Maisy and Maren love

We’ve had a busy month. It seems we were always busy doing something. We were lucky enough to welcome two new friends to the world this year!

Little baby Velia was born Jan. 21 to our friends Amy and Paul. Maisy calls her “squishy baby Velia”. We’ve had the pleasure of seeing baby Velia a few times since her entrance into the world, the first few of many many play dates, I’m sure!

Becky and baby Velia cuddles

Baby Louisa was born Feb. 11 to our friends Alison and Maynard. She is wonderful, complete with a full head of hair! We look forward to seeing baby Louisa and big sister Mila a lot more after the family emerges from newborn land.

Maren meets baby Louisa

I just love meeting all of the new babies!

We were lucky enough to have Nana come visit to babysit while Todd and I went out for a night!

Todd and Becky all cleaned up for a night out

The next day Nana and I took the girls to the aquarium.

Nana and Maren

Maisy gave Nana a run for her money. Nana slept in Maisy’s double bed while Maisy was supposed to sleep in her sleeping bag and princess tent on the floor. This is where Maisy prefers to do most of her sleeping these days. The first night went okay, the next night Maisy kept Nana up all night having in depth conversations about the Lorax (which Nana had to read a bazillion times). The rest of the night was taken up with playing pillow and side of the bed swap. The next night Nana slept on the couch and everyone got a full night’s sleep.

Nana reading The Lorax- “Nana, but why was the Lorax sad? Where are his eyes? I like that trufula tree.”

Some of these pictures and stories may seem familiar because they were so cute at the time, I had to post them to Facebook. The reason I am re-posting to the blog is because at the end of the year, I turn our blog into a Shutterfly photobook to capture our memories. So if it doesn’t get blogged it doesn’t get commemorated. I’ve been horrible about filling in Maisy’s baby book. I don’t think I’ve touched it since she was 3 months old and poor Maren doesn’t even have a baby book. So here we are!

Maisy is growing and growing. She can now put on her own shoes, turn lights off and on, put on her own jacket, semi- get dressed and help unload the dishwasher. She is very good at picking up after herself. She is also very enthusiastic about hand washing! Maisy has started to write stories. Here is her first story.

“Once upon a time, I had fun with Evan and he came to my house and we played and had fun. Then we had lunch and I went home for nap.”

Maisy’s written story

Maisy and her story

Maisy loves being social. She often asks to visit friends, both her age and mine. We went to dinner with Satya and Shreyas the other night and Maisy and Satya went singing in the “rain” after dinner.

Maisy and Satya being silly

We are gearing up for Maisy to start her first day at school. Her first day will be next Friday. We got her a little owlie lunch bag and we are practicing packing it and eating lunch out of it. We went to the library and checked out as many books as we could find about school and Maisy has been requesting that we play school and I am the teacher. It’s pretty fun. She is very much looking forward to it. I’m really looking forward to seeing her blossom and also to getting a bit more time to spend one on one with Maren.

Maisy loves being a big sister and Maren is fascinated and thoroughly entertained by Maisy. Maisy sometimes shows too much love and gets a bit too excited, but Maren is a tough cookie and handles most of it with a great deal of grace.

Maren is 6 months old. I cannot even believe that much time has passed since she was born. I still think of her as a newborn, then we see her next to real newborns and she seems giant sized!

Maren and Sophie

Maren is strong and close to sitting on her own. She can for a bit, then she starts leaning and leaning and leaning and pretty soon she’s on her way over. She isn’t scooting or rolling over yet. She had her 6 mo appointment today and I asked the doctor about that. After watching Maren in action, she says she’s completely capable of those activities, she simply just doesn’t want to, so she says not to worry. We haven’t yet started feeding her solids but will next week. She now weighs 15 lbs 3 oz and is 26 inches long. Poor baby got her shots today and she was not too happy about it. She cried big tears and let out big wails. Broke my heart again! She’s currently sleeping and mending.

Maren resting after shots

Maren is still waking up once to twice a night (typically) for feeds. I’m looking forward to the day of real sleeping through the night because I have yet to find the right amount of coffee to actually feel completely awake and alert!

We have quite a bit of travel coming up. This weekend we are heading back up to Tahoe to hang out with Mimi, Papa J and Uncle Steven in the snow. Mid March I am taking the girls down to LA on a plane ride alone! (I feel this is a crazy idea- we’ll soon find out exactly HOW crazy it is). We are going down for dress fittings, wedding dress shopping and wedding planning for my sister’s wedding. Then at the end of March we are headed up to Portland to visit friend, family, my dad and to attend my aunt and uncle’s 50th wedding anniversary. Whew! Busy busy month. We plan to lay low in April!

