Maisy loves the new garden

M aisy had her 15 month doctor’s visit just yesterday. She is doing wonderfully. She is up to a whopping 20 pounds and a whole 2 feet and 7 inches tall. She got two shots yesterday one being the flu shot. She didn’t like getting those very much at all. Luckily, I was able to get the inhaled flu vaccination- so no shots for me. Around bedtime poor Maisy’s leg was so sore she didn’t even want to stand on it. Some Tylenol and rest had her feeling tip top by morning though.

We are almost done with our garden and Maisy likes to go out and make sure everything is in order. Here are a couple of pictures of her today checking it out. We hope to finish the garden up this weekend.

Plopped in the garden!

Maisy and Becky are taking a trip to LA next week. It should be a fun though HOT adventure. It’s supposed to be sweltering.

Hope you are all having a great September!

Much love, Todd, Becky and Maisy

Walking with Daddy along the path by Old Faithful

M aisy came through just in time with her walking skills. She took her first steps on August 12th. It was perfect timing as she was set to be the flower girl in Todd’s cousin’s wedding (Congratulations Daniel and Theresa) in Montana just a week later. She walked down the isle like a pro. Todd dropped her off at the end and I snuck around front and she walked down the isle with the biggest smile on her face. It was adorable!

Swing me Daddy!

Uncle Steven, Maisy, Daddy and Grandpa J

Getting our dance on

We took the opportunity to make a family vacation out of our trip to Bozeman, MT for the wedding. We stopped and saw Yellowstone along the way. Truly an amazing and very unique place!

Prismatic Spring, Yellowstone

Waterfall in Big Sky, MT

Upon returning home Maisy and I joined a music class for little folk. Maisy enjoys playing with the instruments and other kids. We also enjoy regular driveway play dates with Maisy’s good friend Evan. We are so sad to see them moving next month!

First Music Class

Going tap-tap-tap on the stairs with Evan

We were only home from Montana for a few short days before heading to HOT HOT HOT Los Angeles for cousin Elijah’s 4th birthday! We had a great time.

Happy Birthday, Elijah!

Bye, Nana and Papa!

As the saying goes it’s good to be away, but it’s good to be home!! We are happy we are home for a while now to really get down to work on our front back yard, which has been in the state of torn up for over a month! We are lucky enough to celebrate our 9th anniversary of dating (today actually) and next week our 3rd wedding anniversary. Time flies when you’re having fun!!

Maisy goes for her 15 month shots later this month. She’s also getting her two top 1st molars in and doing really well with them. Not too much fussiness. Maisy’s language skills have just really exploded! She can say so many words now- and imitate almost anything you ask her to, although not always on command. Time to really pay attention to what comes out of OUR mouths!

Lesson of the month: Don’t go into a store with a child that can walk (who is not yet under voice command) without some sort of restraint, like a stroller or a cart. Trying to chase Maisy down or hold her hand while she squirms away, while my hands are full of Hardware goods is not an easy task. Paying at the check out is even more tricky- as every time I tried to get my wallet, Maisy tried to escape. Finally the checker lady, a grandmotherly looking woman, asked if it would be helpful if she held Maisy while I paid and yes it was helpful. Whew. Won’t do that again!

Hope you are all having a great September!

Much love, Todd, Becky and Maisy

Maisy in her toy box, poor thing is starved for toys!

T ime again has rushed by. A lot has happened in the last month and a half. Maisy is still the happiest, sweetest and most expressive little wonder. She is using lots of words now. Some of her favorites are “butterfly- said buh-erh-by”, “barrette- said bahh-reh”, “up”, “uh-oh”, “bye”, “ni-nite” along with her favorite animal sounds of a roaring lion, impression of a gorilla and don’t forget the moooing cow! Maisy’s signing abilities continue to grow- she signs “more”, “milk”, “all done”, “hat”, “dog”, “cat”, “butterfly”, “open”, “food” and her new favorite past time “drawing”. In the biggest and greatest accomplishment she is WALKING!! Today she took her first few steps, which quickly turned into strolls. In just one day she has turned from a cruiser to a walker. What a difference a day makes. Video is on Facebook if you are my “friend”, you can also hear Maiy’s lion roar in a video on Facebook too.

Maisy asking for “more” umbrella that she never had in the first place

Drawing with Daddy in our fancy art smock

Daddy and Maisy cuddle on the beach near Uncle Steven’s house

Another really proud moment was us participating in the SF AIDS Walk 2009 on July 19. We walked with Uncle Steven. It was a great day for a 6 mile walk in the park! Maisy did really well even getting out of her stroller to walk with us. We felt great we were able to help raise 3.5 million for the foundation.

