SURPRISE!!

Today we got a special surprise from mother nature...about 2:30 this afternoon, I looked outside and saw SNOW falling. It was awesome! Stewart had just gotten home from work, and it didn't take long, until Maya asked to go out and "see snow." So Stewart bundled Maya up, and she and I took a windy, cold and blustery walk around the block.

Leaving our house. Good thing for my back, that once we started down the driveway, Maya wanted to walk on her own.

"Look mommy, Maya make boot prints in the snow."

"Snow falling fast. Let's make more boot prints."

Maya loved watching the cars drive by. Every time a car passed, she would get all excited and say, "car made tracks in the snow mommy."

Since the snow was blowing so hard in our faces, I suggested that we walk backwards. Maya thought this was so cool. When I suggested that we turn around and walk normally, she said, "Maya like walking backwards, it's funny mommy!"

As we were approaching our home, Maya asked if I could make a letter in the snow. I made lots of O's, M's, A's, C's, and B's. Every time, I got done with one letter, Maya was quick to ask for another.

When we got home, Maya wanted to see her turtle sandbox. We walked up our driveway and she said, "take lid off to see if sand has snow on it?" I had to do a lot of convincing that the sand wouldn't have snow on it, because the lid was on the sandbox. Luckily, I did a good job, because a few minutes later, she said, "Maya go inside and see my baby." (She now calls baby Brooklyn, Maya's baby)

After getting our wet clothes off, daddy put on Dr. Seuss's Horton Hears a Who. Daddy had a great time cuddling up with Maya.

I went out a few hours later and this is what our house looked like. There was a good 4-5 inches!

Daddy will have to get up a few minutes early tomorrow morning to clear his car off.

When I put Maya down for bed tonight, she looked out her window and said, "I am going to go sledding in the morning on Maya's snow." I kissed her goodnight and said, "we will have to see if the snow melts or not." Maya was quick to say, "snow won't melt at Maya's house." I hope it won't, or we will have one very unhappy girl. The forecast is for the snow to turn to rain. We will have to wait and see.

A NEW FAMILY TRADITION.....

A couple of weeks ago, I was at the store and I overheard a lady telling her young little girl (maybe a year or so older than Maya) that they were going to start a new tradition at their home. I was very curious what she was going to show her, so I walked a little closer to them and saw that she was picking up a gingerbread house kit. I smiled at the lady and said, "great idea." I then walked away and continued my shopping. A few minutes later, I caught myself smiling and thinking that it would be an awesome tradition to start at our house. When I finished shopping, I went back over to the gingerbread house display and picked one up. I was so excited. When I got home, I told Stewart, "I would like to start a new family tradition." I pulled the gingerbread house kit out and smiled. He quickly replied, "have fun, I bet Maya will love it."

So, last weekend, I pulled it out. It was a rainy weekend, and I figured that it would be a great time to make it....

Putting the frame of the house together. Maya liked putting the frosting (or what I called "glue") on the pieces.

Holding the frame together. I had to keep reminding her not to push to hard!

While waiting for our roof to dry; Maya and I decided to try the frosting.

Working to put candy on the other half of the roof. I put the "glue" on and Maya chose the candy and the colors.

Putting the buttons on our gingerbread man.

Decorating the tree.

After two days and about 10 hours, we finally finished.

Check out the funny headband that Maya is wearing. When she wears it, she likes to say, "Maya is a cool dude!"

The front of the house.

One side of our house.

The back of the house.

The other side of the house.

The gingerbread men, our tree and our pathway leading to the front door.

What daddy thought of the whole project!

I am looking forward in doing it again next year, but I am hoping (just hoping) that something will be different:

That daddy will help a little more and be a little more excited about it when we are done!

And the emmy goes to....

Brooklyn! Yep that's right. I think we have an actress. The other night, Stewart and I put Maya down to sleep and decided to watch TV. During one of the commercials, we noticed Brooklyn was asleep but moving around like CRAZY! We watched for a few minutes, before we ran to get the camera.

"Could you please turn off the light?"

"Don't even think about taking my binky!"

"Phew, what a busy day. Sleeping, eating and pooping is exhausting!"

"Alright, I surrender. I will let you take this one picture, but that is it!"

"Someone in this room passed gas and didn't say excuse me. Who was it?"

"Thanks a lot mom, I think you gave me your headache."

An actress or not, we have absolutely fallen in love with Brooklyn. Maya has done really well with the transition and can't stop touching and kissing her. In return, Brooklyn loves looking at Maya.

Happy Thanksgiving

From our family to yours, hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving! This year is extra special because not only do Stewart and I have another beautiful daughter, but Maya has a little sister. Things with us are busy as we are trying to adjust to our new "normal" life.

"Big sister Maya hold baby Brooklyn"

The time has come.....

to introduce you to our newest daughter Brooklyn Nicole. Brooklyn was born on October 4, 09 in Philadelphia. Five days after she was born, we all three traveled back to Philly to meet her. It was love at first sight! She weighed 7lbs 2 oz's and 19 inches long. She was born with brown hair and brown eyes. We were told before we flew out to meet her, that the paperwork was going to take a few weeks to complete. There was no way possible for us to stay for weeks, but we went for a few days. We had such a wonderful time meeting and bonding with Baby B. It was very hard to fly home without our newest daughter, but it was what we had to do. The next few weeks were difficult, but we stayed focused in getting our home ready and preparing Maya for when we got the call to come and get her.

