Birthday Palooza!

Dear Mai,

Today you turn 3 years old. I know its cliche but wow... where has all the time gone? In reality, it feels like you have been in our lives forever. I can't even remember what we used to do with out you. (okay, that is only partially true. I was never awake at 7 am on Sunday before you but whatever. I digress)

Here is a quick journey of 3.15 days over the last three years

Year zero:

Year one:

Year two:

And I don't have any pics from today yet. Ironically you're still sleeping and I'm the one awake BUT.. we've been celebrating your birthday for at least two weeks now. When we asked what you wanted for your birthday awhile back you said you wanted to go on a trip to California. I'm so glad you like to travel. You are a very good little traveler. You'll do well in this family. We kind of duped you though and found cheap tickets to Vegas. Vegas was only our jumping point though for some cool day trips. We did go to California; It was death valley but it WAS California. I don't think that was the California trip you were thinking but you're 3 so we can still get away with that sort of thing now.

Of course after we book the trip,  you say you want to go up a snow mountain to build your ice castle. (Yes, there is a frozen reference in everything we do these days) Luckily it's just over an hour drive to hit Crystal Mountain here. Cousin Chris was back from Japan and got to go with us! By the time we got up there you were far more interested in hitting daddy with snowballs instead of building your ice castle, but whatever. I'm a good sport.

And of course there is a flurry of gifts coming in from delivery. Aunt Rosie, Lala, Mamaw & Papaw and Grandma have already sent you a bunch of stuff. Here you are modeling some new digs from Aunt Lala and Grandma! You love playing dress up these days.

THEN you had your birthday party at school (daycare) this week! I can't tell you how impressed I am with you mama for this. She went out, bought these little gift bags and surprises / treats and cupcakes for your friends at school. If you would have suggested this type of activity out of mama 4 years ago I would have been on the floor in a fit of laughter! (I love you mama! You are a great mommy!)

THEN you had a little birthday party with your two neighborhood friends! It is pretty darn cute watching you girls play together. It's like Jekyll and Hyde though sometimes. One second you are super sweet to each other and the next its "NO! MINE!" Ah the dynamics of 2 (one now 3!) year olds. Yesterday you were playing with Noelle and you said "Noey is my best friend!" So stinkin cute.

And today is your actual day. Today you are 3 and its just upward from here. Today we are having a small party for you with just some ice cream and cake. Oh and Frozen of course. We cannot forget Frozen. You want the Frozen songs playing, we have frozen plates / banners and the whole get up. You're pretty excited for it. I can't believe you're still sleeping to be honest.

We love you so much kiddo. I can't wait to see what adventures and discoveries we're going to have this year our sweet princess!

Love,


Daddy

Educated 2 year old

Dear Mai,

So this morning you educated mommy and I on a few things. This was our dialog first thing this morning:

Daddy: "Let's get your pull-ups off to see if you're dry."
Maya: "It's not pull-ups. It's pull-up. I only have one pull-up not a lot of pull-ups."
Daddy: (with a perplexed look) "If you know the difference between singular and plural you'd think you wouldn't need a pull-up at night."
Maya: "I have to pee pee." (Drops mic and walks out of room)

Then a short while later while reading a book with mommy you pointed at a big apple and said "Grande!" Then pointed at a little apple: "Pequena!"

So apparently you know Spanish now too.

We're gonna have our hands full with you!

Love,

Daddy

Maya and Daddy Adventure Day

Dear Mai,

Today was Presidents Day. You know what that means?!?!?! MAYA AND DADDY FUN DAY!!

I'm not used to getting all these Holidays off of work. It works out though because your daycare is closed on these days too. Unfortunately Mommy is usually stuck at work. So what do we do? We like to have a Maya and Daddy fun day. Now, it has been a bit cold and rainy here in my beloved Seattle but today was one of those rare "winter" days where it was spring like. 60+ degree and full sun. We upgraded a fun day to an adventure day!

You love catching a bus. That works out because we only own one car right now. So if we were going to do anything, bus it is. We headed out of the house early after bath time. Okay, early for you and I was about 9:30 am, but whatever. Who's judging. I was a little worried because we left the house without breakfast. I figured we stop for some late breakfast. In the meantime, the next best thing than riding the bus is eating snacks ON the bus. I grabbed a pack of Mama's beloved "Pretz" snack and small back of "Daddy Cereal" and we were off!

Two buses and half a bag of Daddy cereal out of the way, we arrived at the Junction! Of course our record store / cafe had a waiting list. 40 minutes! I felt bad! I felt like I was starving my poor child! PRETZ to the rescue!!! We killed the rest of the time by a little walk outside and then perusing through some records. I almost bought a Sigur Ros album and you said no!

"We don't need TWO records with NO record player!"

