Sledding!

Maisie was really excited on Christmas morning - Santa brought her a sled!

We have a little hill in our backyard that had a fresh coat of snow on it, so we bundled up and headed right out there! Maisie didn't want to go down the hill by herself, so I rode with her.

Unfortunately, it was pretty cold, so the snow was really powdery. It would've been great for skiing, but it wasn't too great for sledding. We went down the hill okay, but as soon as we hit the bottom of the hill, we sank right in to the snow.

Maisie and I both fell out of the sled into the snow! I thought it was pretty funny, but Maisie wasn't too amused.

She needed some hugs and reassurance before she was willing to get back on the sled! But she did, and she enjoyed it, briefly. It was pretty cold out. We were probably only out there for about 15 minutes.

When we went inside, we had some hot chocolate. And she really enjoyed that!

A Christmas surprise

Hi all! We've been so busy celebrating over here that we haven't had time to update. Maisie's had so many Christmases, I think she thinks we're celebrating Hannukah. We started with Aaron's family celebration in Iowa, continued with my family on Christmas Eve, and wrapped it up at home on Christmas day. Of course, we're going to holiday parties today and tomorrow too, so the celebrations just continue.

One of Maisie's favorite gifts has been a Play-Do set from Auntie Laura and Dylan that came with pieces she could use to punch out letters and numbers. When we were playing with it, I wrote a message to Aaron.

Ha ha! Just kidding! That's not really how I told him.

Really, though, if all goes well Maisie will be a big sister this summer! I am 14 weeks pregnant today, and so far everything looks good. Our due date is June 27, though we'll be scheduling a C section, so actual baby arrival will probably be a week or so beforehand. We don't yet know the sex, but we're definitely planning on finding out.

We've started talking to Maisie about being a big sister. I'm not showing (too much) yet, though, so it's pretty abstract. She seems sort of enthusiastic when we talk about it, but I'm not sure how much she really understands. I think we're all in for some big changes this summer!

Crafty interlude 2

Poor Maisie is sick with a tummy bug! You don't want to see pictures of that. So instead, some recent crochet projects.

My friend Sarah and I decided to crochet scarves for the Special Olympics this year - they are trying to get enough handmade scarves to give one to each athlete and person traveling with the athlete.

They specified the yarn to use, but aside from that it's up to you... knit/crochet, any size/pattern, just as long as it's handmade.

These were my contributions! The last one with the flowers looks better on than it does spread out on the back of the couch.

We sent the scarves off yesterday, with congrats and good luck wishes to the athletes.

Recently my friend Bethany (Trixie's mama) gave me a huge box of yarn odds & ends that were her mother's. She thought I might like them for little crocheted projects and toys.

I used a bunch of the yarns, and made Trixie a Socktopus! I got the idea from a knit pattern I saw recently. I don't knit, so I just had to fake it, but I am pretty happy with the result. It was very cute!

Think healthy thoughts for us, and hopefully we'll have some cute new Maisie pics for you soon!

A visit to Santa

On Saturday, we braved the crowds at the Mall of America to go visit Santa (and get some Christmas shopping done).

Maisie got all dressed up in her Christmas dress, and off we went. We'd been talking up Santa for a while, figuring it might freak her out a little bit. So we told her all about how nice he is, and will ask what she wants for Christmas.

(She has Christmas and birthdays kind of confused right now - I think it's the presents thing. So when you ask her anything about Christmas, she usually says "Two!!")

We waited in line and pointed out all the little kids sitting on Santa's lap. She started to get excited, but then when it was our turn - no dice. She wouldn't let me put her down - I couldn't have peeled her off my neck for love or money. So we ended up with an unexpected family picture! I'll try to scan it at work tomorrow so I can share it here. It turned out pretty well, considering that neither Aaron nor I planned on having our picture taken that day. We're not nearly as dressed up as Maisie.

After that whole thing, we all needed some lunch.

We went to the Rainforest Cafe, which Maisie appreciates because of all the fishtanks, and the huge animatronic gorillas. We were seated next to the rainy part of the rainforest, which she thought was pretty cool, as you can see.

After lunch and a bit of shopping, it was time to head for home.

We were walking back through the Nickelodeon-themed amusement park, when who (or what?) did we see but Uniqua from Backyardigans! Maisie loves, loves, loves that show, and Uniqua in particular. Maisie ran up at first, but when Uniqua tried to say hi, she got scared. I really thought it was going to be the Santa situation all over again.

But with some help from Aaron, Maisie pulled it together enough to say hi and get a high five from Uniqua. She talked about that the whole way home - we could hear her in the back seat, quietly saying "Nika. Me! Five! Dada Nika five!"

It was really sweet.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Aaron and I are really excited about Christmas this year, because Maisie is finally old enough to start understanding what's going on. She's not quite there yet, but she got the hang of birthdays really quickly, so I think she'll catch on fast.

She loves to see the beautiful lights outside when we're driving, and was thrilled when we said we could have actual lights! on a tree! in our house!!

She had a lot of fun helping us decorate the tree, and trying to keep the cats from knocking down the low-hanging ornaments that she put on. She didn't really understand that our Christmas stockings are decorative, not functional, but she'll figure that one out soon enough!

She also got to have her first encounter of the year with Santa! She, Dylan, my friend Brian and I went to the zoo, where we were surprised to see Santa. Dylan didn't want to say hi, but Maisie was intrigued by the gifts he was offering.

She was not interested in hanging around so I could get a picture, though! Oh well, thanks Santa for trying.

This one's for Max

Maisie and I took this picture on our last trip to the Minnesota Zoo, just for her cousin Max.

It's a wolverine, of course!