8!

Maisie is eight years old today!

We celebrated her birthday with local family yesterday, which was super fun! Auntie Laura and Dylan hosted us, Gramma Liisa, and Jim. We had dinner followed by a beautiful cake that Gramma Liisa made. Maisie loved her presents - lots of clothes, all of which she liked (everyone seems to have her sparkly tops & knit pants style down!), a beautifully fuzzy blankie and cute knit owls from Gramma Jo, and a book she'd been wanting from Jim.

8-year-old Maisie is delightful. Her favorite things right now include fencing...

She absolutely LOVES fencing! As a leftie, she's got a natural advantage. I think she'll keep up with it for a while - we just finished our first three-month session and she's ready to go back for more!

She loves reading and writing...

Maisie always seems to have a journal with her, and is constantly drawing pictures and writing about things that she sees. Some of them she shares with me, other things she keeps private. She also loves to read - we're currently into book 6 of the Harry Potter series! She's also really into the Emily Windsnap series. She likes to bring a book wherever she goes, and will happily read to herself, or read to Ella and keep them both entertained!

Maisie loves Ella...

Yeah, they do fight sometimes. But most of the time they're each other's best friends. Sometimes on the weekend, they wake up and tiptoe out into the living room to watch Netflix or build with Legos before Aaron and I get up. They're never really all that quiet, so we usually do wake up. But we stay in bed and snooze and let them play. It's pretty sweet.

She loves her Finnish dance group, Pikku Kisarit...

Kind of random, right? But she absolutely loves this activity. The Finnish-American community here in the Twin Cities is really active and a great group of people, so I'm glad that she's having so much fun. She had a great week at Salolampi last summer, and is excited to go back for more. And of course, I think it helps that she has a Finnish pen pal! They send each other little gifts and letters. It's adorable.

At 8, Maisie is growing into a delightful person. I can see the beginnings of the young woman she is becoming, and I am excited to see who she is. Even now, though, Maisie brings a lot of joy into our lives. She's smart and funny, caring and considerate, enthusiastic and creative. We can't imagine life without her!

"Bike" by Maisie Jean

Summer is here! Summer is here! To celebrate one of her favorite activities, Maisie wrote (and illustrated) a poem...

bike

evry one likes bikes.
evry one flys fast too on thar
bikes but it gos to home
and it leads you some where
new.
by Maisie Jean.

Negotiations

Last weekend we went to the Children's Museum. It was beautiful outside, so we went with the explicit goal of playing on the rooftop art park... which we did, and it was fun. But this isn't a post about painting on the rocks with water...

and it isn't a post about how the girls climbed in the "treehouse," Maisie helping Ella, until they both got to the very top.

 

 

This is a post about negotiations.

The girls love the Children's Museum, so it can be hard to get them out of there. But it was close to lunchtime, and Ella's naptime, so we had to go. Maisie was doing chalk drawings when I told her, "two minutes!" She asked "How about five minutes?" I said, well, okay... then she drew this:

And then I said, well, if you can write eight minutes (even if it's spelled "8 minits"), you can have that extra time to stay and play. :)

But since then, she's gotten really interested in writing numbers. She can count past 100 and is going to be able to write them soon too. I might have to amend my "if you can write it you can have it" policy!

Weekend roundup

No story to today's post; sorry about that. Just some cute pics of what we did this weekend. What can I say? It's Monday and I haven't quite had enough coffee yet to build a cohesive narrative structure.

Ella and I played Candy Land at the Chatterbox on Saturday, while Maisie played Mario Brothers.

Then the girls drew pictures. Maisie is always drawing and writing these days; we go through little pads of paper faster than you could believe. Here's Maisie's picture of two cows, a mama and a baby.

Ella's taken up drawing too, like Maisie. Unfortunately I have no idea what her picture is... she told me but I can't remember.

On Sunday the "girl team" (me and the girls) went to the zoo. Here's a penguin fight!

The girls posed for a picture on the tortoise statue, at the top of the Tropics Trail.

We also went through the Minnesota Trail, part of which goes outside and past a bird feeder. There was a huge wild turkey hanging out there, eating bird seed off the ground. Maisie was suitably impressed by it.

When we returned from the zoo, Ella took a nap and Maisie and I went to Target. Check out her addition to our shopping list...

That's WILD TRCEE (wild turkey). She thought it was hilarious!

Wish list

Last night Maisie announced she wanted to write a letter to the Easter bunny. I thought, why the heck not? We do letters to Santa, right? Makes about as much sense. Here's what she produced, all on her own:

Der Eastr
Bunny
Can you
pease get
me toys
from Maisie

Not bad, eh? :)