Okay fine. You're right. I'm getting ahead of myself. I'll get a record player before I start filling in my collection. (To those that care, we bought our first record together last week. The Frozen soundtrack. Again, don't judge me)

Finally we got our table and chowed down some grub. The rest of the day was spent just lollygagging around the Junction. We hit the toy store and 3 other stores in search of flower petals. Nuthin. I want to get some for you to practice so you aren't a complete beast at cousin Adam's wedding in May. You were a pretty good girl so our treat for the day was ice cream! I got a root beer float and you tried it. Your first taste of this lovely concoction called a root beer float. You thought it was super yummy but you kept screaming this aloud in the cafe:

"I'm drinking BEER!"

Daddy: "ROOT beer! you're drinking ROOT beer!"

Maya: (evil little giggles)

You are so you're mother's daughter too. When we were at Easy Street Cafe eating breakfast you refused to sit on your chair because it was "broken." Little priss.

Just so you know, you aren't always sunshine and roses as I portray here in this blog. Don't get me wrong, you're a good kid for the most part but... you're still a kid. You'll seen in this video a few taxing scenes from our day. One, it takes us seven thousand minutes to travel 1 block. "I'm a lizard! I'm a frog! I'm frozen!" Whatever kid just move it along. Two, you were singing all day long. You finally saw frozen for the first time a few weeks back and you loved it. We've watched it about 1 gazillion times since then. I have to admit you are super cute when you sing the songs. But yet again as soon as I ask you to sing and try to capture this cute little moment, I capture the non-singing, sarcastic, I like testing your patience version of the song. Jerkypants. 

BUT... at the end of the day, we had a blast. It was a good day. I can't wait until our next Maya and Daddy adventure goofbutt!

Love,



Daddy

My princess roller girls

Dear Mai,

You're pretty good on skates for a 2 year old. I think a couple more falls and you'll be all set. That's the ticket baby. Get over the fear of falling down. Once you learn how to get back up and keep moving forward, falling down is the easy part.

Mama is pretty dangerous out there as well. At one point your mother was going to try out for a roller derby team. Her name? "Road Rage" of course.

What would be your roller girl name? Tiny Terror? Hmm... we'll have to think of something. Today we were going dress shopping for your first flower girl appearance in cousin Adam's wedding. This is what you where saying when you left the house:

"I need a pretty princess dress, some rose petals and a pretty basket for my rose petals. And a magic wand."

Your words when we finally got to the dress place:

"I don't want no dress." (Yup. You refused to try on anything)

And of course when we got home.

"Can we go dress shopping again? I won't be horrible again."

Some days kiddo. Some days... 


Daddy :)

Record store shoppin

Dear Mai,

We just got home from a Daddy Daughter date night. It consisted of your favorite Chinese restaurant, a cake pop, jumping in puddles and a visit to the record store. Pretty cool night if you ask me.

I love the fact that you loved walking the isles of the record store. We're going to buy a record player soon and we're both pretty excited about it. I asked what you wanted for your first record. "RED FANG!!!" Well my first album was The Who at age 9. If you get Red Fang at age 2 you've got me beat in the coolness scale. Unfortunately we did not find any Red Fang. Maybe next time

I can't wait to share music with you sweet pea.

Love,

Daddy

Rockin the new year

Dear Mai,

Sheesh, I'm behind on my posts here. We got back from Ohio after Christmas and I feel like its been go go go since then. 

Before I get too far ahead of myself, I should talk about Christmas in Seattle! We left Granville, Ohio at like 6 AM or something ridiculous on Christmas morning. 3+ hours later we arrived at Detroit and dropped the rental car off. We had time to eat breakfast at the airport and play our little role play game where you are either the Mommy or Daddy and we're the baby. Since you were the Mommy (or maybe it was Daddy) you ordered a glass of wine with your breakfast. Don't judge us parents. Then it was time to board the plane and about 4.5 hours later we arrived in Seattle! It was only like 2 PM or something like that. Uncle Shawn picked us up and you said: "Let's get on another plane!" - I admire your energy and will to travel kid, but Mommy and Daddy were tired. When we got home Santa had arrived at our house! You got your first balance bike and princess tent! Kid you got all kinds of stuff for Christmas. We barely had time to catch our breath and we were off to Becky and Shawn's for an awesome Christmas dinner. It was an awesome Christmas break. It seems like forever ago now. I remember thinking it was going to be hard getting you back into your routine but Christmas day was such a long day you were ready to sleep in your own bed by the time we were done with everything.

New Year's Eve was pretty mellow. I'm sure by the time you are reading this you'll have heard the "how I met your mother" story about a million times but 15 years ago from this past New Year's Eve, I was hosting one of my legendary New Year's Eve parties. I was expecting to just have fun with friends that night. Little did I know I would me my love and future baby Mama. That was the start of it all Mai. For the record, I did try to get Mommy to start my NYE party tradition again here in Seattle but as the saying goes, "Mama knows best." She opted for a casual NYE and we did. The Shraders came over for a bit and it was perfect. You almost made it up to midnight but it must have been doing all that yoga that wore you out. Yep that's right party people. We did family yoga on NYE. Be jealous.

Now New Year's day was awesome. Seattle had plenty of sunshine and near 60 degree weather. We had to get outside if it was only for a little bit. I think this was the second time in your life that we introduced you to "all day jammy day." You love all day jammy day. Super casual, relaxation right there. We took that sentiment to heart and let you go out on our little adventure with your jammies. Again, parents don't judge us.