Half way through our walk

Maisy walkin’ the walk

Our fence was built and we are now working on landscaping. We are so thrilled to have a place to enjoy outside and for Maisy to have a place to play. Here are some pictures of our before and after.

Before the little white fence came down

After our fence was built with our addition of birdhouses

Other than those things, we are getting ready for our big trip to Montana this Sunday.

More later! Much love, Todd, Becky and Maisy

Giving Love at the Aspen Maroon Bells

W e had a great start to June with a trip out to Colorado to visit family in Denver and to celebrate the marriage of a very good friend in Aspen. We had a fantastic time! Congratulations Matt and Kim! We did so many fun things on our trip and Maisy did quite well considering all of the moving around and schedule disruption she had

Family photo with the Urbands

Maisy and Daddy getting down with the hula hoop at Matt and Kim’s Wedding reception

Maisy was due for her 12 month shots after we got home. She did really well! No reactions nor fevers. She now weighs 18 lbs and 8 oz. She is 29 inches tall. The doctor continues to give her a thumbs up on her health. She is eating pretty much all table foods now, although bland. Maisy is a bottomless pit. She is a champion eater!! She has 3 teeth on the top and two on the bottom. She’s working on the 4th top tooth now. She is doing okay with teething- she has her moments! She isn’t walking yet, but will take your hand and walk around that way or will cruise around furniture. I think she could do it, if she gave it a shot, she’s just very cautious. She’s still sleeping through the night wonderfully. She usually is asleep by 7:30 and then doesn’t wake up until about 8/8:30 and she still takes two naps a day around 10 am and 2:30 for about an hour and a half to 2-3 hours. She is starting to talk a little. She says Mama, Dada, Oh Wow, Ni-Ni and Uh-oh. She signs a lot though- so we communicate quite well and if nothing else works, she just squeals loudly- and that usually gets her point across!

We are excited that we have no trips planned for the month of July, so we are just going to relax and enjoy our new “back yard in the front yard”. We are enclosing our front yard, because we don’t have a back yard. We’ll show some before and afters…..

Also exciting in July is the SF AIDS walk this July 19th that Todd and I have signed up for. This will be Maisy’s first AIDS walk. We are very happy to be able to bring her along to join in the cause. We are still gathering donations, so if you are able, it would mean so much to so many if you would be able to donate. Todd needs more donations than I do- Here is the link to donate. http://aidswalksanfran2009.kintera.org/toddmatthews This is a fundraising event that we have been committed to for years and really want to do our best to create funds for helping to find a cure or at least stop the spread of HIV, that affects way too many.

Us at Kim’s Wedding. That fancy bruise is self inflicted from a heated tennis match using the Nintendo Wii.

Much love and more later- Todd, Becky and Maisy

Happy Birthday, Maisy!

M aisy was lucky enough to have all of her family come to town for her big birthday event. We reserved a place in Cordornices Park in Berkeley where we bbq’d chicken, veggie burgers and sausages. Maisy got to play in the dirt and have CAKE for the very first time. The party was a success- no melt downs by anyone. The one downside was that it was really cold!

Trying to stay warm! So much for our “heat wave”.

Playing in the dirt

Cake was a favorite after she figured out what to do with it

We opened presents the next morning with the grandparents, aunt, uncles and cousin. Maisy had a great time!

Maisy giving love to her new monkey “Uncle Fred”

After presents we all went out to Little Farm and the Merry-go-Round in Tilden. Maisy and Elijah were a bit spooked by the animals, but all the adults had a great time!

Getting ready to leave the farm

On June 5th, Maisy’s birthday, we took her to the California Academy of Science in San Francisco (the aquarium). She loved it! We are now members so we can go anytime- which will be fun for us all! Maisy wasn’t as excited as she could have been because we had her skip her morning nap to go- next time, we’ll take her after a good nap!

Fishies!

Maisy finally got her two front teeth on her actual birthday. She “finger walks” quite well and can stand on her own for about 15 seconds at a time, longer if she doesn’t realize she’s doing it. She goes for her one year check up in a week and a half to get her 12 month shots.

We are all doing well and heading out to Colorado next week for a good friend’s wedding where we will also get a chance to catch up with some family.

Todd is loving his new job and we are lucky that he is often able to work from home or at least go in after Maisy is down for her first nap, so Todd and Maisy get to spend some time together. She is just goo-goo over her daddy!

