"Mayfra" aka Maya at 21 months

I love her words at this age, especially now that she calls herself "Mayfra" so funny :)

O Christmas Tree O Christmas Tree

I am ashamed I have not written and updated since Thanksgiving of  LAST year! :( 

It is my New Year's resolution to commit to updating at least once a week! As you can see a lot of growing has happened in the last year with Maya. She is not a baby any more and has graduated into the toddler stage, complete with challenging temper tantrums, an expanding vocabulary and a budding personality!

We have been so busy these past 12 months and I promise I will look back and reflect on all of those time as we attempt to catch up! Maybe there won't be as many pictures...it is hard to keep up with myself in the picture-taking arena! 

Last year we took Maya to see Santa at the Stonestown Mall and it was a huge hit! We captured some fun pictures in front of the grand Christmas tree and Maya sat on Santa's lap. All were happy...

This year was another story...

take one

take two

take three

take four

And this guy...well, Maya never sat on his lap. It was an accumulation of things: it was past her bedtime, we had to stand in line for 40ish mintes and told her "no" probably a dozen of times, and asked her to stand quietly to wait her turn. She became enamored with the ten year old girl standing in line in front of us and quickly began jabbering to her in her own language. Before we even realized it she was totally attached to this  child's hip and when it was her turn to sit on Santa's lap, Maya thought that invitation extended to her too. That's when her Christmas spirit was crushed, as soon as we told her she couldn't follow she had a classic toddler temper tantrum. She was laying on the ground belly down kicking and crying real tears. Poor little miss just wanted to hang out with the ten year old. :( And when it was finally Maya's turn she gleefully ran towards Santa, which we thought was a good sign, only to find her trailing off after her new friend. When we redirected her attention to Santa she had another full-blown tantrum. So, nonetheless, we left without our picture but gained a memorable experience. :)

more to come....



Silber Family Christmas preview...

Stationery card

View the entire collection of cards.

many things to be thankful for...thanksgiving 2010

Thanksgiving 2010

This year we continued our tradition of cooking a big turkey! We took a little hiatus from this tradition last year when I was pregnant because I didn't feel like cooking ANYTHING then! I pulled out the recipe box and was determined to cook up a nice Thanksgiving dinner from scratch for my little family of three! We used J's mom's recipe for Turkey Mercedes, my mom's recipe for her awesome flaky biscuits, and then I mashed up some potatoes and made my grandma's famous green bean casserole! We even added our own little twist and made some stuffing and gravy from our awesome turkey! As much as we tried to plan it out we still ended up picking up our turkey a little last minute from the store.

The morning of Thanksgiving I woke up determined to get the bird prepped and ready to cook by 9 am so we could have a dinner/lunch with Maya. Needless to say our bird was still frozen in the morning, so we had to wait it out a bit. We didn't end up getting it in to cook until after 1 pm! J never has a timeline he seems to function off of and jokingly said, "I thought it was called Thanksgiving DINNER anyway!" Well, we both grew up in the midwest and lunch=dinner and dinner=supper there! We ended up feeding Maya her Thanksgiving dinner minus the turkey a little bit early so she could still have an on-time bedtime! She absolutely LOVED feeding herself and the green bean casserole was by far her favorite. After she went to bed we were able to kick back and enjoy our Thanksgiving dinner together. I even broke out our "good china," from our wedding. I definitely give props to all of those families out there that cook from scratch all the time. I found it difficult to find the time with a little 10 month old crawling around! Luckily J was home so he entertained her while I was slaving away in the kitchen! P.S. yes, J still holds Maya during her naps. He is such a softy.

one

Maya turned one year old. I can't believe we have a one year old. It is so amazing how quickly time is flying by these days. We planned a very quiet, quaint first birthday party for our little miss. We had close friends and family come to celebrate her big day. I tried my best to make it as memorable as possible for this little one year old. I vowed to make her a birthday cake myself and I totally delivered! I found this sweet rainbow cake recipe on Pioneer Woman's Tasty Kitchen Website and new I just had to try it out for my little princess. I wanted her first bites of cake to be fun and colorful! It took some time to make the cake, especially since I don't have a double over and it required 6 different mini cakes but the final result was well worth it! I even created a mini version of cupcakes for her little highness. I got all the details down to the little tutu and bow she was to wear. Every little girl wants to wear a tutu on her first birthday right??

Little miss must have been amped up by all of the excitement because she basically went nap-less all day long and she normally likes to take about 3 naps a day still. We had Vaughn, Jasmine, Kyle and Brandy there with us to sing Happy Birthday and enjoy a little homemade rainbow birthday cake. Maya was so tired and serious by the time it was her moment to shine that she wasn't even that interested in devouring her birthday cake. She kind of just stared at it with glazed over eyes. She was more interested in the candy necklace I had given her earlier. Her dainty self eventually dug into the cake and had a taste but was not that thrilled about it. She must be a chocolate girl. We will try chocolate cake next year...

After some birthday celebrating we headed on over to Golden Gate Park to play a few rounds of croquet. It was a little chilly but well worth the breeze to spend some qualitiy competitive time with our friends. Maya was a little trooper and coaxed J into holding her throughout the two rounds we played. And not to toot my own horn but I took the title the second round of croquet! :) Maya opened presents after the park and went to bed shortly after.

A few things Maya does these days...

knows how to clap her hands

waves bye-bye

blows kisses (holds hand to her mouth)

gives kisses

says mama and dada

loves to brush her teeth

dances to music

initiates playing peek-a-boo

puts hats and clothes on her head

climbs up the stairs

slides down the slide with help

still cruising away on the furniture...no walking yet

crawls up on couch

hands things for you to open

naps at 0900, 1300, 1700 and bedtime around 1930 and sleeps for a wonderful 12 hours straight!

a special birthday painting J did for Maya