Birthday pix, a new camera, and Whoville

So this time I really am going to make this posting short and to the point! First of all here are the promised pictures from Maia's princess birthday party, courtesy of Megan...as I mentioned before, I broke our camera so I have been unable to document any important events in our life! Good thing for photography friends!! And what's even better...she scrapbooked some pages for me when she gave me the CD of pictures! LOVE them and LOVE you Megan for doing them!!
This picture of Maia below says it all about how excited she was for the day!! And can you believe her amazing cake??? Our landlord made it, she is the sweetest person I know! Thanks Tammy, we love you!

I had to put in this picture of Elsie and Lilly..they are good little friends, it's cute. 6 months apart and just about the same size (elsie's head is a little smaller, that's about the only difference!)
Next item of business...we are the proud new owners of this fancy camera...it is small and does the job perfectly! We kind of like it.
And since we finally are able to once again take pictures...here are a couple from our "Whoville" ward Christmas Party... This cake is another AMAZING creation by Tammy! She is so talented!
My attempt at "whoville" hair...and our crazy clothes...my friend Heather just said that the more you clash the better...Maia had NO problem getting ready..she dresses like this on a regular basis! (except I just realized that she had already taken off her turquoise jacket for this picture, so she doesn't look as good as she did earlier that night:)
And one last picture...just a random cute one of little Elsie girl. She will be 9 months old on the 14th and is just growing up too fast! A couple things about Elsie:
*She is into EVERYTHING
*She loves to climb the stairs
*She puts everything in her mouth and thus chokes on a regular basis (like almost everyday and some days it gets really scary, like I wonder if I'll have to start CPR)
*She wants to be wherever Maia is
*She is a Momma's girl
*She can sign "milk" "more", clap her hands and wave "bye-bye"
* She now has 6 teeth!
*She is still as chubby as ever and we love her so much!

Happy Birthday Maia Sue!!

Okay, so a lot has happened since my last post, but I'm not going to even try to get caught up. Instead, I'm going to start fresh and post the most important recent events...namely Maia's THREE year birthday!! It is so crazy to me that is has already been 3 years since she was born. She has brought us so much joy and we love her to pieces! Here's a little bit about Maia at age 3:
*She LOVES princesses of all kinds, as well as ANY item that has a picture of a princess on it (where do they learn to become so obsessed with princesses??? I have been wondering this lately...)
*She loves preschool
* She loves her little sister for the most part and is usually very sweet to her. She has nicknamed her "Els" and we love to hear her call her that! Speaking of how much she loves her sister, when I asked her what she wanted for her birthday she said "A princess blanket!! One for me and one for Els!" It was really sweet.
*She loves her friends, especially Rylee...they are two peas in a pod!
*She loves swimming and is doing so well in her swimming lessons
* She is quite spunky...a little mix of sweetness and sass all at the same time
*She can throw an awesome tantrum when she wants to
* She is so observant and picks up on everything! She knows what kind of car every single one of my friends drives and is constantly showing me cars that are "like Megan's" or "like Heather's", etc. when we are driving places...it really amazes me!
*She likes the word "frustrated" lately and is frequently asking me, "are you so frustrated??"
*She loves being outside and going to the park
*She is a big tease and likes to try and trick me and David all the time
And some funny/cute things she has said lately:
"Frosting on my birthday cake?? No way!!"
"Tammy made my cake? Wow! It's so pretty!"
"You're a good mother"
"Mom, did you know Jesus gave me my nose? That's so nice, isn't it?"
"Don't worry Mom, I'll take good care of Elsie. I won't let her cry."
She is such a blessing to us and we are so thankful to have her as part of our family!

November 21, 2006 2:19 pm, 8 lbs. 20 inches...Maia Sue Marchant joined our family...


Age 1...loving her cake...took her a while to get into it though..

Age 2...this year all she got was cupcakes...lame. But I was pregnant, so that can be my excuse right?


