All About Maya - 15 Months Old

All About Maya Grace at 15 months old....



Nicknames: Gracie, Grace, My My, Maya Baya, Boo, Goober
Weight & Height: 23 lbs 8 oz and over 32 inches long!! 60% for weight and 94% for height.
Hair: Hardly any hair. Josh and I forget sometimes just how old she is because her lack of hair still makes her look like such a baby! It is starting to fill in more on the top finally. Looks like she will be a little brown-haired beauty!
Favorite foods: Blueberries, black beans, puffs, oranges, strawberries, peas, green beans, and anything Italian (pizza, spaghetti, lasagna, ravioli, etc). Maya would eat only fruits and veggies if I let her and unfortunately I think that's what's leading to her iron deficiency issues (more on that below). I try to push foods high in iron, but she's definitely an opinionated toddler and she has her "preferences" when it comes to food. Unfortunately she has a bad habit of throwing the food that she doesn't like. Ugh.
Favorite Drink: Whole milk three times a day and water or watered down apple juice the rest of the day. She has a strong preference for drinking out of sippy cups with soft spouts... to the point that she won't drink much otherwise.
Favorite toys: Balls, swings, getting rides in her cars outside, anything her sisters are playing with
Favorite books: Anything Elmo!
Favorite stuffed animal: Teddy!
Favorite Person: She's a mama's girl lately!
Bedtime: Bedtime is creeping later and later with summer approaching... she goes down anywhere between 7:15 - 8:00 right now.
Wake-up time: She is fairly routine... 95% of days she's up between 7:00 - 7:30. She's unlike my other girls... if she goes to bed later she will actually sleep later in the morning. The other girls would always get up earlier!
Naps: One nap in the afternoon. Typically goes down around 1:00 and sleeps anywhere from 2 - 3 hours.
What she's saying: DaEee (Daddy), Mama, Nenna (Makenna), TeEe (Teddy), BaBy (Bye Bye), Ii (Hi), Ba (ball), Itty (kitty), ippy (sippy), PeeBoo (Peekaboo), Up, Uh-Oh, Uh-Ugh (her version of "no" while shaking her head)
Latest Accomplishment: Maya started full blown walking right around 14 months old! She is everywhere now! She has also turned into quite the climber. I found her standing on the desk chair the other day, holding my camera in one hand and trying to hit the computer keyboard with the other. She likes to carry around our little step stool and put it in places to make it easier to climb and get things! Stinker!
Likes: cotton balls (weird, I know), toothbrushes, standing at the bathroom sink, taking baths, being outside, anything that has to do with playing in water
Dislikes: taking medicine (mostly b/c her iron drops taste so bad), getting her teeth brushed (which is weird because at 12 months this was in the "like" category), getting carted around to all of her sisters' activities (she starts to fight the car seat after awhile), getting her fingernails trimmed, getting her diaper changed, anything small and dangerous that she's not suppose to have (think little jewelry beads, small bouncy balls, chap stick... anything her big sisters have that she can't)
Best known for: Her smiley disposition! Miss Paula at music class called her "our ray of sunshine" the other day at class!
Health: Everyone in our house suffered through the stomach flu in late March. Poor Maya got hit the hardest. She threw up well over 18 times if I remember correctly, with 14 of those times being in the first 3 hours. So scary. We also found out at Maya's 12 month Dr's appt that she has slightly low iron levels. I tried to fix it with diet alone for a month, but it didn't raise her levels enough to satisfy her doctor. Now she's on an iron supplement, although I have to admit that I'm not the best at forcing it on her. She hates it (it tastes horrible and it gives her stomach cramps) so I only force her to take it on days when she hasn't been eating well for me. Otherwise she's eating lots of black beans and Italian food with ground beef in it :)
Interesting Tidbits: Maya puts just about everything in her mouth. And I mean everything. I don't remember having a child that I had to worry about quite as much as her. Oh Maya. And it seems to be getting worse with age rather than getting better. I think it's odd that she's so fascinated with her mouth yet never took a pacifier or sucked her thumb.

Peculiar Sleep Habits

Maryn has some strange napping habits. I've posted pictures in the past of the weird positions she likes to nap in, but now she's got something going on with her napping wear. For most of the winter she insisted on putting pajamas on for nap time (actually any time of the day to be honest with you). On one hand, I understand. I don't like to sleep in jeans either, so why would she? It's not comfortable. But what about days when she's wearing comfy pants? Absolutely not... still had to be jammies. Well somewhere in there I think she got lazy and decided to skip a step and has now decided she prefers to nap in her underwear or just plain old nude. For the record, I put her to bed fully clothed. She decides to shed the layers after I leave the room. And the odd thing is that it's only at nap time, it's never once been an issue at bedtime. It's really a minor thing, but is this seriously normal?! I feel like I'm living with a nudist! She comes traipsing downstairs after her nap and would probably go outside to play in her underwear if I let her. She has absolutely no inhibitions. Oh boy. I thought her streaking phase was over. This must be streaking phase part 2.

This particular day she nicely combined the odd sleeping position along with the nudity. At least she was nice enough to cover up for the photo!


