Maya didn't stay up late enough to celebrate, but we made it (just barely).
For Christmas Maya got a gift certificate from her Aunt Victoria and Uncle Michael for Build-a-bear. We went a few days ago to cash it in.
She picked out a little reindeer, but got scared of the stuffing machine.
She was also a little scared of the blower used to clean the bear afterwards
but once she got home, they were inseparable. We have named her "Zanzi" after our favorite pork restaurant in Uganda.
Her sleeping is still going great with her sleeping comfortably through the night almost every night.
Her language is steadily improving, she now uses a few pivot words most notably bye-bye, every time we leave anywhere its now "bye-bye lights", "bye-bye seat", "bye-bye train". She is also becoming much more understandable and using language much more appropriately. When in her high chair, she'll say "up" when she wants up and if we don't get her out she'll say "down?". She also says things like "all done" when she doesn't want any more food.
She really likes her puzzles and will sit for a long time taking them out and putting them back in. She is really quick at figuring out how to get the pieces to fit.
She loves being with me in the kitchen and usually wants to sit on the counter or have me hold her while I make dinner or desserts. She's good at grabbing handfuls of flour and throwing them into a bowl. I've almost got her to where she will use a measuring spoon and get close to the right amount of something.
We're starting to see a few more tantrums when she doesn't get what she wants and she will even through herself down and kick her feet which is pretty funny to see. I have a feeling it will get worse before it gets better, but overall she's still a pleasure to be around.
We awoke early (as we do everyday thanks to Maya) and luckily Santa had delivered our presents. Maya did a good job unwrapping her gifts...
...but after a gift or two she got busy playing with her new toys and didn't want to open any more so we had to pitch in and help her out. We had a very Elmo Christmas, she got a few small Sesame toys...
... and a few puzzles....
...and in a move I am sure I will regret, she got a recorder....
.. for her big presents she got a little couch to lounge on and also a little people farm...
... after a leisurely breakfast we went for a walk downtown (which just happened to have the only open Starbucks around) .
For dinner we had lamb chops which Maya ate Flintstone style.
We are getting ready for Christmas by finishing the tree....
... and lounging around, waiting for Santa.
The building is impressive but in costs a wallet numbing $25.00 a person to get in, luckily Maya was free but $50.00 bucks for a few hours of entertainment is pretty steep.
A large part of it is an aquarium that Maya liked for the most part.
There's a section about the different rain forests of the world, Maya didn't care too much about the displays mostly because there were so many people, we couldn't see much. Maya did stop to smell the flowers though.
There's a section for kids under 5 that was fun, somewhat similar to the children's museum. Maya enjoyed the puzzles and books.
The theme of the party was Elmo, which made Maya very happy.
Maya was helpful when it came to opening the presents
She was also helpful in testing them out
Other than that we haven't been doing too much, here's a few recent pics just for fun
The biggest change is that we've finally got her on a normal schedule where she naps for two hours about noon and goes to bed by 10:00pm and then sleeps through the night.
Her vocabulary grows daily and she can now sing along with her CDs (her current favorite song is wheels on the bus). We've given in and let her watch one episode of Sesame Street every day. She actually sings along with the opening song now as well as Elmo's world.
Her eating is still a little hit and miss, she will go through days where she can't get enough and then go for days where she refuses everything. Her current favorite food is grapes, she's also big on oranges. Veggies are still a struggle. She loves all breads (I think she gets that from me) and especially is into gingerbread nowadays.
For her 18 month birthday we got a red velvet cupcake from Sprinkles. Her mom put on 1 1/2 candles.
It didn't take long for us to devour it!
We then decided to visit the SF Museum of Modern Art which is always a good alternative. We first had lunch in the Metreon and then ran around the park for a bit. Maya loves water and fountains so she always enjoys Yerba Buena Gardens.
Maya slept through the whole museum (which really didn't have any new interesting exhibits), and most of the way home.
We later went out for dinner at Zibibbo where Maya was a perfect lady and got lots of complements on how well behaved she was.
This year, I tried to make everything from scratch. I made Mark Bittman's 45 minute turkey which came out great (except that it took over an hour),
We had Cornbread and chorizo stuffing (though I bough Mexican chorizo instead of Spanish chorizo by mistake).
Instead of potatoes I made mashed plantains in a nod to Uganda. We also had steamed cassava.
I made the dinner rolls from "How to Cook Everything"
The rolls came out great, but I guess everyone is a critic
We of course had Cranberry Sauce out of the can (The only way to eat it, anything else is an abomination) and Sparkly Cider. We had to have some kind of green so I cooked some swiss chard, but because it looked too healthy I sauteed it in bacon fat.
