Happy Father's Day

We are so lucky to live on the water. The temperature for Father's Day was predicted as being about 90 degrees and humid. And we could feel the heat as soon as we stepped outside, but Gee Dad had been promising that he was gonna take Maya out for a ride on the boat. We couldn't have gone out on a more perfect day!

Maya & Gee Dad driving the boat

Maya and Daddy swimming.

Maya had recently gone on a trip with Grandma to IL to visit friends and family, while she was there she had a lot of opportunities to go swimming and by the end of the trip was swimming forward and backward only with the help of her water wings.

So when we got out on the water we anchored the boat so we could get out and swim. She was SO excited to get a chance to show off her newly learned skills. As soon as she got in the water, she instructed us that we were not to hold onto her, she could swim by herself.

Well, she sure did! We were all so impressed by her abilities! She turned into a little fish. We must have been in the water for a couple hours straight with her. She never really even tired from treading water. She even wanted to jump in from the back of the boat! She was so brave & we were so proud of her. She is really growing up fast and getting more independent by the day.

Our happy family on Father's Day.

We all had such a great time, but I think we were all worn out by the end of the day. Hopefully we will get out on the boat more in the next few weeks before the jellyfish start to pollute the waters as it warms up.

Happy Halloween!!

This was the first year that Maya actually wanted to get dressed up for Halloween. So we asked her what she wanted to be. First she wanted to be a Spider, then a day later she changed her mind and wanted to be a princess. We took her to the party store and showed her the section with the costumes that were in her size. I told her that she could pick out her own costume. She looked around for a few minutes - saw a pretty princess costume in pink & purple and said she liked that. Then she saw another costume that caught her eye. The picture of the costume was a little girl with a spider on her head. Maya declared that was what she wanted to wear. Funny enough, the costume was a "Spider Princess." So, she was able to get this costume and be everything she wanted to be this year!

Showing off her "spider" fingers.

TRICK-OR-TREAT!

We had so much fun this year going from door to door. We estimated that we walked about a mile or so. Maya did a pretty good job of keeping up. The rule was that if she wanted to keep going to each door and getting candy, she had to walk - and she did! We drove to a few houses to see some of our family in the area too. She did such a good job saying trick-or-treat and remembering to say thank you after getting her candy. Her bucket got so heavy that we had to help her carry it. By the end of the night we were all so worn out!

Time to Paint!

Maya is only 2 1/2 years old, so carving pumpkins is a little out of her league, and I didn't think that it would be any fun for her to watch us carve a pumpkin. So, we got 2 medium sized pumpkins and I got out all of the finger paints, and we let her go wild and have fun decorating her pumpkins.

She got messy and had a really good time doing so. We all had fun watching a some of us even got to participate!

This was her first masterpiece.

She let the rest of us help her a little on this one.

The Pumpkin Patch

We had such a blast at the pumpkin patch this year. Not only did we get to pick out some great looking pumpkins, but they had so many activities there as well. This particular pumpkin patch is on the way to Maya's school so every morning for the last couple weeks when we pass, she yells "Look Momma, look at that HUGE spider!" So she was pretty excited to see him up close!




After we took this picture, she immediately took off for the corn maze behind us. We finished in record time if you ask me, it took us about 10 minutes to get through. However we didn't even see half of the maze. We must be good with navigation! :)

Then of course the part we went there for! Picking out our pumpkins! Maya decided that she wanted to pull the wagon with the pumpkins in it, so with a little help from Daddy, she pulled them for a few minutes. After she was tired of that, she decided she'd rather ride with them.

She couldn't wait to get home to start decorating her pumpkins!

County Fair

We made it to the county fair this year! We were so excited to take Maya to see the animals & especially for the rides! As soon as we got there the first thing she wanted to ride was the Ferris wheel. Talk about NO FEAR! Donny was a little more unsure about getting on such a tall ride, but Maya already had her heart set on it. So of course, that was the first attraction we got in line for. She seemed to really like being up high, she could see the entire fair grounds and she got to sit next to Grandma for the ride.

The GIANT Slide

The Carousel (Oma's favorite)

Driving the old time cars

The Safari Jungle Gym

Our "Tiny Dancer"

FINALLY Maya is old enough to take a dance class! I've been waiting & waiting to be able to sign her up for a dance class. Now, she's in!

I signed Maya up for a tap dance class to start her out. I thought that maybe since she'd be making noise with her feet - that might keep her interested in the class. So here she is on her first day of class, trying on her tap shoes for the first time. When we got to her class we found out that no one else had signed up. So I guess she is getting individual lessons for the group price. I think that she would probably do better in a group setting, but she is slowly getting the idea of following the teacher.
Making up her own dance already!

Where to begin.. Again

I know it has once again been a while since an update has been made, but I need some help in remembering that we have a blog sometimes!


This summer flew by so fast! I would have to say that one of Maya's favorite part was getting to visit with her cousin Beatrix, or "My Bea" as Maya calls her.

Beatrix came to visit us while spending the month of August with our grandparents. I was very excited for her to get a chance to experience the summer stay with Grandma & Grandpa because to me it was always something I enjoyed. This was her first visit with them on her own, and I really hope she enjoyed it. I use to go and spend a month, if not the whole summer with them every year since I was young. So it was nice to see that Bea would get that experience with them as well, especially since she lives so far away from them. And I'm sure that they really enjoyed that time too. It seemed that every night Bea was here she asked if Maya could spend the night with her. They really bonded well & had a good time with each other.






We also got a visit from Poppy this summer! We were very excited about this as well. I took some time off while he was here, and had a really nice time getting to spend some time with him. Maya's first question to him is "Poppy, do you have chocolate?" She absolutely LOVES chocolate, and since he always tells her that he has some when we talk to him on the phone, she wants to know up front where it is!