Miss Maria as an M&M on Halloween!

We had a great Halloween. Maria knew something was different about today and was so excited she wouldn't go down for her second nap in the afternoon, which made us think she would poop out early. But our little trooper enjoyed all of the festivities till the very end. Our little red M&M had her costume pattern made and cut by Greg and sewn together by Nana and it turned out great!


We headed over to our neighbor's Christina and Tony who hosted a party for the little ones of the neighborhood. With about 8 kids under 2 - and they were all girls! Where are all the boys?! Here's Maria the M&M hanging out with Lilly the Lion.

Afterwards we headed out together for trick-or-treating. Our "coach" Tony kept us on task, with this whistle to direct the caravan of kids, moms, and dads. Here Greg restocks his "beverage" during the Halloween hike.

Maria was a champ, making it about 2 blocks before showing signs of pooping out. By the time we walked the 2 blocks back home she was fast asleep :)

Maria's first pumpkin patch!

We headed over to Cottone & Sons pumpkin patch this weekend for Maria's first pumpkin patch adventure. Maria loved sitting amongst all of the pumpkins and playing with the hay. Her costume isn't quite ready (she will of course be a red M&M), but was ready for the day wearing her "Daddy's Little Pumpkin" t-shirt :)

They had goats roaming around which she loved...



Here she is getting her hand in the goat/sheep food, which she then almost got in her mouth, without her Daddy even noticing!
Surprisingly she had no fear of the scary "people" sitting around.

More pics with the pumpkinsRolling them around...

Tasting out the stems...

Realizing the stems are not so yummy or soothing on the gums :(

Hangin' with the cousins, part II

Last Monday my sisters had the day off so their little ones came over to play with Maria. Here are the abuelos unsuccessfully trying to get a group picture with their grandkids.

In the blink of an eye, Maria steals the remote from Isabella...sneaky kid...

Maria letting Isabella in on the latest gossip...

Here are some pics of Isabella who has been under-represented in our blog...

Fun in our "Backyard" with the Schultz's

We hung out last weekend with the Schultz's in our backyard, which is really the garage area of our little complex. Here is Maria's friend Lilly - she knows how to party. (If you are from CPS, don't worry the bottle below was empty!!)





It is the middle of October down here in Southern California. That means at nighttime the temperature falls all the way to like the mid - sixties. We bundled Maria up in her new coat and beret. She was very cozy in her umbrella stroller!!

Fun in the ball pit!

The abuelos babysat Aidan today, so Maria and I spent the day there so she could hang with her cousin. It takes a while for Aidan to warm up to Maria. Here he is as far away as he can get from her when she arrives.

When the Abuelos first started babysitting Maria, we bought them a playpen, which they quickly converted into a ball-pit, much to the delight of their grandkids. Nothing like a cube full of plastic balls to bring two cousins together! One of their favorite games is having Abuelo dump the balls over their heads...

It may look like they learned to play together, but don't be fooled by these little ones. Here Aidan wasn't too fond of Maria's foot touching his leg...

...and then playing tug-a-war with the bucket - Aidan won.

They also enjoyed storytime with Abuelos sock puppet!

Catching up with friends

Maria got to hang out with Lilly in her kiddie pool this week to cool off from the crazy heat. Lilly kept us entertained by pouring water on her head and cracking herself up!

Maria loves hanging out with Lilly!

Then this morning Maria got to meet Mommy's bay area friends - the Knotts! Joy and Michael came down for a visit with their newest addition, Dylan :) We met up at the Belamar Hotel restaurant in Manhattan Beach - I highly recommend their Spanish pressed breakfast sandwich - chorizo, roasted bell peppers, manchego cheese, yummmmmy.

Here are Maria and Dylan...

...and mommys with babies (please disregard the Maria slobber on my shoulder!) :)

Everyday Maria...Silly Maria

Maria continues to make us laugh with her silly personality. Here is her mischevious look, playing peek-a-boo...So, we don't have a dog, so I'm not sure where Maria picked up on carrying items in her mouth to transport them around while crawling. It's pretty funny though...
Considering we asked guests at the baby shower to bring Maria a book to start her library, it should be no surprise that she loves books! Goodnight Moon is one of her favorites (as it was her Daddy's when he was little). Here she is "reading" to herself....
Those walks sure do take a lot out of a kid!
This week we had her in an outfit with a top that got in her way when crawled, so she perfected her downward dog position and no joke, was crawling around like this! She didn't get frustrated, just figured out how to work with it!
She probably figures that this crawling thing just isn't going to work if we keep putting her in those outfits, so she recently started standing on her own and is on her way to walking soon! She's very cautious when coming down from standing - definitely giving her quads a workout!

going down...

down...

This is Maria's look when she gets caught doing something she shouldn't be doing, which of course makes her laugh...

How do you get mad at this face?! :)