The Fun Days of Summer Vacation

I love summer vacation...I totally love every minute of being home with my baby girl. She is so easy...minus the getting into everything, the attitude and how heavy she's suddenly gotten, she is usually very happy and a joy to spend time with. She's rarely in a bad mood, she's great fun to take places and I just adore spending time with her.

We've had a busy few days together! Maelin has visited Aunt Kat and Uncle Jeff's pool for the first time (she went last year but didn't really enjoy it very much...poor thing was only 2 months old so who can blame her?) and had a GREAT time and then today we went to the Children's Museum which was fantastic!





Here is a few pictures of baby Maelin enjoying her day at the pool. She was very cautious at first but pretty soon was swimming around in her floaty by herself! What a big girl!








Here's some pictures of Maelin exploring the Children's Museum...she had a very busy time...she never stopped moving and got very angry when I tried to pick her up.



We're going back today with my sister and my two nephews who have never been there...can't wait!

Let's Go Green Giveaway!

My great sister is sponsoring a Let's Go Green giveaway on her website. Follow this link to it and you'll be linked to the chance to enter for a great "green" prize package and a wonderful website filled with "green" products...including my favorite: a BPA-free water bottle!

Check it out...you won't be disappointed!

Moving with a Baby

...is not fun. Not in the slightest. Let me try to describe to you what our house looks like right now then I'll put a picture up here and you can try to imagine what we've been going through for the past couple of weeks.

Packing with baby around is a joke. You can't do a darn thing. She's so bloody curious and into everything that the minute you get a box out, she hears it and shoots like a cannon over to the box. As she goes, she stops to examine everything and puts it in her mouth. Not a great idea because as we've been packing, we haven't been as careful about baby-proofing as we should be. Maelin has gotten good tastes lately of tape, letter openers, nails, electrical cords from radios and numerous other things. The other day, she crawled over to the fan and stuck her finger in it before I could get to her to stop her. Oh yes...the fan stopped, made a horrible noise, and she looked at me like, "Mommy...what happened? Why does my finger hurt?" Then a HUGE scream and cry. Thankfully, the fan did not chop her hand off and a lesson was learned by all...note to self: put fan on ceiling so she can't reach it.

Back to packing...on the way over to the box I'm packing up, she crawls up other boxes (think of our small 950 sq. feet place. Then think of it covered in boxes...imagine how much space Maelin has to safely crawl around), and finally gets to me with my box. She gets really mad at me because I won't let her get in the box. Then she gets mad and screams at me because I won't give her the tape. Then she gets in the piles of newspapers we have out for packing and throws them everywhere. Then she pulls out the stuff I have ready to pack and rolls around in it all. At this point, I've decided packing is a total waste of time and I just need to play with this darn child.

Needless to say, packing is hard with Maelin around. So today while I was at work (oh yes, contrary to popular belief, teachers DO work during the summer. I was at a training), Kat babysat and Kevin stayed home to get some baby-free packing done. Jeff and Kat have taken Maelin a few times now so we can work and I honestly don't know what we would have done without their help.

Now back to tonight. Baby wants to play. There is, however, no place for baby TO play in our house anymore because of all the boxes that are stacking up. It's a total danger zone for the poor kid. It's totally stressful for us because we can't take our eyes off of her for a second: last night while I was attempting to make dinner, she crawled away and started climbing up one of the piles of boxes so she could reach the microwave cord that was stacked at the very top of the 5 foot pile!

Bonus in all this? We don't have our air-conditioning set up yet. House was 89 degrees today when I came home from work at 5pm.

Can't wait to move...only 8 more days left! Tell me we'll get through it!



This is a picture of our living room before the move...




This is a picture of our living room tonight. Fun times!

Happy Birthday Christina!

Yay...my friend Christina is 35 years old today!!! (she'll be so thrilled I told everyone her age) :-) She's always been a great friend of our family (ever since we met when she was dating my brother) and we all love her.

Happy Birthday Hon! Glad we got to celebrate and don't forget to pick up your presents this week!















This is a picture of Christina, Kat and I celebrating C's bday at the Funky Buddha last weekend...a great time was had by all!

Maelin's Bathtime

MaeMae has always liked her baths about 90% of the time. From the very first bath we gave her when we got home from the hospital when she was 4 days old (we sponged-bathed her on the coffee table and to be honest...she wasn't real thrilled) to her first bath in the kitchen sink (where she pooed on Aunt Vanessa...one of the funniest things I've ever seen in my life) to the baths we're doing now in the bathtub, she's almost always loved playing in the water.

Her favorite game is to suck the water out of the washcloths. Not sure why this is so good and fun, but it is. She also likes to take her glow-duck (see pic below...it looks indecent but it's not) and drown him. That makes her laugh.

I gave her a bath this morning and she screamed when it was time to get out. She likes to stand next to the tub while I'm filling it up and throw her toys in and point to them and say, "Uhhh..uhhh!" so I take them out again and she starts the whole thing all over again. She's a hoot.

Here's a few pictures of Maelin's baths...she sure is a cutie!