Speaking of Sunny Seattle, we've had a pretty nice winter so far with more than a few full sun days. I was fortunate enough to be on the 75 floor of the tallest building in Seattle one of those days. I feel bad even posting these pics given the weather our Ohio and east coast friends are experiencing but... it was just so pretty from up there! Whenever someone asks me "Why Seattle?" I just want to refer them to these pics. 

And last week we had another great day! We got out to Madison Park to play with some of your friends and grab some Lake Washington views. I don't have a pic of it but you rode your first zip line at the park! Granted, it is only a small kid, swing zip line but you haven't been the most daring kid in the past so I take this as one big step for Maya Rose! You also enjoyed putting wet sand on Daddy's head. Not cool man. Not cool.

Don't get me wrong, it hasn't been all sunshine here. We've had our fair share of Seattle winter rain. That's okay because you started going to your first swimming class and we're back at the School of Rock for music class again! Mommy takes you swimming and I hear good reports! You are fearless and jumping in the water, dunking your head and even kicking and paddling without water wings! I fear that you have a problem with people telling you what to do though. In music class when the teacher asks you to do something, she is sometimes met with your "you're dead to me" look in your eyes. Here is an actual conversation that Mommy told me about in swim class too.

Swim Teacher: "Maya can you paddle?"

Maya: (death stare)

Mommy: "Maya, listen to the teacher and paddle."

Maya: (starts paddling, turns her back and whispers to Mommy) "I can do it. Not for teacher though."

Ayiyi. What are we going to do with you?

I fear we are inching toward that point where parents and kids are crazy busy. It's good though. You need interaction with more kids these days... and more adults. You have two neighborhood friends now, Noelle and Emma. I think you see them at least once a week. You've also went to the aquarium with your friend Genevieve and had a blast. You met some girls from one of my work friends and had a blast with them too. You were so cute with the youngest girl, Nadia. At the park you and her held hands for most of the walk. I wish I had my camera at the time it was so stinkin cute. 

I think we broke new ground in Ohio over Christmas. I see you coming out of your shy phase and being yourself around kids more and more. You definitely where out of it in Ohio and could careless were Mommy and Daddy were half the time. I heard someone describe you as shy around strangers and bossy around people you know. That has been a very true assessment but now, if the shyness is going away, will the bossy part too? I'm not taking any bets on that. I'm a little afraid there are some hard-coded cells going on there. 

With that said, you're still our little girl. Out of the blue Mommy and I both get a "Mommy/Daddy? I love you so much!" It frickin melts my heart every time you say that. You and Mommy have been having some quality time because I've been getting home late recently but music class allows for some good Daddy and Maya time. On music class we usually try to hit this ma and pa breakfast spot before class and visit the toy store after. If we're out for lunch or dinner your favorite food is Chinese food. I can barely get you to eat anything else on Daddy and Maya's fun day outings.

It's been a good 2015 so far Mai. I can't believe you are going to be 3 years old in 1.5 months. My new year's  resolution is to keep this more up-to-date. I've failed miserably so far but hey, I almost got my first post in January!

Love,



Daddy

Strange things 2 year olds do.

Mommy: "whoa! What's going on here?"
Maya: "nuffin."
Mommy: "Why do mommy and baby have tea cups on their heads?"
Maya: "No. Those aren't tea cups. Those are helmuts because daddy's a monster."

I think we probably just should not have asked. I'm slightly frightened right now.

Christmas songbird in Granville Ohio

Dear Mai,

We're on our last day of Christmas vacation and you've been having a blast. You've really come out of your shell and love hanging and playing with your family. Don't get me wrong, you can still be a brat, just less of a shy brat. I heard someone describe it as shy around people you don't know but bossy to people that you do. Yup. That was our life. I'm not sure what this next phase will bring.

At first you didn't want to leave Grandma C's and now at Grandma G's I overheard you and mommy yesterday while we were doing some pre-packing:

Maya: "What you doing?"
Mommy: "Packing all our stuff to go back home!"
Maya: "Nah. I don't want to leave Ohio."

We are going to have to put you through detox when we get home.

When leaving Aunt LaLa's tonight you threw one of the biggest fits I've ever seen screaming "I want to stay here!!!"

We also finally got one of your own songs on video. Ever since you were about 18 months old you started just singing about whatever was on your mind. You had a "cherry button" song that started and ended the same but the entire middle was ad-lib. Every time we went to capture it on video... nothing. Then you had a "when I was a little girl song" but no video evidence. Finally we got you ad-libing a random christmas song last night.

http://youtu.be/cXlfpP8aTvI

Sleep well my sweet pea. We have a big travel day tomorrow.

Thanks to Aunt Alyssa (LaLa), Aunt Courtney, Crazy Aunt Linda 2, Uncle Rick, Uncle Tarn, Cousin Hannah, Cousin Logan (LoJo) and a big thank you to Grandma G!

Merry Christmas. Each and every one!