Little Miss Independent

Maya has really started showing us her personality! She is very independent, curious, and vocal. She loves to be silly, dance, sweep, play peek-a-boo, and read. She reads and reads and reads. As you can see she is quite tall for her age, but still kind of a lightweight....here are her stats at 15 months:

Height: 32.5"

Weight: 24 lbs
Words: Hiyee (Hi), ByeBye, Kitty, MaMa, Da (dad), NO, hotttt, nee (nose), eye, eee (ear), hair, maaa (mouth), pee, poopoo, pease (please), thank you, PaPa (grandpa), bee buu (belly button), Braa (Brad), Tree, apple, brrrrr, whoa, uh oh, Ni (nigel our cat), pig, duckduck, cow, moo, keee (keys), ba (bottle), all done, two (not one or three...just two), My AH (Maya), Up, E.E. (Eric), ball, hat....and many other things that we haven't decoded yet :)

Favorite Foods: Broccoli, baby cheese puffs, berries, toast w/ jam, spinach pasta

Thanksgiving

We spent Thanksgiving with family and our great friend Patrick! Maya was really sick on Thanksgiving, so it wasn't that memorable for her. She was able to play with her best friend Brad and the boys watched more football that I thought was possible!

Happy Halloween

Our Little Pumpkin

Football Saturday

As you know, we are a football loving family! I have been able to go to two Oregon games (of course I did take one photo!) and Ty has been busy traveling with Linfield to most of their games as the team chaplain and radio announcer. Maya is getting pretty good at throwing her hands up when we yell touchdown!! Ty's so proud, he has even taught her about laying on the couch, eating snacks and watching the game (or games!).

Catching Up...

The start of fall has been one for the record books on Birch Street. We had a little visitor named Ashton for a few days, a slumber party with Liz, a couple of soccer games, a visit from Uncle Brock and (the Matthews) to run the PORTLAND MARATHON and a case of the swine flu.

It was a a challenging start to fall for me, but I am hopeful that we are through the rough stuff and ready for the best parts of fall.

Maya's 1st Birthday

Maya is ONE!

It is really hard to believe that a year ago it was just the two of us. Maya has truly blessed our life, and we couldn't imagine our world without her. For her birthday at home she was a butterfly and played Rock Band...she loves the music and banging on the drums.

She is now 31.5 inches tall, and weighs 22.5 lbs. She loves to play, read books, talk on her play phone (or her hand) and the girl loves to eat. I couldn't tell you what her favorite foods are, because she loves everything. She really likes raspberries and broccoli.

Viva Vacation!

8 hours of driving by myself with 3 children was surprisingly pleasant (thank you Jesus for inventing DVD players in SUVs). When we arrived the weather wasn't looking so promising, but when we woke up on Sunday morning the clouds parted and we had nothing but sunshine for 8 days! Josh & Liz were angels and loved life at the cabin, they played in the lake or in the hot tub for at least 10 hours a day. Jazz & Faith, Erin & JJ's labs are spending the summer/fall at the cabin and Josh and Liz couldn't get enough. They swam together and played fetch and even "rested" together. They only stopped to watch the "occasional" movie (I think we watched at least 25, several two or three times) or to eat. Maya was a water dog too! Her OCD mom actually relaxed and Grama Chris made her a "hot tub" out of an old cooler. She was in heaven. Ty flew in on Tuesday night, and Uncle Brock was able to spend a few days too. It was a really low-key week, the only bump in the road was that Liz ended up with an ear infection and the beginnings of tonsillitis on the day before we headed home. We even witnessed a giant thunder and lightening storm one night. Good times!

The big kids slept in a tent about 1/2 the time and Pea thought it was the greatest play room ever...she giggled and rolled around for an hour.

The Lake

The Beach

Mini-Me

Ty's cousin MacGreggor (Mac) came to town to hit up the NBC camp at Linfield and was able to stay for an extra few days. He is an amazing young man...polite, thoughtful, talkative, great with babies...and 16! He is an aspiring quarterback, so he and Ty spent some time working on his arm mechanics (that makes me sound really football savvy right?!). The craziest part of having Mac here was noticing all of the similarities between he and Ty. It really freaked me out to be honest, I would imagine Ty to have been exactly like Mac at the same age. I'll let you make your own call from the pictures. Here are a few highlights of Mac's trip:

1. Witnessed a drug deal while picking up pizza
2. Experienced gang culture at the Lancaster Mall
3. Perfected his guitar abilities playing hours of Rock Band 2 with Ty
4. Hung out at the beach and found a pair of cleats at the Nike Outlet store for $9

Overall it was pretty eventful...I was mortified (see #1 &2), but I think that he had a great time.

Concert w/ the Fam!

My cousins...Ryan, Bryce, & Travis

It was kind of like a date? No baby...Right?

The Girls! Amy, Tezra, & Me

Tezra & Ryan

Uncle Jerry, Ruthie & Dad

We met up with my family in Seattle for the Kenny Chesney Concert! It was awsome to have everyone together even if for only 24 hours! We brought my grandma with us too, so she could meet Ryan's finance Tezra.

Congrats Jen & Lee

Saturday Night we heading to Portland for Jen & Lee's wedding, it was a lot of fun. As always it is wonderful to get together with old friends, and it was really special to be there for Jen. The wedding was a modern Jewish ceremony, a new experience for all of us west coasters! She wore her grandmother's dress from the 1950's and a really cool bird's nest hair piece. We were totally fascinated to say the least, and it was awesome to see Jen connecting with her heritage. I had to include the chair picture, because we were all so excited about all of the traditions. MAZEL TOV!