Happy Birthday, Little Lady!

Today, my daughter is One Year Old! (on Earth Day, no less) One whole year! She has come such a long way since that day I first met her! What an amazing journey so far! She is babbling and making a few sounds that might be actual words. She is almost walking and easily walks with help. She is crawling everywhere with speed. She has become very playful and has an intriguing personality. Her smile is awesome and her laugh is infectious when she gets going. She loves looking at things and pointing...watching her face when taking her to a new place, or even just for a walk around the block, is always a joy.

She takes her brother in stride. She loves him and is amused by him, but is equally annoyed by him and has learn to push him away when he gets in her face (not that it helps, he is much stronger). But he makes her laugh and that makes up for everything in her mind.

(okay, this was a weird one, but I liked it)

Today we shared Maia with the world...well, okay, just friends and family. We had a whirlwind birthday party for her (well, whirlwind for Matt and I...hosting is crazy stuff).
This is her Lady Bug cake. Wegmans did the cake and writing, I drew the leaves and ladybugs. Not too bad, eh?

Aunt Michelle is reading to both Maia and cousin Cole

Maia is interested in what Liam is eating

...but cars are more fun to play with...

Maia needs to stand and stretch her legs

Tired of just standing, she wants to get down and move around

Go, Maia, go! She did several laps around the living room.

Maia spends some time cooling down with PopPop.

Awwwwwwww......

Maia is ready for her cake. Since she is currently allergic to milk and eggs, my mom made her a special batch of cupcakes.

Happy Birthday To You!

Maia isn't sure what to make of the cupcake, having never had one before.

She starts to get the hang of it

Liam helps give her some of the frosting.

Liam then helps Maia to open her first present, the one he picked out for her (wrapped in pirate wrapping paper, of course)

Maia watches her presents being opened for her while she enjoys the cupcake

After eating and unwrapping, Maia enjoys some leg-stretching again

After a short nap, she finally settles down to start playing with toys

Snuggle bug

Maia has gotten very cute lately.
Okay...she is perpetually cute. But she is always doing something new that makes me want to tell the world.
The latest? She will crawl up to me or Matt (not quite walking yet), then roll over and land with her head and shoulders in our lap. And then she will look totally content and adorable, just chilling' in her mommy or daddy's lap. And smile up at us. SSOOOOOOO heart-melting!

Happy Easter

We spent Easter at my parents' place. Since the pictures were all either of Liam or of Maia, I made two separate posts. Here are the Easter pictures with Maia in them. And yes, I didn't remember to get a picture of the two of them in their outfits...I am so annoyed at myself!

Maia's Easter Basket (no candy, just some clothes and toys)

Maia just woke up from her nap.

Total cuteness. Aren't you melting?

Gllqrthtrrllrq and guys

Three cute things I wanted to note.

 Cute thing number one: Maia is really branching out with her "talking" sounds. She has many syllables, and strings many letters together. Her latest set of sounds seem to be excluding vowels and favoring G, L, R, Q, and Th. I think she is practicing rolling her tongue. So she says things like "Glrlrlqq glrthhlthrr". I can't explain how adorable this sounds. And it's fun to watch her roll her tongue. "Qlrllr Qoylrrl" There might be an "O" in there now and then. Heh.

Cute thing number two: Maia sings. Sometimes it involves the vowel-less words, but usually it's more like a series of aaaaaaaaaaahhh's. She just does it for a long breath, changing the notes to go up a note and then another, and then back down. And it's almost whispery at times. Again, so cute. I really need to see if I can post videos. I have one of me holding her while she is singing, with her head resting on my shoulder. Which brings me to...

Cute thing number three: Maia has a huge fondness for guys. Yes, I know, she is a girl. But she isn't even one-year-old yet. Too young to be into guys. But, whether it's a familiar face or a complete stranger, she adores men. If you walk her up to a guy and she isn't a complete cranky mess, she smiles widely and then nearly launches herself at them to be held. And once she is in their arms, she lays her head on their shoulder, facing off to one side, and just snuggles on in. Seriously. We were in a local restaurant for breakfast, and she tried to get a stranger to hold her. Another time, we were talking to Dawn's male neighbor and walked Maia over to meet him, and she lunged at him. He got a really good 5-minute snuggle in, and it would have lasted a lot longer if he hadn't needed to get somewhere. She does this with family and friends as well. It's cute...a little odd, but cute.
But women...? No dice. If she doesn't know you well (which means anyone aside from me or her daycare teachers), she will smile at you from a distance, act all shy...and if you touch her she will cry. She needs a little time to warm up to women, even those she has met before (like my mom). Such a difference.
As a friend said...I hope the fondness for strange guys goes away before she hits puberty. Eep!

More teeth!

More teeth are sneaking in! I say sneaking, only because it's kind of hard to notice that they are coming in, and I usually find out after they are already out. As soon as you try to look in Maia's mouth, she clamps down. She is in the stage where she puts things in her mouth and she knows we will try to retrieve things. So it's hard to check on the status of her teeth. However, every now and then I manage to catch her laughing or smiling, and I can see her upper gums. And now she has a third tooth poking through up there. Which means she now has 5 teeth total. AND, I can see on the opposite side of her two upper middle teeth, the gum is swelling out there as tooth number 6 seems ready to burst out. I guess that explains the excess sucking on pacifiers and drool. Wow.

Maia in West Virginia

We took a family vacation to visit Greg and Dawn in West Virginia. It was an awesome trip and Maia very much enjoyed being with her Aunt and Uncle. Since I have already posted about this trip, complete with lots of cute Maia pictures, on my main blog, please go check out that post.