This past weekend, we decided to go someplace WARM. Where, you might ask, seeing how I live in one of the coldest places in the entire world (or so it seems sometimes!). But yes, there is a warm place about 30 minutes from here....called the Buffalo Botanical Gardens. We headed down there Saturday afternoon with our best good friends the Shaheen's. It was so much fun--I actually felt like it was Spring (for about an hour or two anyway!). But the flowers were so beautiful and smelled terrific and it was just a great afternoon. Maia had a absolute BLAST, of course. This girl is SOOOO amazingly happy when she is outside (okay so we were in a huge greenhouse, but you don't feel like you are at all). She loved the fountains and the fish ponds the best, and of course, just running around freely. Oh they also had a little petting zoo in the back and she loved that too-the bunny rabbits especially. Anyway, I highly recommend a trip down to these gardens, especially if you are living in Buffalo right now and are just a LITTLE fed up with the cold weather--it will truly rejuvenate you! The pictures are in no particular order--I was too lazy to rearrange them so they would be chronological.

Looking for fish in the fish pond!
Doesn't this face say it all?? She loved it!
I think she might have found a fish...
Family picture in the giant Easter Basket.
Maia posing in the bunny rabbit.
Look at how beautiful the flowers were!

Checking out the fountain...
Maia and dad just hanging out.
More fun in the water fountains.
Posing in the petting zoo. What a perfect backdrop huh?

I love this picture of Maia because it highlights her little wispy hair tail perfectly!! Oh and she's still looking for the fish in the pond...it was really hard to drag her away from this one!
Our beautiful baby girl--she is just too cute!
More posing in the flowers...

Maia with Aunt Megan and Uncle Bron...and a big CONGRATS to them--they are expecting their first baby in September. We are all so excited for them and can't wait to meet the newest addition to their little family. Thanks you guys for being such great friends and for having fun with us this weekend!

I hope everyone had a great Easter. We sure did--we got together with some of our friends here and had a big dinner at our house. Not too many things are better than being in the company of good friends! Here are some pictures of our Easter....
Maia in her spring outfit, getting ready to go to church. It really wasn't as warm as it looks in these pictures! I am a mean mom and wanted a picture of her without her coat on, so we took it off just for the photo session....don't worry, I didn't take TOO many pictures!
Enjoying our Easter dinner--thanks so much to everyone who brought food--it was so delicious. Maia is hiding behind David in her new booster seat. Recently she started refusing to get into her high chair so I bought a booster seat to see if that would help. She absolutely LOVES it (hooray for us!). I say to her, "do you want to get in your big-girl seat?" and she says "ya" and nods her head and gets so excited. She is 16 months going on 3 years or something and definitely has a mind of her own.
Maia loves giving hugs and kisses lately. Below she is hugging her friend Sariah--it was so cute, but I think Sariah was getting sick of the hugs at the end because Maia just wanted to keep giving her more and more hugs!
These next few pictures aren't of Easter...but yesterday we decided we'd take advantage of David's last day of spring break and go to the park to feed the geese. It was a sunny day and looked really warm, but was actually kind of cold, but we had fun anyway. Maia loved it! There were lots of geese and seagulls so she kept chasing them around with a piece of bread in her hand, wondering why they wouldn't let her feed them! There were a few times where I got kind of worried because the geese were getting really close to her and were making this hissing noise like they were about to bite or something, but we managed to get out of there without any traumatic events :) Now I am just waiting for the warm weather to set in....April 2nd it's supposed to be in the mid-forties and sunny, so I'm really looking forward to that day. And you might think I'm joking, but I'm not, mid-forties sounds awful nice right now!

Last night we got together with our good friend's, the Shaheen's, to play some games. Monopoly was the game of choice for the night (I hadn't played Monopoly for years, literally), so it was a lot of fun....we at first it was a lot of fun, until the cheating began. Let me explain--It all started with an innocent trade between Megan and I ....she made this sweet deal with me that I just could not refuse--It benefited me and me only, but somehow, David and Bron thought we were out to get them, so they turned into this conniving, scam artist team whose only purpose was to make sure that neither I nor Megan won the game. So there were some pretty intense moments, but it is all in fun and games right? Finally at 12:30 am, I had to call it quits because I was just too tired and couldn't argue and fight anymore. But I think Bron and Megan might have finished the game off for us and I'm SURE that the girls won--no surprise there!