Overall we had a pretty good spread and we'll have leftovers for the foreseeable future.
For Dessert we have a Pumpkin Chiffon pie which I will begin eating as soon as I press the button to send this message.
]]>One of Maya's favorite things at the mall are the toy vehicles that you can climb on (and make move if you want to pay a few quarters)
Here's a few pics of her playing...
We went mainly to eat and see the fall scenery since its not much fun to do wine tasting with a 17 month old (at least not much fun for the kid).
We started the day at the new Oxbow Public Market in downtown Napa. We arrived about 1:00, just in time for lunch. We got a lamb sandwich from The Fatted Calf that was really tasty. Since it was my birthday, I went with a selection of cheeses from The Oxbow Cheese Merchant, including some Roomano which I've had trouble finding around San Jose.
We then walked around Copia which is next door but inexplicably closed during the week.
Notice anything different about me?
We then drove north stopping at Mondavi Winery, we stopped there thinking they'd have the nicest grounds to walk around, but we were a little disappointed because most of it was closed off except for guided tours.
We then went up and walked around downtown St Helena before returning to Yountville for dinner.
We first had to stop for pastries at Bouchon Bakery (though we resisted temptation and didn't eat them until the next day.
We then had dinner at Bistro Jeanty, one of my favorite restaurants in the world.
![11-06-08 Bistro Jeanty [edited]](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3280/3010707861_9613c69849.jpg)
The serve very rustic country french dishes, lots of stews and braised meat. Susan had the coq au vin and I had slow roasted pork shoulder. Of course I had to start with french onion soup.
I used to go here every birthday and was glad to continue the tradition. Maya did great, it's not a real fancy place but because its pretty highly regarded a lot people go there for special occasions and we didn't want Maya to spoil that if she got unruly. In the end she did great, and sat nicely most of the meal and only started getting restless after we had finished and were waiting for the check so it was easy for Susan to take her outside while I paid.
She loved the onion soup and ate some of the lamb and chicken, but didn't gobble it down as I though she would, She must have been tired as she slept the whole way home and then through the night.
Well, we thought we'd save a few bucks and get a second use from her costume. It just barely fit, but it fit well enough to get a second use.
Maya had her basket and was ready to roll, that's our door behind her and our pumpkin (she did not enjoy reaching in to pull out the insides at all!)
Growing up, I always though it would be great to trick or treat in an apartment complex because you could knock on that many more doors. We live in a giant complex (2500 apartments!) and they passed out pieces of paper with pumpkins on them to tape to your door if you want trick-or-treaters, well we walked for an hour and looked at probably 500 doors and guess how many had pumpkins: 5. We got to knock on 5 lousy doors, I think we need to move.
It was very disappointing because Maya loved ringing the doorbells and was very good about grabbing handfuls of candy from the trays. We spent most of our time walking around looking for the pumpkins on the doors though.
We got a total of 5 trick-or-treaters at our door, which is crazy for the amount of kids in the complex.
Here's us in a lonely hallway
And here's Maya after a long night of trick or treating, carrying her pumpkin loaded down with candy
She is learning and saying new things every day. She will try to repeat just about everything we say (we better start being careful!). She will ask for things like milk (which she calls "Moooo" because she has a glass with a cow on it and we always make a moo sound when we give it to her.
She continues to be book crazy and and we can just mention a book and she runs to get it, I've seen her search for several minutes through her pile of books (we really need to get a bookshelf!) until she finds the one she is looking for.
She also loves music, she knows songs from just the first couple notes which just amazes me. The second she hears the first notes of itsy bitsy spider, she immediately starts the motions. She does the same with row row row your boat and about 5 or 6 others. We play the music through the tv, so she often brings me the remote and points at the tv to ask for music.
She can now point to her ears and mouth and nose and eyes when asked.
Her Elmo phase seems to have run its course as she no longer insists on carrying him everywhere, he'll occasionally tag along but most of the time he lies forgotten in her room.
She is doing better at night now and will sleep through the night about half the time. When she wakes up in the morning she yells "Mama, Mama!" instead of crying which is a good thing. She also now can open her door and freaked us out the other day when she woke up came out of her room and into ours without a word.
Lately she's been coming out of her shyness faze and now says hi and bye to everyone we see.
She's also starting to play more with other kids, especially kids she sees often at the park.
Here is Maya making googly eyes at Oliver, who unfortunately just moved away.
Two of the kids Maya sees often is Cassie and Jada. They are helping Maya learn to share (still a work in progress)
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