The Potty, Parties, and a Birthday too!

So the summer is in full swing around our house, which means it's hot and sunny and busy!  We are keeping really busy and trying to tire out this little ball of energy each day.  Today was no different, even though it is my birthday.  The best part of the day were the random times that Maeve would just burst out "Happy Day Mama".  She's a non-stop chatterbox (wonder who she got that from???)  just begging for someone to talk and listen to her.  Her chatter has been remarkable, new words everyday.  She'll still do a good mix of word talking and throw in some babble, but the babble is becoming more and more infrequent.

My birthday was pretty low key.  I got to go out to dinner last Friday with my sisters and friends to Left Bank and had a yummy meal with lots of laughs.  Al and I ended up staying out late, but Ryan gave an early birthday present of getting up with Maeve.  I'm usually the early bird who doesn't sleep in and is up before Maeve is on the weekends, so he was probably wondering what the heck happened to me!  I got lots of love today in the form of phone calls, cards, texts, and Facebook posts.  There's nothing like a day filled with warm messages to make you feel special.  My last treat of the day was a trip to George's for dinner.  No cooking for me and a delicious Big George cheeseburger!

Maeve got to enjoy the playground and one of her favorites... the slides.  Of course she ate about 1 strawberry, 1 bite of chicken, 1 french fry, and devoured a whole drink of chocolate milk... my girl has a sweet tooth.  It was a happy day if I do say so myself.

We are so lucky to have so many amazing friends just a couple of streets away so we've all been taking advantage of warm weather and having lots of get togethers. Every time I ask Maeve if she wants to go to a party, she wholeheartedly replies "YES" with a big smile. We've been over at our friends, Greg & Jenn's, for a cook-out and some pool time.  It was a bit too cold for me but Ryan and Maeve went in with Kane & Brady.  I bought Maeve a Puddle Jumper, which is like arm floats and a vest combined, which works pretty well for her but is a little big.  We have to be right by her either way, but it helps keep her head above water well.  She pretty much learned from Brady, who is only about 6 months older, but way more of a daredevil,  how to jump from the diving board so I usually have to help drop her in the water to Ryan about 10 times before she'll take a break and head back to the shallow end.  It's funny because when we go to a party, she usually get infatuated with one person and won't stop looking or asking for that one person all night.  If Uncle Brendon is there, then it's usually him.  At the last one it was my cousin Brian, Kane and Brady's dad.  She was keep asking and asking me where Brian. "Were'd go?" = Where did he go?

Since it's been a bit, I'll just catch you up on some pics from my phone.  I have to download my camera soon as there are some great ones from this past weekend when she was helping Ryan do some planting.

Here she is chomping on some broccoli.  She's usually a pretty good eater, but trying to work on more variety.  Funny thing is that she usually always eats the healthy stuff: fruit, veggies, yogurt, but no protein so have to keep working on that.

 So quick she is... I ran to put something away and came back about 30 seconds later to find her sitting in dryer with her blanket, a book, and her blocks.

 So Maeve's latest obsession is the bathroom and specifically the potty... yes, she has actually gone on the potty about 15 times by herself.  Now we weren't exactly training, but had bought a couple of books about the potty and have been including them in the daily rotation.  I had 1 seat on the toilet upstairs and would ask before the bath if she wanted to sit and try it out... most times she said no and sometimes she said yes and sometimes she wanted us to sit on it with her.  So a week or so ago was no different than usual routine but she asked to sit on the potty... so we took her up, pulled off diaper and sat her on the toilet.  Ryan and I were both talking to each other waiting for her to tell us she was done and then we heard some tinkling... ummm.... is it really that easy??!! My girl just went potty on her own, even telling us to put her on potty... amazing!  So No - it's not that easy.  Most of the time, she sits but nothing happens, sometimes something does happen and she's been going about 2 times a day on the potty at school.  We'll see where this goes.  And I'm sorry for talking about Maeve's potty training - I know it's not typical conversation but you'd be amazed at how much I've been talking about it lately with Ryan and Maeve's teachers.

With lots of time in bathroom, comes lots of time to play with toilet paper.  

 Can you see her disdain for me for interrupting her Mickey Mouse show?  She doesn't like camera breaks when she's watching a show.

 With summertime, comes lots of walks and often trips to Charlaps for some ice cream.  We all split a hot fudge sundae, which was so tasty.  She may look a lot like me, but she's got similar hair to her Daddy with lots of curls in the back.

With rain, comes puddles...
And puddle jumping!

Ryan is always bringing up how similar Maeve and I look and our similar mannerisms.  I don't always notice, partly because I'm looking at her and not at me, but he took a couple pictures which made me smile and laugh and how she is my mini-me

 She keeps crossing her arms in front of her or putting her hands on her hip and saying "Yeah" instead of "Yes" and I'm noticing that it is all me (for good and bad)

We were over at Greg and Jenn's the other night and Greg pulled out his guitar... and Maeve was mesmerized, even trying to strum the strings.  She loves to sing and dance and jump around so possibly a musician in her future... which is definitely not from me!

A lot of little things...

So life has been relatively peaceful around here.  Perfectly peaceful that the last thing I've been in the mood to do is sit in bed and type on the computer.  But our little girl keeps growing leaps and bounds. Not only is her hair getting longer and curlier in this heat, but she's talking like crazy.  We've just been trying to keep her busy and keep up with our own work, spring cleaning and enjoying this warmer weather.  And with that is a random group of pictures from my phone over the past couple of weeks since we've gotten home from our trip.

 Maeve got a wonderful gift the other day from her cousin Drew... a whole stack of new books.  We've been digging in all weekend.

 Ryan has been pretty busy with work but always makes an effort to spend some quality time with little miss.  He is always willing to be silly and goofy, particularly if it's something Maeve asked him to do.  

 Testing out a beef taco.  It was pretty much a mess, but she's getting much, much better.

 This is typical Maeve... following along one of us.  She was so curious where Dad went (for a run around the neighborhood) and I had to make an appetizer for a party later in the day so I got her a snack and drink and she sat for about 15 minutes at the front door waiting for Daddy to run back.

 Finally enjoying this wonderful weather at the water table.  She often drinks the water so we've been trying to keep it clean.  She likes to drink the water in the tub as well but we are working that.  She doesn't get sick too much so I'm thinking it might be she has a high tolerance for fighting germs from all of her dirty water drinking.

She is doing excellent at school as well lately.  We've gone 5 full days with no incident reports or for Maeve it's really just all about biting, but I can't remember ever going 5 straight days over the last 3 months with no reports.  She's had 4 teeth pop through over the past 2 weeks so I'm hoping that was driving some of the previous biting... here's hoping for a "bite-free" summer... because she leaves marks.