We had a birthday here last week. Miss Maisie is two! I made her a special t-shirt to wear for the day. Appropriately, it took me two tries to make one that was actually going to fit her. Now I need to find a largish two year old to give the second shirt to. Our gift to Maisie, with the help of her grandparents, was a play kitchen. The box had been sitting in the living room for almost three weeks and she was very excited to finally get to open it up on her birthday morning. Rob took her out for breakfast while I set up the kitchen and put the rest of her presents on it. She knew just what to do with each of those brightly wrapped boxes this year. One box had some bubble wrap in it and she discovered the joy of jumping on it while I tried to clean up the house and set the table before our guests arrived. We had a lovely afternoon with family and friends. There was more ripping of paper and more squeals of delight and lots of little hugs and "happy birthday!"'s. When I'd asked Maisie what kind of cake she would like she'd answered "pink!" so that's what I made. Pink cake with pink icing and edible glitter on top with two candles for blowing out. We finished off the afternoon with a walk around the trail after everyone had left. It was a lovely day for walking and just the right thing to wind down after all the excitement.

Happy New Year. I hope you had a lovely holiday. Ours was really nice. Full of family and friends and good food and quiet time. Maisie was very excited about everything this year. That's one of her more recent words in fact. "Me 'xcited" she'll say and bounce around the room. It make me smile so much. We're easing back into our usual routine after almost two weeks of being on holiday. Rob is back at work today and Maisie and I go back to daycare and work on Tuesday.

The sun is coming back. The difference is already becoming noticeable. We've got still got two or three months of cold weather ahead of us but knowing the days are getting longer already lifts my mood and makes me think of my garden. I finished Maisie's Christmas stocking at the very last minute (thank you, my dear, for sleeping in on Christmas morning). I need to make sure I take a picture of it before it gets packed away for next year. Maisie loves to look at all the Christmas things. I put ornaments that could be handled on the bottom of the tree and they are regularly removed and carried around. We taught her that they all have to return to their home when she's done. It mostly works. Ollie and Fred were in raptures when we finally let them play in a bag that some of our gifts came in. We tossed in a pinch of the catnip that was part of the gift (thanks Samera, now we know why they kept trying to crawl inside) and they spent a wonderful time diving in and out of the bag. I've been working on perfecting my coffee making. I only drink decaf and am tired of the mediocre cup that decaf so often gives. I found this set of instructions a while ago and my coffee drinking experiences have improved incredibly. I'd never have guessed that a six dollar plastic cone would be what I needed. Abby had a pretty major health scare at the end of November. She's okay now but I think it makes us appreciate getting to spend so much time with her that much more. I think she enjoys having us around all the time too. I'm not sure if we're as enthralling as the local fox though. Maisie's vocabulary also  includes the words "fox" (complete with the X) and "Abby hush". I love this picture of Maisie with the ball of yarn just because of the story attached to it. I'd set up a little photo studio* on the armchair because the light was nice but Maisie changed my plans by climbing onto the chair and getting comfortable. I asked her if she would like to help me photograph my new yarn. She answered enthusiastically and held each ball on her lap while I snapped a photo. Then she asked me to show her the pictures I took. She's very interested in cameras and pictures right now. I'm very interested in seeing how this will develop as she gets older.

*I threw a blanket over the chair and turned the whole thing to face the window.

I wore that little red sweater*. I can remember a picture of me in it in my mum's scrapbook. Maisie likes the bears on both the pockets and the buttons. I've realized that the key to getting her to wearing any sort of sweater is to have interesting buttons. Cats, bears, flowers … all are welcomed, named and hunted for in the dresser.

Maisie is very concerned with putting things where (she feels) they belong. She likes to tidy up her lego before lunch, put random bits of paper in the kitchen garbage, remind me to do up the cupboard locks, and give various dog and cat toys to Abby, Ollie and Fred. While I was snapping these pictures of her in the red bear sweater, Maisie was distributing blocks. She built some towers and put away and took out the block a few times. Then she carefully gave one to Fred, one to Ollie, and one to me. I thought she was done but a last block was taken out of the basket and run all the way to the other end of the house and handed to Rob where he was sitting at his desk.


*I also wore the blue scarf Maisie is sporting in my last post. I think both the scarf and the sweater were knitted by my grandmother but I should check with my mum.