Belly Laughs

Nothing can make my day brighter than hearing a whole-hearted belly laugh from Maya. There is just something about little baby's laughing that I can't resist! It is so sweet! Maya is quite ticklish (especially on her feet and belly) and it is very easy to get her to smile and laugh. There is no shortage of smiles from this Budke baby :)


Sweet, charming Maya smile! Notice the rolly polly legs on this child! I just can't get enough of them! This is my first baby that actually has chubby baby legs!


Typical smile sticking out her tongue.


And this is the whole body smile! As you can tell every body part starts to move with this smile!

Soccer Stud

It's amazing what being a few months older and losing your tonsils can do to a little kid's soccer game ;) As I mentioned on my blog this past fall, Makenna loves soccer but had a hard time even getting near the ball in games. She was much too kind and didn't like the idea of taking the ball away from someone else. Even though she struggled with this sport, she absolutely loves it so we tried again this spring. Well much to our surprise, she has become a soccer stud over the winter :) She scored 6 goals at last night's game! She was on fire! I honestly don't think anyone, from either team, scored at all while she was on the field. Granted, one of her goals was in the other team's goal, but at this age no one honestly cares! What amazed me the most was her aggression (which we saw none of last fall). She would get right in there using elbows and arms to get good body position and start kicking the ball all the way down the field and score all by herself (many times with a mob of little girls trailing her and trying to get in on the action as well). She was so adorable and would start jumping up and down and give us the standard Makenna thumbs up after each goal! She kept telling me before hand how she prefers games so much more over just drill days at soccer and now I see why!

But of course with every fun and good thing, has to be some negative. We already started in on the negative parent comments. We were a little embarrassed (even though honestly we shouldn't have been) about how dominating she was on the field. But our embarrassment soon faded into overprotectiveness when Josh overheard other parents making comments about her (about her height giving her an unfair advantage, being too old, etc). It makes me so mad. These kids are four people!!! And no we didn't hold our seven year old back in the four year old tiny kickers club so she could wallop all of your four year olds! Get over it! She creamed your kids and was being nice and having fun doing it all at the same time. I can understand if she was being a bad sport about it, but she wasn't. Many of these parents could learn a few lessons on sportsmanship from her. I'm so proud of her because she gave it her all, enjoyed being part of a team, listened to her coach, and liked socializing on the sidelines almost as much as being on the field.

Potty Training

FINALLY Maryn has decided to be interested in potty training!!! Her timing could've been a little better (ie. we have a two month old and she picked when Makenna was recovering from surgery), but we'll take it! I believe this is at least our 4th attempt at trying. She's shown interest before but never wanted to stick with it. We've been working on it for well over a week and a half and things are going okay. She's so different from Makenna. Makenna was fully trained in a week, nights included. Maryn will be slow going and will do things at her own pace, that's just her personality. Currently she is in pull-ups (which we never even had to use with Makenna) and we are taking her to the potty on a regular basis. She will pee in the potty almost every time we take her and she poops in the potty on a regular basis as well. With that said she still can't keep her pull-up dry consistently and she's not able to tell us when she has to go. I decided to try a method this past weekend that I'd read about (much to Josh's dismay) and it seemed to work really well... you just let them be naked all the time and then they'll realize their urges to go better. It worked very well and she actually went to the potty without me prompting her three times in a row. But then she did have one accident on the carpet and the next day we were too busy (she can't go naked at church or playing outside, right?!) so it kind of fizzled out. So maybe we'll try that again another day.

There is a really funny story from the day she started potty training. That morning she had an absolutely disgusting poopy diaper. I was completely grossed out and was giving her the "you really need to use the potty" talk that Josh and I had been preaching at her lately. This time I was desperate though and decided I would try a little bribery. "Maryn if you start going on the potty, Mommy will take you to the store and buy you a new toy!!" All excited Maryn replies "A toy!" Stops and thinks about it for a second. "Uuuuhhhhhh... no thank you!" I thought we were doomed! The child wanted to wear diapers forever! And then that very night I heard her alone in the bathroom trying to get up on the potty by herself and sure enough she had to use the potty. We've been potty training her ever since!

Lesson Learned

A few weeks ago we took the girls to the video store to each pick out a video. All went well until we got home and they had a huge fight over who got to watch their movie first. Josh and I didn't let either girl watch their movie due to their behavior and they got a good talking to about how they were both being selfish and behaving inappropriately.

Fast forward to this past Friday night... we took the girls to the movie store to pick out movies again. As they got in the car after picking out movies, the conversation started moving towards who got to watch first when we got home. All of a sudden Makenna stopped mid-sentence and says "Maryn, you can watch your movie first since that's the nice thing to do." Josh and I just looked at each other bewildered. She only had to be punished for her selfish behavior once and she corrected it the next time around without being reminded. We are so proud that she learned her lesson so quickly.

Dancing Ballerinas

The girls got quite bored being stuck at home for the week following Makenna's tonsillectomy. We were trying to come up with all kinds of "quiet" activities to do. Well towards the end of the week Makenna perked up a little and the girls decided to be dancing ballerinas and dance to their Disney CD. Maryn's favorite is definitely the song from Sleeping Beauty... she can sing the entire song and it is absolutely hilarious. Makenna prefers anything from Mary Poppins.

Monkey see, monkey do. Maryn had to put on one of Nenny's dance outfits as soon as she saw Nenny put one on.


Dancing Aurora :)


Doesn't she look sophisticated in this picture?! Seriously, I don't think she can pass for 4 anymore.