Above is Maia looking kind of subdued at the Tops Easter Egg Hunt. She didn't really know what to think at first, so she just stood there looking confused. But, of course, it didn't take her long to get into the groove!

She is now wondering where all of the eggs are and where the big bunny went.
We went with our friends, the Phillip's--Hayden is having a good time in the paper grass!

Jen and Hayden...

Maia looking for an egg.


Maia loved playing in the paper confetti grass. She didn't want to get out.And of course, the picture with the Easter Bunny. Maia loved him from a distance--she kept waving at him and playing peek-a-boo with him, but the minute I tried to sit her down next to him, the tears came. So I had to get in the picture too.


Here is Maia all decked out and ready to go play in the two feet of snow we got this past weekend. The sun came out on Sunday (when we went out playing) and so it was SOOO bright, we both had to wear our sunglasses. Maia looks so stylish in hers! Oh, and if you look at the picture below, you can see that Maia definitely has a Class 3....okay, I just had to use that dental terminology to be cool, but really, look at her underbite! (except in the picture it looks more like a cross bite) Poor girl, her dental problems are already starting! Good thing her dad will be a dentist.



The picture below just gives you an idea of how much snow we got!Above: Our friends the Rhoten's built a snow cave so we went over to check it out. Lots of fun in the snow, since church was canceled!
Maia and Mama playing in the snow! I love this girl so much!

Here is a funny video of Maia signing "cold." (well first David has to have her eat her toes--he loves it when she does that) It is one of our favorite signs that she does--it is so funny. I love how hard she squeezes her hands together and the look that she gets on her face. She is such a silly kid. I've been trying to upload more pictures from this weekend...we took Maia to an Easter Egg Hunt at the local grocery store so I had some cute pictures from that as well as more snow pictures. I swear that is the only kind of picture I post anymore! But this weekend we got at least 2 feet of snow, so I took a lot of pictures of us playing outside in it. But come on, 2 feet??? It's MARCH....doesn't that mean SPRING??? Apparently not. Anyway, something has been going on with blogger and it won't let me upload the pix, so I'll have to try later.

I saw this posting on Craig's list and got a good laugh out of it.....who comes up with these things?? But it's the truth, we have got plenty of snow! It's almost the middle of March and we are getting hit with a storm that is supposed to drop 10-13 inches. Why didn't that happen in January when I would have been expecting it? Oh, that's right, because I live in Buffalo where the weather is ALWAYS unpredictable. Anyway, hope you get a good laugh--it was posted exactly as you see it below.

free free free

• Location: buffalo
• it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

My friend Megan bag-tagged me a while ago, but I have been really slow at getting around to posting on it....so here it is! I absolutely LOVE my purse. Megan got it for me for Christmas--I was so excited! I had really been needing a new purse, but was having such a hard time picking one out, so I was glad that she did it for me, she's got such good taste.
And the exciting contents...wallet, dental floss, cell phone, kleenex, wet-wipe packet, chapstick and lip gloss (you have to have both), gum, pens, lotion, pick, hand sanitizer, Aquaphor moisturizer for Maia, small perfume, hand moisturizer for me, and my little CPR mask (yes I am prepared to give CPR at any time, well not really, even though I've been through so many training classes I still think I might panic if it really came down to it, but at least with my little mask, I wouldn't be panicking about what kind of germs I was getting from some gross strangers mouth, right?)
Now on to the more fun pictures!! Today was SOOOOOO WONDERFUL!! It was at least 60 degrees...the sun was out, the snow melted (all in one day, but too bad we're expected to get more tonight!), and best of all we got to PLAY and PLAY outside. Maia and I were so happy! I went outside early this morning and it was already like 40 degrees and I told myself, "this is going to be a great day." Maia and her friend Sariah discovered the puddles of water from the melting snow and had a great time splashing around in them. They were both soaking wet by the time we dragged them inside.

Above: Maia looking so fashionable in her boots.

Taking a break on the soaking wet grass! But look how green it is! I wish spring were here to stay, but at least I feel rejuvenated and able to handle a few more weeks of wintry weather....it will only be a few weeks right???