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

At Least She Knows Not To Run With Them

A couple of months ago I decided that Maya could use a little help with her scissor skills after noticing that she was struggling at school. I found a workbook that had cutting exercises and some projects that I thought she would enjoy and help her to be more comfortable working with scissors. No big deal. Quite boring actually.

I probably should have kept looking when the only scissors I could find for preschoolers cut as well as my own. But, I didn't. No, I knew that she would only be using the scissors while I was right there next to her, under complete adult supervision. And that's what we were doing when she sat on my left and I was looking to the right and she decided to do this:

I am now on the lookout for the safety scissors I used in kindergarten. The kind that couldn't even cut through construction paper.

Happy Mother's Day!

Me: Maya, you're so cute I could eat you up!

Maya: Ewww. You don't eat people, that's yucky. You eat food, Mommy.



Noted.

Hey There!

Wow, I have not been doing well with my posting lately. I'll see if I can improve that, but no promises.

Things heard around the house:

One day after preschool-

Maya: I went on a God hunt today.

Nana: You did! Did you find him?

Maya: Nope.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The other morning-

Maya: Daddy, where did you buy me?

Jason: I didn't buy you anywhere.

Maya: No. Where did you buy me?

Jason: Where did I buy you?

Maya: Yeah.

Jason: If I bought you can I return you?

Maya: . . . .

Maya: Can I have breakfast now?

Happy Easter!

The quality is lacking with this video since it was taken on Jason's phone, but the cuteness is still pretty clear.

Finally!

Alligators. In the wild. Exciting!

These were taken a couple of weeks ago at a local wildlife refuge. Does that still count as "in the wild"? Let's all agree that it does; at least until I stumble upon one that I didn't have to pay to see.

Captiva

I finally made it to the beach after being here for almost 2 months. It was cold, but a front was coming in so there were some rarely seen waves (3-4ft) with a few desperate determined people attempting to surf them.


That's pretty much it. I really don't have anything to say with this post except, haha suckers!

Ferris Wheels And Cotton Candy

We stopped by the fair this year and this was the first time Maya went on all the rides. We wanted to wait until she was old enough to request them herself in the hope of saving some money and grief. It is this same logic that keeps her clueless to the existence of Chucky Cheese. We've made it 3 years, let's see how long we can go!

But with all the stress associated with a big move we decided to introduce her to the fun of carnival rides a little sooner than planned.

We went all in: wristbands, lunch, petting zoo, cotton candy, and elephant ears (that one was mostly me). We had a fun time and we learned a few things; Jason discovered that he can't handle the teacup-like rides like he used to and I got my butt kicked by that stupid swing ride. I swear, I was walking crooked for like 5 minutes after I got off of that thing.

In Case You Had A Craving

We've been enjoying wandering around our new city and pointing things out to Maya that she may have never seen before, like octopus-in-a-bag. Now before you ask, I do not know if $3.99/lb is a good price.


If you feel you are not in the market for octopus may I interest you in some frog legs, gator meat, or squid tubes? Alas, I do not have a picture of the squid tubes. I only had the courage to take one picture and my choice was octopus-in-a-bag. I only hope I will not live to regret my choice.

What Ducks REALLY Do When They Fly South

Happiest golden retriever ever.

Interesting Wildlife

Maya found a willing participant to her grocery game.

It's been a few weeks now, but we moved to Florida! And true to form, we lost track of time and didn't bother to tell the majority of people until after we had unpacked. Sorry about that.

I had learned my lesson after our move to South Carolina and decided that this time, Maya was driving. No, she can't see over the steering wheel but, hey, neither can a lot of Florida drivers. I think the state is pretty lenient on that sort of thing. So while she weaved through traffic like a college student on a bender, Jason and I enjoyed a leisurely drive to Florida. It's really the only way to move with kids.