This is Maelin's first bath...doesn't she look like she's enjoying herself??? :-)



This is MaeMae at 2 months in the sink. She loved this...we would just pour water over her for about 20 minutes because she was so happy. We called it "basting the baby."



This is a bit indecent but cute! She's 9 months old here and as you can see, quickly growing out of the kitchen sink. Almost time to move her to the tub.





Aaaahhhhh...this is just a few nights ago. You can see how happy she is in the big-girl tub and how much she loves it. Isn't it crazy how quickly kids change and grow?

Tea and Weddings and Fun Times

I love weddings. I love how happy people are during that time, I love the pagentry, I love the ritual and I love the parties! Most of my friends are already married so my wedding days are quickly drawing to a close. I get to be part of Katey and Jeff's wedding in September and I'm super excited about that and then that's about it! Pretty soon everyone will start having babies and then I get to lead the Baby Shower train... :-)

Today I helped host a tea party shower for my friend Kelly who's getting married in July in Oregon. It was really nice! We had an amazing spread of food (see pictures below and drool...) and everyone had a very nice time. Kevin got to stay with baby and they played and destroyed the house pretty well.

I wish weddings didn't happen just once...I wish we could all have them every few years! Or at least big parties (that somehow a genie comes and pays for it all!) where we get to get all dressed up and carry flowers and dance all night.

Weddings are just so much fun...I should be a wedding planner: I'd make more money :-)

New House...We Think!

I think we're finally figuring everything out and getting ready to move into our new house! We had the inspection done on the new place and although there was a few things wrong with it that we wanted fixed, the sellers agreed to give us a $6,000 credit (they put the money in an escrow account where it sits till we pull it out to do the repairs) to fix everything.

The money should cover the major things we wanted fixed: the roof, the electrical system, the swamp cooler and the fireplace. The other little things we can take care of ourselves. We know a great handyman so it's just a matter of getting him out there to start working on the place.

After we figured this out, we found out that the mortgage that we had originally qualified for in May changed on June 1 so we could no longer afford it...interest rates went up. So yesterday we totally scrambled with our mortgage guy to figure something out that we could afford. I think we finally did. We have to put more money down than we had originally wanted to but it will be okay.

This has been sooooo stressful. On top of all the uncertainty of whether or not we're getting the house, whether or not our buyer of our place still wants it, our mortgage issue, we've been trying to pack with our little tornado (MaeMae) wandering around! Have you ever tried to pack with a 14 month old in the house? Let me tell you, it's impossible. She tries to get into the box. Then she tries to pull everything out. Then she gets mad and screams. Then she tries to push the box over. Then she eats the newspapers you're using for wrapping stuff up. Then she gets mad because you won't give her the tape.

Suffice it to say, we haven't gotten much packing done...and we close on both houses 2 weeks from today!!!! Scary but exciting.

We are SO SO SO sad to leave Denver. We love it here but we're very excited to finally have a livable basement, a garage, a yard and two bathrooms!!!

If you're in the neighborhood, come by to help pack! Or to lock up the little tornado...

Our 4th Wedding Anniversary

We've been married 4 years today! It's crazy because we met in 2001 so we've been together for much longer than we've been married. 4 years doesn't sound like as long as we've been together!!

Our anniversary this year is going to be rather slim. We did get to go out to dinner on Saturday night. Aunt Kat and Uncle Jeff baby-sat for us and we went to Laudisio Resturante in Boulder for dinner. It was nice and yummy but a bit pricey. We aren't used to paying those prices anymore!

I'm trying to think back to our wedding day to remember it but it already seems so long ago! I remember a hummingbird hovered over us during the ceremony and that was really magical. I remember how happy everyone was. I remember a blizzard coming in and all my family running out to take a picture in the whirling snow (where is that picture, by the way? I never got a copy of it!) I remember how darn pretty it was up in the mountains in early June...just gorgeous. I remember finally going to bed around 5am and listening to the party still going on (we got married in Idaho Springs at a B & B and we were able to rent out the whole place so people were able to spend the night and not worry about driving.) I remember how happy we both were.

It was a great day. Here are a few pictures from our wedding...exactly 4 years ago!



This is a picture of my siblings and I...




Kevin and I



More of Kevin and I...I love how happy we look



This is a picture of the actual ceremony



This is my brother walking me down the "aisle"



This is a picture of our wedding party. We had my 5 cousins who were adorable!

Lost in Translation

I think this incident speaks for itself...

Here is a copy of an email I had to write our neighbor last Friday. It made me laugh so hard while I was writing it and telling a few friends about it that I thought y'all would enjoy it as well:

Hi Dan,

It's Mara, your neighbor from #2. This is probably going to go down as the weirdest email you've gotten in a while, but hang with me till the end of it.
Your cleaners are stealing our flowers and eating them. I laugh as I write that, but it's true.

Two Fridays ago I saw them out in our yard and in Anne's yard picking a bunch of our Sweet Peas that hadn't bloomed yet...the buds. I went out there and asked what/who are they and what are they doing in our yard? They said sorry: they were very sweet and said they make a soup or something out of them??? I said okay but stop taking them because we want them to bloom. They said sorry and it wouldn't happen again.