And no I didn't pose this photo! This is Maryn sleeping au-naturale!

Costume Suggestion

The other night Josh was putting Maryn to bed. She picks her nose and hands him a booger and says "Here you go Daddy. You can be a booger for Halloween!"

Lovely. :)

Chicken Fried

One of our girls' favorite activities is to listen to music and dance. They like some typical kids songs, but they've also grown quite fond of some of our music. One of those songs being "Chicken Fried" by Zac Brown Band. Maryn and Makenna know more of the lyrics to the song than I do! Anyway the other day I was singing a song out loud (some other country song) and Maryn was contently listening (I believe I was making lunch at the time). All of a sudden when there was a break in my singing she breaks in singing "Just a little bit of chicken fried!" And it makes me smile every time she asks to listen to this song by name - "Can I listen to Chicken Fried Rice?" :)

For awhile when Maryn would get frustrated or was not getting her way, she would lash out by yelling "I don't like you/Mom/Dad/Makenna" or whoever happened to be getting in the way of whatever she wanted. We have had numerous talks about how we don't say that to people and how it could hurt their feelings and that's not an appropriate way to vent our frustration. So she has come up with a solution that she thinks is acceptable - "I don't like somebody!" With little beady eyes staring at whoever has disciplined her or made her mad. Oh boy. That's the one we hear most often but she'll also throw a random object into the center of her wrath sometimes - "I don't like you clouds!"

Backyard Play

Some pictures of the girls enjoying an evening playing in the backyard...

Garden 2010

Our garden was planted late this year, and with that said, only half of it is currently planted. The weather has not been cooperating at all. The girls love helping in the garden. Digging in the dirt, weeding, picking the fresh vegetables. You name it, they enjoy it. Unfortunately due to bad weather lately, we had to put the garden in on a cold, wet night this past week. The girls didn't seem to care, but Josh and I did :) This year we have a wide variety of tomato plants, numerous pepper plants, green beans, strawberries, cantaloupe, watermelon and pumpkins. We've enjoyed gardening so much in past summers that we're planning on digging up even more of our backyard so we can add on to our garden! There's just something about fresh homegrown veggies! Yum!



Gotta love the boots!


Unfortunately since it was so wet and muddy the girls did more watching this year than they would like. Typically they're right in there with us.


Makenna trying to help me to get Maryn to "look" at the camera


Absolutely blessed...


and blessed!






Sweet Maya smile


She was smiling until she looked out the window and saw the other girls outside


Look at that "look"! Very unhappy with mommy at this moment!


"Somebody take me outside!"


"Just let me out! NOW!"


Mommy gave in and took her out to swing in the wet and cold while Daddy and the girls worked on the garden. (Does anyone recognize this hat by any chance??? We found it in our closet and don't know where it came from!)

Messy Moosh

Oh Maya! You are the messiest eater I've ever known! How is this possible?! She seems to get food everywhere BUT in her mouth. Stinker.

Maya still goes crazy for M&M's. I've never seen a kid get so excited for candy. Keep in mind she's only had them a handful of times, but she takes advantage of it when she does. But it amazes me, she is the messiest eater ever with food flying everywhere, but if we give her M&M's not ONE will hit the ground. Hmmmmm....


Messy M&M moosh...



What happened to "Melts in your mouth, not in your hand"? How about "Melts in little grubby hands and then gets smeared EVERYWHERE"!?

Spring Soccer 2010

The soccer season is in full swing at our house! And this year Maryn is FINALLY old enough to participate! Yeah! She has been waiting patiently for a long time! And then of course it rains 2 out of the past 3 Mondays so her practices were cancelled :( Oh well... I'm hopeful they'll make them up at a different time. The one practice Maryn did have so far, she enjoyed it and did well. She listened to her coach and did as she was told! Yeah! That's about all I expect from 3 year old soccer!

By luck of the draw, Makenna ended up on the same team with one of her best friends, Hanna. Talk about excitement!! Makenna has only played one game so far, but it seems that she didn't lose her soccer abilities over the winter. She scored 5 goals and had 1 assist in the first game, and that's with only playing half the game! I love seeing her smile from ear-to-ear when she's out on that field. She knows how to get after that ball and she loves doing it!

As soon as the weather cooperates and we have more games, I plan to have more pictures from the actual games that I will post. More to come...

Maryn's 1st official day of soccer! FINALLY!


Not quite sure what she's doing in this picture... practicing her soccer cheers?!


I LOVE this action shot of Makenna! Look at that concentration in her eyes! Even her tongue is hanging out she's focusing so intensely! Love it!


Another Makenna action shot


Makenna and Hanna


Kim (Hanna's mom) and I pray that these two girls don't drift apart (despite being at different schools until 6th grade). They are such awesome friends!


I love how she's even smiling just standing there waiting for the ball to be thrown back in to play!


Maryn and Micah (her good friend from Bible study, future preschool buddy, and Hanna's little brother) having fun while the older girls played soccer


Maryn and Micah looking like they're having a very serious, yet fun conversation!