Happy Birthday, Maelie!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Maelie!!!

Today, my baby turns TWO!!!!!  And, we couldn't be prouder of her.  We are planning a family party for her this Saturday, that will be a Wiggly good time, so, today, Daddy took the day off and we are planning to drive to Duluth to see the Aquarium.  Photos to come!  (I hope!)

But, in celebration of Maelie's birthday, I thought I'd run down some of Maelie's milestones:

*  She walks, runs, hops like a kangaroo, climbs, dances, jumps, swims in the tub, and is just all-around active.

*  Her speech has just BLOOMED in the past week.  She now repeats words and can say more than 50+ words.  Over 100 if you count her signed words, which she still does.  Her favorite word seems to be 'NO,' or, 'NOT.'  What a shocker for a toddler.  

*  She definitely has her own personality, and it's a strong one.  She knows her own mind.  I'm glad.  She's going to be a leader.  

*  Her favorite color is ret.  (red)  Or, at least it seems to be! 

*  She ADORES the Wiggles.  Especially the red one.  :)

*  She knows most of her letters, if not all.

*  She's been learning her numbers and knows almost all from 1 to 10.  Her favorite?  The numbers 8 and 9.  (I have no idea why).

*  She knows her colors, but can't say them all yet.  Ask her to point out any color, though, and she's got it.  

*  She knows her basic shapes...again, she doesn't say them, but points them out when asked.  

*  She still loves her books and we have no worries with letting her read her paper books by herself.  She does NOT rip pages and turns the pages very carefully.

*  Her favorite food is still chicken and she still dislikes sweets.  The only sweet things she'll eat are honey nut cheerios and her freeze dried yogurt drops.  She's also gotten to really like hot dogs.  But chicken is STILL her absolute number one favorite.  

*  She now likes to color and draw, and loves to draw stars, balloons, and the number 9 with my help.  She makes me proud how fast she has learned how to draw, though.

*  She still prefers trucks and noisy toys over dolls, but has been rocking her Ernie, Grover, and Elmo dolls lately, and singing Rock a Bye Baby to them.  She loves any toys that are educational.  

*  She LOVES balloons, LOVES her own crib, LOVES her Daddy, and I *think* she loves her Mommy.  :)

*  She is inquisitive, active, growing, learning, and taking in the world as fast as it presents itself to her.  She is such a precious, sweet, kind-hearted little girl that has not only her family, but the whole town smitten with her.  It has been a magical time with her so far, and we cannot wait to watch her next set of milestones unfold!!!!

Happy Birthday, Empress!!!!!  We love you.

Maelie at McDonald's PlayPlace

Here's an adorable little video of Maelie impressed with the PlayPlace, and flirting with a little boy who was quite smitten with her!!  :)
Maelie's McPlayPlace Video

Wild Weekend

We had a wild weekend, something out of a blockbuster movie.  It had all the elements...adventure, excitement, tragedy, mystery.

It started on Friday when Mike came home from work.  He decided to take Maelie to the local mall to drop off a photo of Maelie at the nail place...run by Vietnamese who are smitten with Maelie.  They brought them a Tet photo.  So, they weren't going to be long, and it gave me a chance for a bubble bath.  But, they didn't come home right away, and just as I was starting to worry, and texting Daddy to see where they were, they got home. In walks Mike with a little stuffed tiger, and a computer disc.  I asked what this was all about, and he said I had to look at the disc, he wouldn't tell me.  Okaaaay.....  Here's what I found:

Yes.  That is Mike, Maelie and a baby tiger.  Apparently, at the mall, they had baby wild animals to have your photo taken or play with.  She could have had it taken with a baby kangaroo or some other animals, but Daddy figured since it was the Year of the Tiger, this had to be done.  :)

Saturday dawned a beautiful day, and I was feeling a bit put-out.  I always seem to miss the adventures!!!  So, I decreed that we were going to go for a family drive.  Where?  Well, let's drive to a small town about 20 miles away.  What shall we do when we get there?  Oh, let's just go have lunch at the McDonald's they have there.  And, so we did.  We neither of us knew is that their McDonald's happens to have a McPlayPlace!  So, Mommy got to have a spontaneous adventure, too.  Maelie thought it was GREAT.  And, a little boy there thought MAELIE was great!!!!  She kept running from him...he kept wanting to hug her.  I told her to make sure to keep doing that when she's 16!!!  

So, right before we went into the McDonald's, Mike thought he had heard my brother's address being paged out for the fire department. (Mike always has his emergency band radio and pager with him since he helps out the local fire departments.) Since this small town is kind of in a radio and cell hole, we weren't sure, and just thought....NAH.  Well, on our way back home when we were able to get cell reception again, Mike had a text from my sister in law...yep, my brother had *luckily* looked out their window and saw flames....he tells his wife, "My truck's on fire.  Cal 911."  So, on our way to his house we went to see the damage.  Oy.

While we were there, my mom drove over and my sister and her husband.  We had an impromptu family get-together, and if we would have had marshmallows, we could have had s'mores!  (Just teasing, Al.)  His poor truck is a loss.  But, no one was hurt, the house or garage weren't damaged.  So, that's saying something.

Now, you would think that the weekend's adventures and tragedies would be done now, and, for the most part, they were.  At least nothing else affected us personally.  However, Saturday night, there was a shooting at a bar in another neighboring town.  A guy walks in and starts shooting.  Ambulances from neighboring towns were called.  It was unclear at first how many casualties there were.  One person was shot in the face and did die.  The shooter was knocked out with a bar stool.  I mean, really??  Not to make light of the tragedy, but, it makes us sound like we're living in the last frontier!

It was a fun, odd, sad, fortunate, unfortunate weekend for us.  I'm not even sure there was a full moon!!!!!!