Then this morning one of them knocked on our door while the other one was picking more from Anne's yard and asked if they could take the rest of them. I came out and they had cleaned out Anne's buds and most of mine were gone as well. I told them no...please stop taking our flowers (this was as the other one kept picking and was ignoring me). She said sorry, the other lady just really liked eating them.

I know it sounds crazy and petty but if you get a chance, can you leave them a note or call them and tell them to not take the buds from Anne's and our yards? We'd appreciate it.
Told you this would go down as the weirdest email/favor ever!! :-)

Hope you're enjoying your summer...I'm going to go plant flowers!! :-)
Mara

p.s.....Dan came to me totally embarrassed and asked if he could pay for the missing flowers. I said no, of course not and he said he would talk to her.

I wonder if the soup is good????

Our Little Reader

I love books. I love to read. That is a gift my mom gave all of us kids when we were little. The rule always was...we could stay up as late as we wanted as long as we were quiet, in bed and reading. I remember many nights where I would fall asleep with my books (even before I could read) with the light on only to wake up the next morning with my books carefully laid on the floor, the light off and all tucked in. (thanks Mom!!)

I am always in the middle of at least 2-3 books. If you scroll down to the bottom of this blog, you'll even find a few of my all-time favorite books. My sisters love to read and so does my brother. Kevin is a good reader as well but as his free time is somewhat limited these days, he takes a bit longer to get through the latest Harry Potter or Jared Diamond novel.

I really, really, really want Maelin to love reading as much as I do. I firmly believe that it's the building block for all good things in learning and in life. If she's a good reader and enjoys doing it, she'll be more successful in grammar...English will be a cake walk for her because she'll be familiar with the parts of speech. She'll be a much better writer because she'll know how the sentences are supposed to be formed and what makes a competent paragraph. She'll be more knowledgeable in math, science, folklore, history and all sorts of other subjects because of the many stories she'll have read. Study after study says that if a child is a good reader (ie: at grade level) by 3rd grade, that child has a great chance of being a successful student throughout their school career.

Anyway, I spent a great deal of money this year furnishing Maelin's personal library. She is lucky that she has an Elementary School Teacher for a mommy...I joined the preschool, the Kindergarten, and the 1st grade reading book club. I get books for 75% off the sticker price, I don't pay taxes on them and I get bonus points. I got enough this year to get a free "kid-sized" couch for our home library I'm going to set up in our basement!!

So the poor kid is barely 14 months old today and boy, does she have some expectations put on her already!! The child probably has 1,000 books by now...everything from cloth baby books to the chapter books I loved as a child (Where the Sidewalk Ends, Judy Blume, Ramona, etc...). Now if only she'd learn to read already...

We're off to a great start. I don't know if it's in her genes from her Nana Linnie (Grandma Lea loves to read too so she gets it from both sides of the family), or because she's naturally curious or because she's humoring me, but I don't care what it is...the kid LOVES books.

She loves to open and close them. She loves to be read to. She loves to open the book and point out all the pictures to you and she waits for your reaction. She spent 48 minutes (I timed her) the other day "reading" the same 2 books over and over again. I'm so excited. The gift of loving to read is priceless. I've had so much experience with struggling readers and it's heartbreaking...I couldn't be happier that she's showing such an interest in books now.

Here's a couple of pictures of our little reader. We'll have to set up a proper library for her in the new house!

Good-bye Baby Carseat!

Maelin is growing up so quickly...I can hardly believe she's a "toddler" and not a baby anymore. Nothing illustrates that better than the fact that she outgrew her baby seat that she came home from the hospital in and went EVERYWHERE in for the first 13 months of her life. We had to clean it, wrap it and pack it away. Get a load of these pictures showing just how quickly our little girl is growing up...


This is a picture of MaeMae as we came home from the hospital on April 8, 2007...


This is MaeMae two weeks ago in the same carseat...


I love the fact that she's growing and thriving but darn it! It's going way too fast! Where is my little baby? I like this poem that my friend Kate told me about. It explains why my house is always dusty!






Cleaning and cooking can wait 'till tomorrow

For babies grow up, as we've learned to our sorrow.

So quiet down cobwebs, dust go to sleep,

I'm rocking my baby, and babies don't keep.

Lazy Days of Summer

I love summer vacation. I LOVE it. Instead of rushing off to work and leaving Maelin w/ Sandra for 9 hours, I get to spend every day with my sweet girl and watch her learn, play and grow. She's so much fun!

Right now she's busy in her room pulling out all her diapers from the dresser. (sigh...) She's having a great time. We spent yesterday at the park (Maelin loves the swings!), doing a few errands and just reading books and hanging out. It's great.

Today we're going to the zoo! It'll be Maelin's first trip so I'm very excited to see how she likes it. We're getting a zoo pass if it goes well.

I'll keep you posted. I love not working!!! 9 1/2 weeks still left!!