Maia's 3rd Birthday Party

We had Maia's birthday party on Memorial Day weekend. Surprisingly, most of her friends were there. However, the pizza almost didn't show up. We ordered pizza from Costco and after 2 hours of Joe being on the road and having gone less than 2 miles, we had to ditch the Costco idea and order delivery. Luckily Joe was thinking and ordered pizza about an hour into the traffic. Pizza got to us before Joe did. But the rest of the party turned out fairly well. We had a pinata- one of those pull-string kind but now we know not to get one of those again. ;) We thought it would be the safe way of doing it, and it was also Maia's decision to get the Elmo pinata when we first moved here about 2 months ago. Anyway, here's a video of the pinata.

We had cupcakes:

And presents. And that was it. We were going to go play at the playground but it was a little too cool. I think Maia had a great time. She got to pick out her pinata (Elmo), her plates (Cars and Minnie Mouse), her napkins (Dora and Minnie) and cups (Tinkerbell). Very eclectic. Love that little Maia girl.

Maia's 3rd Birthday

Here are some pics of Maia's bday at home on her actual bday.

My cute girls in their jams.

Maia's rockin' cake that I made...that's why it was so good.

Maia's new table and chairs from Gpa Fin and Lainie. And her new tea set from Gma Lin.

All the stuffed animals were invited.

Maia's Minnie Mouse Princess ears from the bday card from Gpa Fin and Lainie.

The cake before it was eaten.

BIG HAPPY SMILE for the BIRTHDAY GIRL!

It was Maia's choice what to have for dinner. What did she want? A bowl of canned Cambell's Chicken Noodle Soup... the Princess version. Easy for me.

I took Maia to Chuck E. Cheese during the day. She loves the rides.

Here's the best part. Her excitement for her bday song. :)

I wrote this in July (just a little late). Happy birthday to my Big Girl Maia! We love you so much and are so grateful to have you in our family. We are so blessed to have you as our firstborn and we just love you to pieces. We love your happy spirit, your incredible imagination, your cute humor, and your sweet kisses that you give. We love that you are so nice to your sister, that you are so willing to share with her and protect her. You even give her your own favorite rainbow blanket to calm her when she's crying. You are a true artist, have an amazing memory for things, and pay attention to detail. You can draw people with eyes (iris and pupil), eyebrows, nose, mouth, cheeks, hair, ears and glasses! You are a quick learner and we enjoy hearing you quote movies and dialogue. You'll even re-enact a lot of scenes like from Little Rascals and Tangled.

You still love your snow puppy and rainbow blanket. You love your baby that you have named "Toot" that is dressed in pink but it a boy. You like showers now more than baths. You like to help mom make stuff in the kitchen. You still play with your food A LOT and pour water all over your plate and tray. You squish things with your hands and "wash" your hands with all your leftover food and paint the high chair tray. You like to dip food in sauces and can eat straight up butter, or any kind of salad dressing or sauce. You love fruit- especially strawberries and blueberries. You are warming up to sandwiches and quesadillas. YAY for me! On most mornings you ask if daddy is still here. You love your daddy. You're bummed when he is at work. You love Special Agent Oso, Jake and the Neverland Pirates, and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on the Disney Channel. You like to do your "three special steps" and reenact what Special Agent Oso does- especially the jump rope one. Every night before bed, we will dress you in new jammies (since you're already wearing a pair of jammies from nap time and then have soiled from eating dinner), have you use the potty, brush your teeth, read you 2 stories that you pick out (which is different every night), and then sing "Whenever I Hear" along with the book. You have named the girl in the book Addy and her cat is named Hootie and the frog is named Hodda (or something like that). You always ask us to sing it fast. You think it's funny. In your crib you must have puppy, baby, Peach (rabbit from Easter), and Snow Bear along with your rainbow blanket, a sippy of water, and a book or two to read to snow pups. Mickey, Goofy, and Moosey, Christmas Bear (once in a while), make it in the crib occasionally. You love it when you have a million stuffed animals in your crib. Daddy doesn't like it as much. Too many things.

You like to play with your table and chairs and rearrange the chairs to make a "car." You set the chairs up two by two in front of my old cedar chest and stick your plastic keys into the lock hole of the cedar chest as part of your car. You also stack a bunch of toys on the cedar chest as if it's the trunk of your car. You are always driving to an "adventure" as you say. Your room has been renamed "the jungle" and often times you say you are "going on an adventure to the jungle." You crack us up. You still sleep in your crib because we haven't gotten you a big girl bed yet but you don't mind. You are patient and haven't tried to climb out of your crib. Every morning you sit up in your crib and yell, "I'm awake! I'm awake!" and when we come in to get you, you say, "I'm awake! The sun is awake!"

You like to play games! Any kind of game. Board games like the Ladybug game or the Bees game. You like puzzles and Go Fish. You like to play stop & go and pretend stuff like store. You make me buy stuff and then you check me out at the register. We take turns buying and checking out. Lately you like to pretend that your room is your house and you always want me to "come over to your house" and play. I knock on your door and you invite me in. Your manners are exceptional.

For the longest time you would only watch Monsters Inc., Cars, or Little Rascals (aka Kids and Dogs). You have really broadened your movie choices. You like to watch Snow White, Pete's Dragon, Tangled (although it took you a while to really watch it because you didn't like Mother Gothel), Sleeping Beauty, Alice in Wonderland, and some other classics. You like to try some new ones once in a while.

You love to go to the playground here. You could go there every day just to swing on the swings. You like to play in the play room and you like to play with your friends. You have nice friends. Your nursery friends are: , Porter Evans, Jonah Benson, Emmeline Shumway (moved to Spanish branch), Honey and Avery Miller, Kaihe Allen, Gavin McEwen, and Jaclyn Mangelson, Charlie Adams. Logan McCammon, Jase Anderson, and Kylie Baldwin are your friends too. Logan McCammon and Jase Anderson are just a little older and Kylie is a year or two younger.

We are glad you are healthy and strong and happy. You are the joy of our lives. We love you more than you will ever know.

Jammie Preschool: fun experiments

A few weeks ago, we did some spring cleaning. Our ward was doing a swap of our used stuff. I had collected Maia's blocks and thought, "She only uses these every once in a while and I hate cleaning them up. We can donate them." Well, Joe couldn't drop off the stuff I collected so I had to drop it off myself WITH the girls in the car. It didn't go over so well. I had dropped off the blocks, thinking I was all discreet and stuff. But once I got back in the car Maia has this sad look on her face and says, "Mom, where are my blocks?" I tried to play it off but Maia knew that I had taken her blocks and left them at church. She was so sad. I had to run back into the church and take our donated blocks back. I felt so lame. But, Maia has found a new love for her blocks. And this week she used every block in the bag to create this:

We also made some coffee filter butterflies. Maia's butterflies turned out so well. I don't know what her secret was but mine weren't half as good so you won't see any of mine on this post.

First she colored,

Then sprayed with water

And more water,

And more water,

And even more water

Until her filter was completely soaked.

This is a different filter but it shows how the colors just ran.

I don't know how she got those cool color spots on her butterfly wings but she did. (Click on butterfly to enlarge)

This was awesome. What happens when you put Ivory bar soap in the microwave for 2 minutes? Watch this...

Very cool. It doesn't ruin your microwave or your plates or anything. It's just cool! If you're going to try it, just remember that the soap is hot after heating it up. Wait for it to cool before you touch it. I think I got this idea from Tinker Lab. It's a fun website for kid experiments.