggling. But finally Maya went back to school and we get to ease into a new and, hopefully, easier schedule.

This is my monkey's last year before Kindergarten and her school isn't messing around. She had a school supply list that actually had notebooks on it. Notebooks! What I can remember about preschool is play time, story time, singing songs, show and tell, snack, rest time, and more play time. At some point I learned to write my name, but Maya already has me beat on that one.

Charlie decided to be in the school supplies picture. Or rather, I started laying everything on the bed and he wouldn't move because he was hoping for a tummy rub. He has a lot of tummy.

I do believe my little mute may have turned a corner (after adding those links I noticed I seem to have this hope every year). Her teacher's aid is the same one from last year and today she told Jason that Maya is a completely different kid; she's not shy at all. I'm going to assume that the "not shy at all" is just a comparison to the old Maya and not a comparison to your average kid because she still has no problem completely shutting down at random times. To stop that would be asking too much.

Hamsters And Such

This summer hasn't been especially busy or hectic but I still managed to completely ignore the blog. I've been the admin for the Facebook page for Petland and all my extra time and energy has gone into that. You can check it out here.


We recently had a hamster race at the store and I highly recommend that if you get the opportunity to attend a hamster race that you go. It's completely ridiculous. The store was full of kids and their pet hamsters and every race there would be grown men and women cheering their hearts out for their kid's favorite rodent. Some hamsters preferred to race backwards while some were content to just sit there, to the great dismay of its pint-sized owner. Maya was, unfortunately, in the dismayed category. She used a hamster on loan from the store who wasn't at all interested in racing but preferred to just look around and admire the view.

It was really cute to see how intense some of the kids would get. One girl, whose hamster was stalling just before the finish line, wasn't yelling but I wouldn't say she was cheering either. It was more like a loud groan. I think she was probably freaking the poor thing out and it was too traumatized to move.

You Turn 60, You Get A Certificate