And the big THREE year old!!! (wait til you see the picture of her cake! I totally redeemed myself from last year with this one, thanks to our SWEETEST landlord who makes the most elaborate cakes ever!)
And here is her birthday invitation..Thanks to Megan for making them!! What would I do without her?? They turned out SOOOO cute. Maia especially loved the crown on her head!
We had her little birthday party here today and it was so much fun to see all these little girls prancing around in their princess outfits! Maia had so much fun and I hope the others did too. She was so spoiled by her friends for her birthday! We haven't even given her our presents yet and now I'm thinking I'm going to save a lot of them for Christmas because too many presents at one time for a 3 year old is NOT always a good thing...I've discovered that a little bit of attitude can surface...but she has been pretty good at letting Elsie play with most things. I will have to post party pictures later because Megan took them for me....you see, I broke my camera 3 days ago so I am unable to record any part of our life with pictures at the moment:( We are planning on buying a new one soon so hopefully it won't be too long of a lapse. As a side note, I broke my camera about 1 hour before we were leaving to go to our first SABRES game!! What are the chances?? It will probably be the only game we go to and I don't even have a picture to remember it by!! I was so upset! Oh well, what do you do?

FamilyPictures!!!

Hooray, hooray, it's time to post my family pictures!! As usual, I absolutely LOVE them! Thank you so much Megan...you have once again done an amazing job at capturing our family just right and making us feel beautiful! I love the style of these pictures...as Megan said, Buffalo just has so much "ghetto goodness" so these are such a fun momento for us to have of our time here! Thanks again Megan, we love them so much!


Having two girls is just too much fun...who wouldn't love this?? I love my girls so much!
I love these pictures of Maia...she is getting so grown up. David and I were looking at these pictures last night and just talking about how she is growing out of that little girl cuteness and becoming big girl beautiful!

Catch up time

Here is a synopsis of what we have been up to in the past week or so...first of all, last weekend a group of us went up to Seneca Lake (one of the Fingerlakes) and went "camping" Okay so it really wasn't camping as it was originally going to be, but it was WAAAAY better and SOOOO much fun. We got up there Friday evening, put the kids to bed, then stayed up late, late, late playing all sorts of games, Ninja, Hide and Seek in the dark, Murder in the Dark...you get the idea. I loved how my friend Steph put it on her blog....she said"we figured there wasn't going to be another time that we had a whole huge house without fragile decorations all to ourselves. That's right, it was Hide and Seek time! Can you picture it? Lights off. Grown adults acting like children. Running amuk. It was hysterical." We seriously had so much fun. The next morning was beautiful and sunny and so a few crazy people in the group decided to hit the lake and go wake-boarding....I graciously declined and was happy to just watch...it was only in the 60's outside and the water was FREEZING!! David had to give it a shot...he was sore for days afterwards!
Our sweet "cabin"...a 5 bedroom, 3 1/2 bath house with lots of space for crazy games:)
The group...
Getting ready for a little Ninja action...don't even ask what this game is about! It sure is fun even though it might look and sound a little strange.
Some wake boarding action by David..lookin' good babe!
Maia and Hayden playing outside...she LOVES Hayden so much!
Then on Tuesday this past week, me and some girlfriends went to Becker Farms to pick apples. This is one of my most favorite fall time things to do here! I LOOVE fresh orchard apples and have been WAITING and WAITING for a nice enough day to get out and pick some! Seriously this fall has been pretty miserable...lots of rain and cold weather, but the day we went turned out to be absolutely beautifuL! I picked a whole bushel and now just need to make some applesauce.
Elsie was NOT in the mood for pictures apparently...
Maia loves to eat the apples along the way...
And finally, the fall here just wouldn't be complete without a trip to the Clarence Pumpkin Farm! We went last night with our friend's the Davis' and although it was a little chilly, it was still lots of fun.
David is going to love this picture below!! I'm sure most of you know about Maia's eye...she has what is called Brown's Syndrome. I've mentioned it before on our blog so I won't get into what it is, but it is basically just weak eye muscles and it is not serious at all. It is just one of her crazy quirks that we love. We tell her to give us "the look" and this is what we get. It is hilarious! She and Rylee were doing a silly face picture and David called out for "the look" and I got the picture just in time. I'm sure she will hate us one day for taking these kind of pictures! But we sure love you girl!
Elsie in the wagon of pumpkins... or "punk-mins" as Maia says.