Those are all of our updates for now. Can’t wait to see what the next year has in store for us.

Much love and more later- Todd, Becky and Maisy

The Easter bunny visited!

M aisy was very interested in these baskets and the goodies they held. We didn’t dye Easter eggs this year, but hope to next year.

Egg Fan

Bow Fan

Then we had a heat wave for about 3 days and Maisy enjoyed our “pool” in the front yard.

Oh Wow!

Maisy’s skills seem to surprise us each day. She loves DOGS and gets very very excited when she sees one. She knows the sign for dog, which is slapping your leg like you are calling a dog and she’ll do that if you even say the word dog. She says, Mama and Dada, she’s said Ball, and “Oh Wow”. Her favorite rambling these days is “odie-odie-odie-odie”. She signs all done, and waves hello a lot- and I mean a lot. She waves to the pictures in the hallway, she waves to everyone while we are out, she waves to the cats, to the trees, to the windows, etc. The all done sign and the wave look very similar. She also does those signs if she wants something, so they are kind of difficult to interpret. Maisy loves flowers and gets super excited if we are walking by a pretty flower and makes us stop to admire-it’s so cute. She’s going to make a wonderful dog catching gardener some day… I thought she was going to blow a gasket at Michael’s today in the silk flower section!! She didn’t seem to get that the flowers were fake…. She sure made a scene. Too cute.

Pig Tails?

Maisy is working so hard on getting her top to teeth. She still only has her two bottom ones. She is a drooling queen and has had some cranky days, but other than that she’s doing great! Not walking or standing independently yet, but getting more and more confident in her cruising and standing with only one hand holding on. Cross our fingers Maisy has still yet to encounter her first cold- and she has been sleeping through the night consistently for 3 months now. Life is pretty good.

We have been pretty lucky in April. I am now working part time from home for a non profit doing clinical research and Todd found a full time job in the city for a company called Heroku. YAY!

Those are all of our updates for now!!

Much love and more later- Todd, Becky and Maisy

We decided it was high time we took Maisy camping.

My tent!

T he car was packed and we were heading out to Mt. Diablo near Walnut Creek after Maisy’s afternoon nap on Saturday. We were approaching the camp’s south gate from the winding road in when Todd looked back and said, “Uh-oh, you gotta pull over, she’s car sick.” And sure enough the poor little Maisy was- all over herself! We took her out, cleaned her up and showed her the very pretty valley below and after a bit she was ready to continue the journey, which we took VERY slow.

Mommy, I don’t feel so good

W e arrived at the camp ground at Live Oak near Rock City in Mt. Diablo state park and picked our campsite and started setting up. Maisy ate her dinner and we all enjoyed looking around. We got a big 4 person tent that is tall enough to stand in and to fit Maisy’s pack n play in. We thought the whole thing would just go off without a hitch. As we were putting her to bed we realized we forgot two very key items- Her lovey and her blankie! We even wrote out a list, so we wouldn’t forget anything and of course these items weren’t on it, because we KNEW we had to bring those. Lesson Learned! We did remember her big Blue Pooh that is a fuzzy warm bear outfit- so at least she’d be nice and cozy.

Todd the tent builder

Maisy was not happy being put to bed, so she got to stay up and hang out with us around the campfire. She finally fell asleep exhausted in her font pack that I was wearing her in. At 11 we decided it was time for us all to retire. We crept into the tent and set her down in her crib and she stayed asleep, for a whole 45 minutes before the crying started again. Poor thing! Nothing worked. Finally as I was rocking her from my sleeping bag she fell asleep. The trick was convincing her that my sleeping bag was her lovey. So I carefully placed her between Todd and me on the floor of the tent and we slept again, for a while, until she woke up once more very confused and again, I’d convince her that my sleeping bag was her lovey and she’d drift off. This happened about 3 or 4 times. Luckily she didn’t wake up for good until 8:30am. We were all pretty tired though! There was also another baby in the camp ground that helped share the tears. I was glad we weren’t the only folks going through the whole adventure. Todd was joking later saying, that it was so cute how we actually thought we were going to be able to play the game of scrabble we had brought along. We both just laughed at that!

I’m so tired, where’s doggy?

In the morning we broke down camp and headed to Rock City, a trail of very cool very old (like 45 million years old) sandstone rock formations. We walked around there for a bit and then decided to head home.

Rock City Rocks

We still had a great time and would definitely do it again- but would be very careful to remember all of the crucial items!