This is what Makenna looked like most of the week...

Making Maya Laugh

One of the favorite activities at our house right now is making Maya smile and laugh! She is the smiliest baby! All you have to do is look at her and she will start grinning ear to ear. She loves interacting with people. Every morning starts off wonderfully for me because the first thing I get to do is go in and get Maya and see her absolutely turn inside out when she sees me. Her arms and legs start flailing and her eyes get squinty because she's smiling so big! Nothing can make a person feel more loved! The full belly laughs are coming more often and even at random times. I was outside talking to my neighbor yesterday and she started a minute long belly laugh after their dog barked :)

I walked in on this sweet scene with my family... they were all trying to make Maya smile and laugh! I love capturing moments like these :)

Rolling Over & Soothing To Sleep

Some fun stuff to report about Maya...

She rolled over for the first time yesterday (10 1/2 weeks old). This child absolutely despises tummy time. I don't blame her as I think it upsets her tummy and she pukes almost every time she's on her tummy. Poor thing. Doesn't matter how long I wait until after she eats, she will still spit up. Despite that, I still try to do some tummy time with her every few days (yes, I know not enough, but you should hear her scream). Well yesterday we laid her on her tummy and surprise! She rolled over from her tummy to her back with ease! I tried two more times and she repeated it again (this of course after she puked all over her blanket and laid her head in it before I could move her or clean it up). Then I ran and got the video camera and got her 4th time ever rolling over on video! Makenna was so excited for her :)

I have reported about what a wonderful sleeper Maya is and she just keeps getting better and better. Over the past two or so weeks she has even been able to soothe herself to sleep. I can put her in her crib drowsy but not sleeping and she will fall asleep all on her own without making a fuss! This seems like such a big kid thing to be able to do! I'm so proud of my baby! She's sleeping anywhere from 8 - 10 hour straight each night with numerous long naps each day! Looks like we might have another good sleeper on our hands :)

Here's a great example of her soothing herself to sleep :) I'm very much a believer having your kids nap and sleep in their cribs (she was put in her crib immediately after I took this picture!), but I guess she was a little too tuckered out last weekend to even make it through playtime on her play mat.

Stories Update

I am so far behind on recording all of the girls cute little stories. I just don't seem to have the time to sit down and write them out. In no particular order....

A few months ago (I was still pregnant... extremely pregnant) I had to take the van in for some work. I always take the girls with me for oil changes and they do just fine waiting for that short amount of time, but this was our 30,000 mile maintenance and it was scheduled to take at least an hour and a half. I came prepared with lots of snacks and books and such but was very worried about how the morning would play out in the waiting room at the Toyota dealership. Well much to my surprise the girls were better than I could have imagined. The appointment took even longer than I thought and they were good the entire time. Towards the end of our time there a man that was working there and had been around most of the morning came up to me and said "Ma'am I just wanted to tell you how well behaved your children are. We don't see children behave as well as yours do nowadays." And then he went into all these stories about the terrible children they've had there recently. It was a very proud mommy moment to have a complete stranger tell me how well behaved my kids were.

I can't remember the situation surrounding the conversation, but Makenna was talking to one of her friends about dogs. She started to tell her friend about how her Papa and Nana had tons of dogs. Her friend was in awe that there were so many and Makenna responds with "They have that many so that way if one of them dies they have some extra ones."

One morning I was getting ready upstairs and I thought the girls were playing quietly in the basement. All of a sudden I heard Maryn screaming a very frustrated scream. I ran to see what the fuss was all about and there stands Maryn at the top of the stairs with her head and one arm raised above her head all stuck inside of the hole of her little potty seat!!! And it was stuck good! Even I had a hard time getting it off. I really wish I had a picture of that one. Not sure how that situation came to be, but she's two so I never put anything past her.

Maryn was holding Maya one evening and I knew it was going to be short-lived because I could tell Maya was getting agitated. Maryn was sitting there admiring Maya when all of a sudden Maya just started screaming. Maryn very irritated says "No Maya" and very abruptly covers Maya's mouth with her hand. Great example of why you never leave a 2 year old alone with a baby.

I've written many times about how much our girls love to wrestle. Well they've taken to wrestling so much that now they don't even need Daddy around to wrestle, they just wrestle each other. Now most people would say that Makenna has an unfair advantage and would assume that Maryn gets creamed. Much to the contrary... the girls were having one of their typical wrestling matches in the living room while Josh and I were busy in the kitchen. All of a sudden we hear Nenny upset and yelling for help. Maryn is on her knees, behind Makenna, and has Makenna in a choke hold and is trying to pin her to the ground! We tried to break up the situation and tell Maryn not to do that move because it could hurt Makenna but as soon as they started to wrestle again she did the exact same move. She's a smart little cookie and realized the move worked the first time so why wouldn't she try it again!

We have really been trying to work with Maryn on her prayers so that she is able to be more comfortable with non-recited prayers. Anyway, she listens to all the rest of us pray and it's interesting what she picks up and what is important to her. For probably a good month her evening prayer went as follows "Thank you God for Mommy, Daddy, Nenny, Maya, water, water, appey juice, appey juice. Amen!" We never knew how important water and apple juice were to her until she started praying for each one twice each night :) More recently she has included more serious matters in her prayers (such as food, shelter, health, etc) but has added in some of her favorite characters - "Thank you God for Mommy, Daddy, Nenny, Maya, food, drink, something inaudible, Cinderella, Rora (for Aurora), Jammas (for Jasmine), Dora. The End."