"Can you say..."

Maya's vocabulary is improving at a regular pace. Every day or so, she adds a new word. She's very good at "more," "no," "up," and "dog" (her first word). She's also got a lot of signs for things (the two newest are "please" and "thank you," both of which she sometimes uses unprompted!). The other night, at dinner: "Maya, can you say 'yogurt'?" Pause. "Yes." Well, at least that's a new word...

Our Little Helper

Maya has become our perfect little helper now. I suppose we should just be pleased that she wants to do "chores." After we change her diaper, SHE has to put it in the diaper pail and spin the top around. Around dinner time, she'll pick up an empty dog bowl and bring it to the pantry to be filled. SHE has to carry it back (with help...) to the right spot. The other night, after we fed the dogs, I grabbed the mostly-empty water bowl to fill it up. She insisted on helping carry it back. (We had only a little spilling...) We had to draw the line when she tried to help dad clean up after the dogs in the backyard. She doesn't seem to see the difference between picking up poop with your hands covered and picking up poop...

What do you think of the new format?

I decided to spice it up a little bit. I found this template on-line; I did a little mucking with the XML to make it exactly what I wanted. I think it's a keeper...

A Great Weekend

Even though Maya and I have been ailing somewhat over the past week or two, we managed to squeak out a great weekend. Friday, we all headed up to Georgetown for a barbecue at my parents' house. Dad's getting Bon Appetit magazine now, and he wanted to experiment on us. It's fair to say he'll be welcome to experiment again. Saturday, we had the whole gang down to our house for a Tim-cooked meal. We had some wines still hanging around from our Napa trip that we tried out in conjunction. Yum. Tim's mom stayed the night, so Sunday morning the three of us headed to a recommended nursery on South Congress. We stopped by Ruta Maya for some breakfast drinks, breakfast tacos, and the regular Sunday morning kids' show. Then we bought a whole slew of new pots for the backyard. We came home for a gourmet lunch cooked by the resident chef (remember, not me!). After Audrey left, Tim and I took Maya to the park:

Cooking

I'm turning over a new leaf and trying to make dinner a few nights a week instead of just waiting for Tim to get home (I am NOT the chef in the family). Maya is allowed to help out in the kitchen in a limited form; she has two cabinets (those filled with pots and pans) that are "her" cabinets. She has unlimited freedom to play with them and their contents.

The other day, she decided to take out all of her pans and line them up. Each one had to exactly touch the previous one:

Chinese Maya

Tim and I brought Maya back this super cute outfit from China. She seemed to like it:

I'm not too big, I promise!