Maisy had a big day yesterday, she went on her first longish bike ride and a camping trip- so we are taking today slow and easy.

Much love and more later- Todd, Becky and Maisy

let’s roll, dad!

A fter a short trip to REI and local bike shop, the Missing Link, I returned hands full with a child carrier, bike rack and helmet for little miss. It’s about time.

You can’t hear it in the video, but Maisy was laughing almost the whole time we were riding. She loved it, and I can’t wait to go on a longer ride – next time as a family. :)

“Hello There!”

We have had a major break through this week. Maisy slept through the night for the very first time. She didn’t do it the next night or the next, but we are working on it! We are doing what is called “sleep training”. We are no longer reinforcing night time waking with picking her up or with milk and the theory is that she will realize there is no need to get mom and dad up in the middle of the night because they can’t do anything for me anyway- and then she will just fall back to sleep and sleep like a little baby. Right?

Nap times have gotten a little bit more difficult now that Maisy can stand. She thinks it’s much more fun to have a standing party than to nap. She has also discovered the blinds that we had custom made for her room. She thinks they are perfect for sharpening her two tiny teeth on!

We had a very lovely first family Valentine’s Day together. Maisy made Todd a card. It was her first art piece.

Baby Painter

Maisy and Todd started the day with a nice book on the couch.

Reading time!

As Todd got laid off at the beginning of January, he is now working a temporary job in the city through the end of February. We hope that a full time position will come along soon! Maisy and I ventured into the city today to meet him for lunch. Meeting for lunch was such a treat. Todd doesn’t always get home before Maisy is in bed for the night, so it was good to give them a bit more time together. It helped that it was a beautiful day in the city and a fun day for a walk.

Later in the day Maisy and I met with Angie and Rowan at Lake Merritt for some play time in the park. It was the first time Maisy had been involved with duck and geese feeding. She thought it was okay, but then that one goose got a little too close and she started to get nervous.

hmm birds eating bread… interesting.

Tell that silly goose to back the duck up!

Maisy is a swing fiend- which is so adorable.

This is Maisy’s happy place

Maisy continues to become more steady when she pulls up on EVERYTHING. She is doing very well eating larger chunks of food and is feeding herself like a champ even though she only has her bottom two teeth. She’s gotten very quick too! It’s difficult to expect her to stay in one place these days. The good thing is that she understands when we tell her not to touch something and she so far respects that. We’ll see how that progresses.

She goes for her 9 month appointment the second week of March, so we’ll have more height and weight updates then.

Much love-
Todd, Becky and Maisy

Todd and Maisy taking a walk down the grandparents’ street

W e headed east for Christmas on Dec. 23 and after 17 hours of travel we finally made it to our destination! Maisy handled the trip like a trooper with NO meltdowns. We did find out that Maisy is a food snob. I bought her some jarred baby food for the flight and she refused to eat even her favorites if they came out of a jar. This girl has quite the sensitive palate.

In Lake George we celebrated Christmas with Todd’s parents, brother and grandmother. It was nice and relaxing to all be home together. It’s rare that we are all there at the same time, so that made it extra special! Todd’s Grandmother came over on Christmas day for the festivities and a yummy Christmas turkey dinner prepared by Steven and Joan. Mmmmmm

Christmas Feast

We enjoyed a nice leisurely day of opening presents and enjoying everyone’s company taking time out for naps and playing with new toys. It was a beautiful snowy view of the mountains and Lake George through the living room windows.

Maisy reached the very exciting milestone of sitting on Christmas Day! She continues to add syllables to her babbling and now says, Da-da-da, Ma-ma-ma, La-la-la and raspberries.

A Maisy sitter

While we were visiting we were able to catch up with Uncle John, Aunt Dee, Thalia and Lonny for lunch. We were also lucky to see Uncle David several times as well as Chris and Aunt Rebecca. It’s so nice that we were able to see so many folks in such a short amount of time!

As always time passed quickly and we found ourselves back on a plane heading toward home. Our trip home was smooth and uneventful. The next day was new years eve and we celebrated with Mike and Angie over at their place. It was Maisy’s first night out passed bedtime. She went down for bed at their place without a problem. Todd and I made it just past midnight, rang in the new year with friends, gathered Maisy and headed home for bed!

Happy New Year!

We wish everyone love, peace, happiness and health in the new year. The past year has brought so many joys and wonderful firsts, we cannot wait to see what exciting adventures await in 2009!

Much love to all-

Todd, Becky and Maisy