Maia in September and October

10/19/17

Maia still dances her way into school every day!  She’s so happy there!  We had her parent/teacher conference this week and Ms. Parent says she’s an enthusiastic learner!  She plays well alongside all her friends in class and tries to do everything the teachers ask.  (Including switching her shoes to the correct feet, which she won’t do for me so that means she’s really trying!)  She also listens really attentively to everything because she really wants to learn!   I’m thrilled she’s enjoying school so much!  She says all her colors in Spanish right now, which is darling, and she sings songs from music class, science songs, and the Egypt song all the time.  Just wonderful.  She loves show and tell, and actually calls her classmates her “audience.”  =)

She is full of cute sayings right now.  Every night, she shows off her “Climbing Power” by climbing up to sit on my sink and brush her teeth.  Sometimes, she shows how she can be a flamingo by climbing up with just one foot.  The other day, I was telling the kids that I didn’t want them to click around on Youtube after they had watched a My Little Pony song from the movie we watched recently, and Maia responded, “awwww, but we love clicking!”

One of our favorite things right now is reading Elephant and Piggie books together.  Maia reads amazingly well.  She decides which character she wants to be, and assigns parts to Eric and/or me.  She reads with real enthusiasm, and she notices things like question marks and exclamation points and adjusts her tone, even on books we’ve never read her before.  She reads the big words louder, softer words in a whisper, and whimpers when the characters cry.  It’s soooo much fun!  We’re going to have to get the rest of the Elephant and Piggie books!

Maia decided on a My Little Pony party this year, which is obviously very exciting for me.  She made a Pinkie Pie at Build a Bear that she adores, and she has several of the little figures that she plays with all the time.  When she says Rarity, it sounds like Rariree and is super cute.  We took her to her first movie in the movie theater, and she loved it!  She watched the whole thing wide-eyed.  And when her brother and sister were crying buckets of tears, she turned to me and said matter of factly, “this is the bad part.”  =)  I’ve said before, she’s my movie buddy!  The others actually liked it too by the end and they’ve all been singing the songs and talking about their favorite pony characters.  So mission accomplished.

Maia still loves playing play-doh, it’s her favorite craft activity right now.  Her favorite things to play are tag and hide and seek.  She’s actually fast enough that we have to work to tag her.  She still giggles to let us know where she’s hiding during hide and seek, but she’s finding really good spots! 

She and I baked pumpkin muffins the other day, which was really fun!  I’m going to have to bake and cook more with all three of them, they’re all getting to the age that they can really help.  And pumpkin muffins they all three like to eat, even when I cut the sugar by a third. 

12/3/17

September happenings:

Maia had her first visit to Build a Bear in September!  She absolutely had a blast.  She chose to make Pinkie Pie, which of course made me very excited.  She just loves her!  She slept with her, took her to show and tell, and was generally adorable.  It cemented the theme for her birthday party, Maia Little Pony! 

We went to the zoo with Papa when the weather started cooling off.  Maia particularly wanted to see the penguins, and it seemed like they wanted to see her too.  One kept swimming down to her eye level like she thought Maia might share her crackers.  We got her Perry the Penguin to commemorate the visit. 

Pigtail Sisters =)

Maia Knight =)  Dress up is pretty spectacular these days.

All dressed up for her first Star Spangled Banner day at school!  Wearing a dress I made for Serenity out of her school shirt when she was in EP

Serenity had a Harry Potter themed sleepover one night, so some magic was in order.  Magic Milk experiment for potions class =)

October:

Maia’s First Jogathon!  I think her favorite part was riding the bus over =)  She ran 5 laps and got to be in the same group as Donovan =)  I got lots of pictures, which is my favorite part =)

Pumpkin Patch!  We did our annual visit to the pumpkin patch with the Thorps!  It was a crazy busy Sunday.  They had nearly sold out of pumpkins, which was astonishing.  We managed to get a really cute jumping picture anyway =)  My kids loved riding on the ponies, and we visited the corn maze despite the fact that it was insanely muddy.  Serenity’s new kitty cat shoes washed pretty well though =)  We only bought a few tiny pumpkins since there weren’t many choices, but we enjoyed feeding the animals, riding ponies, and taking pictures with cousins anyway. 

Cousins!

I got to help with book fair decorations this year so there was lots of cardboard fun =)

She asked the face painter for a polar bear =)  

Maia was the most excited to dress up for book fair days =)  I love it!

Crazy Hair day and Donuts for Dads =)