Me and the girls...
Maia and Rylee...they are best friends and play so well together. In fact when I need to get stuff done around the house, I call Rylee over so Maia can be entertained for hours. It is so nice!
And just a random side note about Elsie...here is proof of what kind of trouble maker she is....she pulls herself up on everything now and crawls FAST. She keeps me on my toes! She finally broke a bottom tooth two days ago and the second one is coming any day now (she has kind of been a little on the cranky side and not being the amazing sleeper that she normally is...I'm ready to get back to the 12-14 hours of sleeping at night again, so I'm hoping the teeth breaking through helps) But she sure is cute, so I can't complain too much!

This girl is trouble...

So our little Elsie girl recently turned 6 months old....here is a little about Elsie at 6 months old:
*She is DEFINITELY on the move....she has been doing the army crawl for a couple of months but in just the past few days has started REAL crawling! I can't believe she is moving so much already!!
*She is pulling herself up onto things(usually just to her knees, but today I found her standing, yes STANDING, in her crib after her morning nap!!)
*She loves to eat(who'd of thought right??)
*She is happy and giggly
*She loves Maia
*She is kind of a Momma's girl
*She grabs everything and everything goes in her mouth
*Paper has become one of her favorite foods
*Her stats are as follows:
Weight: 19 lbs. 9 oz. (94th percentile)
Length: 27 1/4 inches (96th percentile)
Head: around the 50th percentile
So not a petite, dainty thing(especially when you catch her growling), but still our little Bubby none the less! Here she is after just having finished one of her first "real" food meals: I think she liked it:)Below: the sisters getting along...when Maia saw Elsie hanging out in just a diaper, she had follow suit.
So this next picture isn't the greatest, but it is of both of them, dressed, and hair sort of done(a rare thing to have all of that at the same time)...we just had our family pictures taken (these were the girls cute outfits)...I will have some great pictures to post soon. I can't wait to see them!

And a little about Maia... This girl loves to dress, undress, dress, undress...seriously she changes her clothes multiple times a day EVERY day. I often find her wearing some interesting combinations, such as the outfit you see below. She is also kind of a fashion police around here and is quick to inform me if she thinks I don't "match" (She OBVIOUSLY has a better sense of style then me!!) And one last thing....I am doing this little co-op preschool with Maia with some of the other mom's in the neighborhood and she LOVES it. It is just 2 days a week for 2 hours but it is a nice break for me and it gives her something to look forward to every week. I am amazed at well she is coming along with her writing, etc. Here is a sample of her practicing. She wants to do "schoolwork" all the time now, it really is so cute.Just one last cute picture of Maia!

Happy Birthday Love!

So David had a birthday on Monday (yes I'm just getting around to blogging about it now)....29 years old now!! He keeps telling me he is an old man and I'm starting to agree with him now! Well I'll give him one more year before I will totally agree. Anyway, I just wanted to say how much I love him and how lucky I am to be married to him. A good wife would have done this for her spouse on his birthday: Let him sleep in, serve him breakfast in bed, and then let him choose what ever else he wanted to do for the day (like fish with buddies, etc.).........obviously I am not a good wife (but David is a WONDERFUL husband) because instead I had him wake up at 6:30am with the kids so I could leave to go run a race, had him feed them both breakfast, get them dressed,make sure their hair was(somewhat) combed and then had him haul them to the finish line so they could see me finish the race! How sweet is that? And he didn't even complain. I am so thankful for a great husband that supports me so much! He really is so good to me and I take him for granted too much. Here are a couple of pictures from the race: There were a few other girls from our ward that ran it too and it was really fun to have good company and conversation while running the 9.5 miles.
Our fan club! What a great group of supportive husbands with all of the kids--real troopers!
The first thing Maia said to me was, "You're all sweaty Mom." Love that girl.
Katie and I--Katie has been my 6:30 am running partner while training for this race.
And a family shot...I love them so much!