Thing 1 or Thing 2?

Maeve had her hair up in a pony tail on top of her head. When we took it down, this is how her hair looked.

I think the hair looks like the Things from Cat in the Hat. Hopefully she doesn't get that mischievous!

The bib might look familiar to some of you.

Maeve's Green Thumb

We had a mixed bag of weather this weekend. Cold and rainy on Saturday, but improving as the weekend progressed. Yesterday was cool but sunny so we pulled on our wellies and trouped outside to attack the jungle in our backyard.

I decided we needed to pull out all the forget-me-nots before they seeded into our lawn--even though our lawn is less than 50% grass already. Maeve was in her glory helping out!

"I be a good helper! I pick all da weeds and flowers for you."

"Mama, I need a bucket for me." Apparently putting them in the big grey bin wasn't good. They had to go in a Maeve sized bin first and then be dumped into the grey bin.

"I don't bend down like you. I need my chair. Mama may you get my chair for me please?"
I tend to garden in a squatting position that is uncomfortable for most people except my mom. She can be in this squat all day and not feel it. I had a slightly sore lower back and neck after 6 hours of it.

We gardened for a couple of hours in the morning (yes, she helped for the whole 2 hours). Then we went in for lunch and her nap. She was so tired and full of fresh air she actually asked for her nap--which lasted about 3 hours. As soon as she woke up she was raring to come out and help some more. I let her help a bit more but then sent her off to the park with her dad so that people wouldn't think I was endorsing child labour.

Here she is sitting on her pink Muskoka chair (Adirondack chair for those of you outside Ontario) picking the flowers and throwing them into her bucket.



And this is the face I get when I ask her to smile for the camera.

Thanks for all your help Maevey. You ARE the best helper.

Bollywood bound?

Until recently, Maeve was too shy to actually dance in front of people--including us. But she seems to have gotten over that.

Here she is dancing to her favourite song off the Slum Dog Millionaire soundtrack. Many people with way too much time on their hands have set various Bollywood dance sequences to the song and posted them on YouTube. Maeve likes to watch them and try to imitate the dancing.

Unfortunately, my video camera ran out of tape before the song ended so this ends a bit abruptly.

Happy Easter

Just like the mysterious Santa Clause came to leave presents at Christmas time, the mysterious Easter Bunny stopped by our house with some presents and chocolate. According to Maeve he also nibbled on a few cookies while he was here...just like Santa Clause.

"'member Santa came our house and ate cookies. Easta bunny came too. Maybe he ate cookies."

Maeve had a great time doing Easter crafts at school and at home. Then when the big day came she was THRILLED to hunt for presents around our house and at Grandma's house.

She talks a mile a minute now, but only at daycare and at home. In public she'll only talk if she thinks no one else is paying attention. As soon as anyone focuses on her she is silent as a mouse.

She loves to discuss how she is a big girl now and can do lots of things by herself.
"Don't feed me like a baby mama. I feed myself. It ok I use my fingers? 'member I was a baby in China you fed me noodles? I like noodles. I love you mama. You hold me forever?"

We're currently working on getting her not to boss her friends around at daycare. She loves being the teacher's helper, but thinks that her helper status extends into being able to tell her friends what to do and how to do it. I hope she's not learning to be bossy from me...

The Easter Bunny left his glasses here!
Yay PlayDoh!
Catching a quick nap in the car between church and Easter brunch.
Hunting for Chocolate eggs at Grandmas.
In her Easter finery.
Happy Easter daddy!
The Easter Bunny left some bubble soap for Maeve too!
My cousins are my best buddies!

Our Girl is Three!

Maeve is now "tree". It is hard to believe how much she has changed since she came into our lives. That little baby has grown into a young lady--mostly. Sometimes she is still that scared, vulnerable infant. But mostly she is a confident little dynamo that her two old folks can barely keep up with. At 36 inches tall and 31 lbs she is getting hard to lug around. Luckily I have stopped aging--at least in my mind. My creaky old bones and paunchy belly tell a different story.

This was a big weekend for our Maeve. It started on Wednesday when PoPo and GungGung came to visit and lasted until this morning when they left. PoPo called when they got home and Maeve said "I miss you!"

We had a birthday party on Saturday. Maeve was sooooo excited about it for the week before. It was mostly family and a few friends. Maeve loved having all of her family around. She was especially happy to have her youngest cousins here to play with. We let her stay up 2.5 hours past her bedtime so she was a bit off on Sunday.

Monday was her actual birthday. She took some peanut free cupcakes into daycare to share with her friends. They had them for afternoon snack. You know, sugar 'em up and then send them home to their parents... One of her little friends bumped her head just before snack, so Maeve spent snacktime holding an icepack to her friend's head with one hand and picking the sprinkles off her cupcake with the other hand. We have a little multitasker on our hands.

Monday night we went out for a nice dinner with Maeve's four grandparents. It has been party party party for days now!

Preparty pics:
Here she is on St. Patrick's Day a dress from her great aunt Dolores in Ireland.

Trying on Mom's shoes.

Reading the paper with daddy @ Starbucks.

Party poses:
Cooking up some fun with cousin Bram
I found these cupcake dresses at a local craftshow. Aren't they adorable? www.sewfunky.ca
Maeve and Robyn decided that the new makeup table would be a good hair salon. I guess she really enjoyed that first haircut!

She's really into Disney Princesses these days. So her birthday was Princess themed.
Blowing out the candle.
Complete with a castle in the sky...

Birthday dinner:
With PoPo and GungGung

Birthday kisses from Mom and Dad.

With Grandma and Grandpa

Birthdays are so much fun

Where's Mommy?

I haven't been at home as much as I'd like lately. It has been busy at work, but I also took on an extra project which finished this past weekend. A few of us from my company entered a contest in support of the local food bank. We had to create a structure out of cans of food.

So we raised about $4000, which allowed us to purchase over 4500 cans of food. With those cans, we created this


It is a BIG fish tank. There's a fish profile on both sides and a face on either end. We named them Finn and Gil.

There were many other great builds and lots of cans were purchased to help kickoff the food bank's spring drive. Lots of other teams used wood, packing tape and even magnets to build their structures, but we tried to keep our structure "pure". So there is a wooden base, some bristol board and a little bit of cardboard in our structure to even out can heights, but for the most part it is just cans.

Here are a few of the other structures:










My favourite (after our own) is the basket of fruit. The use of colour from the labels was really striking.

My First "Real" Haircut

We took Maeve for her first professional haircut on Tuesday. There is a place in town called Cookie Cutters that specializes in kids cuts. I thought Maeve would be more comfortable in that environment.

She was super nervous and wouldn't speak or smile the whole time. She just sat there with a grimace on her face. She was very good though and didn't move except to follow the hairdresser's instructions. I held her hand the whole time.

So when we arrived, she looked around a little. They had a climbing apparatus with a slide. Each cutting station had a different vehicle for the kids to sit in. There was a little red airplane, a motorcycle, a firetruck, a green bug car, etc. Maeve was too overwhelmed to pick, so we chose the pink convertible for her. Each station also has a video player... but again, she was too overwhelmed to choose a movie so we picked Elmo Goes To School for her.

She was real trooper and was all smiles once she was done and we all raved about how beautiful her hair looked.

This morning she asked if she could go get her haircut again. I guess it wasn't that horrible an experience for her!

These are the many faces of Maeve from last week. You can't really see it, but she's got quite the mullet going.


Here she is getting her haircut.




The happy girl afterwards!

Sooooo much better than the bang trims that mommy gives her!!!