Here are pictures of our first visit with Brooklyn in the hospital...

Mommy holding Baby B for the first time.

Daddy in seventh heaven! This was his first time holding Brooklyn.

I was able to give Brooklyn a bath. (Mommy couldn't stop crying). As Maya said, "mommy has happy tears!"

Mommy and Brooklyn had "quiet bonding" time. This was one of our favorite pictures.

Daddy enjoyed feeding baby B.

Brooklyn couldn't take her eyes off of daddy.

The next batch of pictures will be when I went to pick up Brooklyn. Stay tuned.....

If you haven't heard yet........

we have adopted another baby. Yep, that's right. Maya is going to be a BIG sister! Baby girl Brooklyn was born on October 4, 09 and we saw her in the hospital a few days later. She was born in Philly and the paperwork has taken so long! We just got the "all clear" last Friday, and our new baby girl will be joining our family early next week. We are all so excited and can't wait! It has been a VERY LONG 3 weeks!

Maya showing off one of her new shirts that her Auntie Jen bought.

If you couldn't read what the shirt said, here is a close-up.

"Baby Brooklyn coming to Maya's house!"

We will keep you posted......

Maya's 2 Year Pictures

Every year around Maya's birthday, we go and have professional pictures taken. We just got them back and we love them! Here are some of our favorites! It is so hard for us to believe that Maya is 2!!

Maya, your smile makes us smile.

We love you!

Build A Bear

Maya for her birthday received a very generous gift certificate to Build A Bear from her cousins Emily and Ellery. So last week, we decided to go. Neither Stewart or I had ever been to Build A Bear, so we were not quite sure how the process worked. After getting the download on what and how we do it, we went to work! The lady that was helping us told us that the hardest decision was going to be picking out the animal. She was right! As Maya was busy pulling all the animals out of the bins, Stewart and I ultimately had to decide for her. Stewart wanted the funny animals, and I wanted only soft ones. So, in the end, we agreed on a funny monkey and a very soft bear. (Our certificate allowed us to get two animals). Now that the animals were decided, it was off to the stuffing machine. Oh, before you stuff your animal, you need to decide if you want sound or not. We chose no sound. So we were now hard at work stuffing our animals. After a little convincing from the employee of the store, Maya was helping to step on the pedal to stuff. Our next decision was picking a heart out. Our choices were either a red plaid or plain red. Maya chose plain red for both of them. The lady then asked Maya to put the hearts between her hands, rub them together, tap them to get the hearts started and then kissed them before she placed them in the animals. A process that should have taken only a few minutes lasted for over 10! It was now time to give them a bath. This was the ultimate highlight of our adventure! Maya had a great time, and she spent a good 20 minutes washing and brushing them. The sound of the dryer and the air coming out was awesome. Maya kept saying, "more bath for monkey, more bath for bear." Thank goodness a little boy finally came up and needed to wash his bear, and it was for us to move on. It was now time to name the animals and Stewart and I were undecided on what to name these characters. As you can imagine, Maya was no help to us at this point. Any name that we asked her, she said, "Maya like." A couple minutes later, I had this great idea to name the bear chocolate and the monkey magnificent as the names sounded good to me! I finished up entering the information into the computer, when I noticed that Maya and Stewart were back at the washing station. The sales lady had to finally convince Maya to help her put a bow tie on the monkey and ribbons on the bear. Minutes later, we were on our way out of the store with Maya carrying two boxes; one in one hand and the other in the other hand. When we got to the car, she just wanted to hold them. We took the animals out of their boxes and went home. Ever since that night, these two animals take priority on her bed. Maya has since renamed them.....Sweet Tooth the bear and Handsome the monkey. We are not sure how she came up with these names, but Stewart and I love them.

Here are our pictures....

Unfortunately, we didn't get pictures of Maya pulling the animals out of the bins.

Maya stepped on the pedal to help stuff her bear. At first she was very hesitant. We think it was the noise of the machine.

Maya placed the red plain heart inside of her bear.

This time there was no fear to stuff her monkey.

She rubbed and tapped on the red heart that she picked out for her monkey.

She then placed the heart inside of the monkey.

"Washing bears legs." She loved the scrub brushes.

"Maya wash feet." If this bear would have been human, it would have turned into a prune!!

"Maya take home brushes?" Maya was a little disappointed that the brushes needed to stay at the store. We did tell her that we could come back and visit them. She seemed ok with that.

"Mommy help Maya wash monkey." How could I resist!

Mr. Monkey was scrubbed VERY clean.

"Bye bye animal store."

On our way home...

Maya and her new friends!

Thank you Emily and Ellery for the awesome birthday gift. We had a fabulous time at Build A Bear. Ummm..maybe we will get you guys gift certificates at Build A Bear for your birthdays??!!