Bath time!

Some of my favorite times are Maisie's bath time albeit rather exhausting times. While bathing her I feel like I say "hold still please" or "come closer" at least a hundred times so between that and a sore back and arms from wrangling her slippery body, well let's just say it can be pretty frustrating (have I mentioned our bath tub is 3 feet tall so that complicates matters). I have also been guilty of getting frustrated while trying to wash, untangle and de-fuzz her curls (they are unruly, but worth it). But the reason bath nights are some of my favorite moments completely trumps those frustrating times. Those long dark wet lashes, silly bubble beards and wrinkly rasin toes are just perfection. I just can't get enough.

Maisie was extra happy in the bath last night so as her photographer mother, I needed to preserve those moments forever. She was just too cute.

Sidewalk Chalk

For Maisie's birthday she got some sidewalk chalk (Thanks Uncle Nat fat and Aunt Meg!) which has now become her favorite medium for creating toddler art. So one afternoon we decided to trace all of us to make a chalk family (everyone remembers doing that right?) Anyway, it turned out cute, but Austin and I had a good laugh about how my hips translated on chalk.

What can I say? My hips don't lie.

haha
Oh and p.s- I was standing on top of a ladder in order to take this picture.

Maisie always requests a monster.

This was Austin's interpretation that day.

We taught her how to play hop scotch.

Oh that little pull-up bum

Skipping the number 5- if you look closely you can see the rock she threw on it.

Around the neighborhood

Weather permitting, Maisie likes to spend as much time as possible riding her new trike. While letting her ride around last week I noticed a few more flowers popping up around the neighborhood.

yellow iris

 which reminds me of my favorite Monet painting.

peony

Oh those two...

Riverfront Geese

This girl and her insane love for geese and ducks. I really have no idea where she got that from... haha

Hey, remember the first time we took Maisie to see some ducks? How is it possible she was so little, bald and chubby. Even with her first cold, she still looks so adorable.

Three year old Q&A

I have decided to start a new birthday tradition with Maisie- every year I will ask her a series of questions and see over the years how the answers have changed. I kind of wish I would have started this last year because her vocabulary is nothing like it is now, so it would have been funny to see all the answers be two or some kind of animal noise haha.

How old are you?

I'm three!!!!

 What are some things that make you happy?

Mommy and daddy, balloons, volcanoes- even though they are kind of scary, the beach, animals,* and trees with moss on them.

* Notice the use of an oxford comma here because she didn't include sloths on her list (she does like sloths though...)

What are some of your favorite animals?

Owls, pandas, seahorses, giraffes and inchworms... They're really cute.

What's your favorite food?

 Noodles, cinnamon life cereal, yogurt, tomatoes, popcorn etc.

What are your favorite things to do?

Riding on Schwinny. Dance. Sing. Color.

Favorite tv shows?

 Diego and Wallace and Gromitt.

 Favorite movies?

Winnie the Pooh and Tigger movie.

 Favorite color?

 Yellow!

Favorite songs?

Twinkle, Twinkle, Baby Beluga and Inchworm.

 Best friend?

Joey!!

Favorite thing to do with mommy?

Be a little chef and play Doctor.

Favorite thing to do with Daddy?

Ski down the hill and scuba dive.

Favorite place to go?

The park!

Favorite book?

The little engine that could.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

A Doctor.

Carousel Party!

greeting friends

The spread:

Party favors

I think people closest to me know that I love to throw a party. I love all the planning and the little special touches that go into them. Unfortunately, I don't have many excuses to throw a party, so when Maisie's birthday rolls around I go a little crazy planning. It starts months in advance and as stressed out as I get some times, I love every minute of it. I hope Maisie remembers her parties for years to come.

Maisie is known as "the girl with the bow". It's very rare that Maisie doesn't have one pinned on the left side of her head, holding her bangs back. I cannot see a bow without thinking of her, so beacuse of that, I wanted her party to be littered with them. I made a bow garland of out rolls of crepe paper that turned out so cute that I figured I would hang it in her room post party. I still have yet to do that, but it will be done. I found cupcake toppers too that helped tie in more bows. Maisie also loves polka dots so I threw in some of those as well.

As far as food goes, Maisie loves hot dogs (how do kids gravitate to foods such as hot dogs, chicken nuggets and macaroni and cheese?!), so I thought it would be cute to have mini pigs in a blanket and serve with an array of fruits, veggies and crackers. We even had crustless almond butter and jelly sandwiches for the kiddos and to make it a little more adult friendly I made a spinach artichoke dip with homemade crostini and Austin made caprese skewers complete with tortellini. My sister in law made my favorite cookies to bring as well.

A lot of love went into the party. I'm proud of how everything turned out, even if we did forget to serve the ice cream and cream puffs, or set up the paper flowers that Camille and I slaved away making for 4 hours one afternoon (what the heck Camille!? How did we forget those?!). 

As far as our gift to Maisie, we got her a Schwinn roadster who she affectionately named Schwinny "who's a very good trike". She loves it and it fits her perfectly, if only we can get the good weather to come back so we can practice her peddling some more. She also got so many wonderful and thoughtful gifts by everyone who came. Thanks guys!

To our friends and family:

I can't express enough how nice it was to see every one. We are all so happy you were able to come. Thanks for helping us celebrate our little Maisie.

Pacific City

You know it's a good spring in Oregon when the coast is in the 70's. After looking at the forecast early one Monday, we called Andrew and Camille and asked if they would be interested in having a beach day. They said yes and within a couple hours we were eating fish tacos and splashing in the ocean. I almost forgot how much Maisie loves the beach. She instantly remembered her beach days in California and splashed in the water like it wasn't freezing (which it very much was).

 She was one happy girl.

Remember how I said the water was freezing? Here they are proving their manliness. 

Exploring the tide pools

My favorite picture of her to date.

We finished the day off with Pizza and Tillamook ice cream way past two kid's bedtime, but it was a perfect day and it's hard to put an end on so much fun just for the sake of bedtime right?