Finding Her Voice

We have discovered that

Maya is a morning person.

This is what she does every morning in her crib before we go in and get her.

She is quite proud of her newfound voice.

I wish I had a video of Sunday.

We were at house church, having a prayer time,

and she got to "talking" so loud that everyone just burst out laughing.

She has found her voice.

3 Months Old

I'm stealing the idea of a friend and taking a monthly picture of her and her puppy so you can see how she changes in relation to the puppy (in size, of course!).

Hello Dear Blog

Hello dear blog. You have missed me? I know, I know. It's been a very long time. What's that? Oh, what have I been doing all this time? I have no idea. Honestly, what have I been doing? Taking care of baby Maya? Helping our new family get settled? Occasionally studying this (sometimes frustrating and dumb) language? Doing laundry (I've decided that once you reproduce your laundry reproduces on its own--only more like rabbits). We had a short out of town trip, we've been "celebrating" lent by not watching TV (except American Idol on thur and fri nights and West Wing on DVD on the weekends). Matt has been busy learning how to fill in some new forms that are pretty time consuming and complicated (thank you re-org). I've been trying to get back into exercising regularly (Jillian, i love you but i hate you). Maya has been changing so fast. She has found her voice (more about that on the next post). She is sick right now. A little raspy cough and congestion. The weather has been WARM! I wore capri pants the last two days, and pulled out the flip flops yesterday (don't be jealous, summers here are LONG and HOT and the most humid of anywhere I have ever experienced so i really enjoy the little bit of cold weather that we get!!). Politics here and in the area seem to be heating up so we've tried to ramp up our readiness and awareness. We still need to stock up on things like bottled water, tp, non-perishables and diapers. So, yeah. I've been busy but I'm not sure with what!

She is NO Newborn

I was just watching a video of a friend's baby on youtube (how do you put video on there anyway?). And of course on the side bar, a million other baby videos lined up to trick me into wasting time watching cute little videos of strangers' babies. But it led me to this realization--maya is NO newborn! She no longer stares at nothing (at least not normally). Her eyes work in unison most of the time. She doesn't do those weird herky-jerky movements (except when she pokes herself in the eye because she's mad because she's hungry). She looks at us when we talk to her (most of the time). She smiles and does something very close to a laugh. She tries to stand up and looks around with this very proud of herself look. She kicks her legs like crazy. She scoots down in the crib so that when we go to get her she's all catty-wampus. She makes a little yelp sound that i'm pretty sure will turn into a, "NO!" at some point. I had already forgotten what newborns even look and act like. This girl is growing and changing so fast! She is NO newborn!

Busy with Grammie

We have been busy! Maya's Grammie has been here with us so we've been doing lots of fun things like:

making Valentines

eating out at our favorite restaurants

visiting with friends going for walks

having parties

going on road trips

We took Grammie to the grocery store where she got in trouble for taking pictures (not before she snapped a few). And then she got in trouble with the police for taking pictures near the police station. People are kind of sensitive about taking pictures here. But lucky for us, they didn't throw her in jail.

New Skill

Maya has been working on a new skill. Thumb sucking. We are thrilled by this new development because it means she can soothe herself when she wakes up and wants her pacifier, and doesn't know how to get it. She doesn't have the whole thing figured out yet (she still pokes herself in the eye a lot), but she's making good progress, as you can see!

Grammie is Here!

Grammie (a.k.a. my sweet mother in law) arrived safely on Friday afternoon. It was so fun to pick her up at the airport--she did this cute little hop jump thing when she saw us. It has been something like 2 1/2 years since we'd seen her. She says she's a little rusty at dealing with babies, but Maya seems to be taking to her just fine. Pretty sure they'll be inseparable for the next two and a half weeks or so.