More in a few weeks!

Much love, Todd, Becky, Maisy and Maren

Family poses by pumpkins

Happy Halloween! Can you believe December is only a month away!? Where has the year gone. These last few months have just blown by.

We’ve been working on getting Maren to self soothe and sleep on her own. She moved into her own crib the night after our last post at 6 weeks. It took quite a few weeks of rocking and shushing to get her to sleep. Hours of going up and down the stairs to soothe her over and over. It became our new hobby and past time. Luckily, she’s starting to get it and she is settling much quicker now. I’m really glad we stuck with it because it’s paying off. Recently we can put her down to sleep around 8:30/9:00 and she may wake once during the night for feeding, then she goes right back down. She sometimes wakes up a bit earlier than we like her too, so I’ll feed her again and put her back down. She’s doing super well. She’s also getting much more independent and will hang out by herself for a bit as well. She’s not a fan of tummy time, so we don’t do that much, but I suppose we should…

Maisy has been an excellent help and continues to mature. She is now consistently waking up from naps dry! We are very proud of her. She also has a new invisible pal named Katie. Katie is a boy. He comes over to play but Maisy often has problems finding him. Katie is also a bit ill tempered often hitting people and running away. Maisy is kind to Katie anyway and will pack up her toys so she can give them to him, because he doesn’t have any toys.

Halloween was sure a lot of fun! Halloween started with good ol’ fashioned pumpkin carving.

Maisy loves Maren, Maren looks worried

Maren charms Mommy

Maisy poses by pumpkin

We had Maren and Maisy’s friends and their parents over. Satya, Mila and Jada accompanied us on our Trick or Treating. The girls were so adorable together walking up to all of the houses and then checking their bags for treats. The dads were all happy to watch the World Series game at our place after the Treating was done. A great time was had by all. This year we went by Maisy’s lead. She wanted to be Snow White, I was the Mean Queen, Todd was the Huntsman and Maren was a Dwarf. It was very fun! I got all welled up a couple of times just not believing that Maisy is old enough to be a big girl with friends and going Trick or Treating and all….. time goes by so fast!

Uncle Steven passes out candy

The Huntsman, Snow White, The Mean Queen and the Dwarf

Maisy and Satya Trick or Treating at Debra and Anne’s

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The Huntsman and the Dwarf

Today Maren had her 2 month well baby check up. She’s doing very well weighing in at 10 pounds 10 ounces. She got all of her baby shots today. It’s so hard to watch! She was very very sad. Maisy was strong for both Maren and I cheering us on, saying, “It’s okay, You’ll be alright, Be brave.” She’s the best big sister! Maren’s been sleeping ever since we got home. I hope she feels better soon. Maisy and I both got our flu vaccinations. We were both very happy to get Flumist rather than a shot! Now we just need to get Todd vaccinated.

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Maren naps it off

It’s been a non-napathon around here. We are having some siding replaced on the house as well as having it re-painted, so there is lots of pounding and banging going on. Needless to say, Maisy doesn’t sleep too well through it.

We are getting along okay and of course some days are better than others. Typically Todd gets Maisy up in the morning and puts her to sleep at night and I have Maren duty.

Dada and Maisy snuggle

It’s really kind of challenging when Todd works late and I have to put both girls down. I also agreed to do a small project for work and I’m finding it difficult with all the non napping to get to it, but I’ll make it work.

More next time!

Much love, Todd, Becky, Maisy and Maren

M aisy is now 4 months old. She continues to amaze us everyday with her new tricks and her ability to connect with us. She is smiling a lot these days, but we have yet to hear the sweet sound of baby giggles. Maisy is getting to be a pro at grabbing at toys and has even rolled over a couple of times (both front to back and back to front) but I think they are just “accidents”.

Maisy took her first very big trip last week. We unexpectedly decided to head out to Lake George, where Todd grew up, to visit the grandparents and very importantly Todd’s amazing 98 year old grandmother, Alice. Maisy took to Grandma wonderfully. It was such a happy moment to see them together. On the trip Maisy also had her first boat ride down Lake George. The sound of the motor, water and the rocking of the boat put her right to sleep.

Being 4 months old also means more shots. Maisy had her 4 month old appointment today and she got a clean bill of health. She weighs 12 lbs and 14.8 oz and her length is 23.75 inches. She did not like her shots at all and she screamed and cried (and broke my heart). These round of shots seemed to hurt more than her last. However, by bedtime, she was smiling and kicking her cute little legs again.

More later!

Much love to all- Todd, Becky and Maisy