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Rhythm pulses through her veins. Melodies fill her brain. Her days are filled with music and dancing. A day without dancing isn’t a day worth living as far as she is concerned. She is a musical soul.
Dancing to her favorite Dragon song 
There isn’t any one type of music that she gravitates towards, although a good beat does seems to help. The only requirement for making the list is that the song speaks to her and makes her want to dance. If she can’t not dance to a song it will become an instant favorite and very quickly makes its way onto her iPod. Her favorites range from Gwen Stefani’s The Sweet Escape, to Adele’s Rolling in the Deep, to Forbidden Friendship from the How to Train Your Dragon Soundtrack, to OneRepublic’s All the Right Moves, to Led Zeppelin’s Bron-Y-Aur Stomp, to Eminem’s Like Toy Soldiers.
Her musical tastes are beautifully eclectic. And, there is just no swaying her opinion, no matter how hard her daddy tries You can’t convince her she doesn’t like a song once she has developed a taste for it and you can’t convince her that she likes a song that hasn’t spoken to her. She usually knows the very first time she hears a song whether it is a keeper or not. There is no telling what her next favorite is going to be either, she will hear a song on the radio or in a movie or something, it makes her want to dance and is an instant new favorite.
I love her love for music. I love how she sings to her self a random times throughout the day and will just start dancing to some tune playing in her head. I’m pretty sure there is always a song playing in her head.
Every Christmas since Maya’s second Christmas we have made a gingerbread house with her. I usually buy the pre-built one that you just have to decorate since it is the decorating with candy part that Maya enjoys the most. Each year we have so much fun making our little gingerbread house. And, each year they look better and better.
Maya’s favorite part is probably when she get to sneak candies as she watches Lorne get the house all ready for her job, the placing of the candies. Plus, she likes when she gets a few tastes of icing since Lorne usually sneaks a few tastes and can’t get away with it without letting her have a taste too 
Anna couldn’t really be of much help this year, but she did have fun watching all the action. I’m sure next year she’ll be right in the middle of it all causing trouble.
Maya was pretty happy with the finished product. I think this is the best one so far. It looks pretty darn good!
Every year since Maya was born I have been determined to do photo Christmas cards and every year I end up procrastinating and then just sending out plain old regular cards. This year I was determined not to procrastinate. I was determined to send out adorable Christmas cards of my beautiful girls to all our friends and family.
And guess what…I did it. I took some pictures of my girls dressed in their pretty Christmas dresses in front of the tree, made a photo card online and ordered the appropriate amount. The cards should be arriving today or tomorrow and will be promptly mailed out to our dearest friends and our family so they can enjoy a little Christmas cheer care of my lovely little girls. I’m so proud of myself for not procrastinating this year. I’m so glad I finally got my butt in gear early enough that I won’t have to send out generic Christmas cards again this year.
The photo shoot was chaotic and crazy but I did get some really cute shots of the girls. Here is a little sneak peak at some of the adorable shots I got (and these aren’t even the ones that made the cut!).
Now that I’ve managed to do it once I’m going to be determined to do it every year. Let’s see if I can keep it up
I knew this day was coming, eventually. I had hoped I’d get a little more time, maybe even another year or so. More time to figure out how I would answer it. No luck, it came out of the blue, when I wasn’t expecting it at all, and it hit me like a ton of bricks.
The other day we were talking to Maya about the people that make up her extended family. We started talking about the fact that her grandparents are our parents. Lorne was asking her if she knew who his mommy and daddy were, she answered Gramma and Poppa. I then asked her if she knew who my mommy was. She responded with Nana. Then it came, the question I’ve dreaded pretty much her whole life, the question I never wanted to have to answer. “Mommy, who is your daddy?”, bam, ton of bricks to the chest.
I stalled as I tried to come up with a 4 year old friendly answer, because the real answer is too much for me to swallow most days, let alone a 4 year old. I simply said that my dad wasn’t with us anymore. I said that he got sick a long time ago and he wasn’t here anymore. It took a lot of conscious effort on my part not to cry. She looked at me for a long moment, I wondered what was going through her little brain and waited, holding my breath for more questions, but they didn’t come. She just moved on to a different topic and that was that.
I know one day she’ll have more questions. I know each time those tough questions come they are going to stop me in my tracks, but I’ll answer them as best I can. And one day when the “he got sick and passed away” answer no longer cuts it and when she is ready, I’ll share the whole story with her. I hope that day is a long way off.
Dear Maya,
Happy Birthday baby girl! You are 4 years old today. 4 YEARS OLD! How did that happen? How did you go, in what feels like overnight, from this squirmy, tiny little baby who made me a Mom for the very first time, to this opinionated, intelligent, full of life 4 year old?
You have changed so much in the past year. You have really grown up a lot this year. When you turned 3 you still seemed like a little little girl, you still seemed so young. I can’t say that about you today. You are so much more grown up, so much older and wiser. You are “big girl” as you like to remind us and I can glimpse the passionate, intelligent woman you will one day become.
You did a lot in this year since you turned three.
We traveled to Australia for 3 months. You LOVED it there and did a lot of growing up while we were down under.
You came home from Australia and became a big sister. You truly love this new role of yours and adore your baby sister. I love watching the two of you interact and try to imagine the bond you will have when you grow up.
And, maybe the biggest thing of all, you started school. August 18th found you walking through the threshold of your first little classroom and you have loved every moment you’ve spent in school so far. Preschool has done so much to bring you out of your shell and you have really blossomed.
All of these changes and adventures this year have changed you and impacted you in different and unique ways. They have helped mold the girl you are today on your 4th birthday.
Maya, at 4 years old, you are a barrel of laughs constantly trying to entertain us. You love being the center of attention, especially when people are laughing at your antics or clapping for your little “performances”. You are beautiful and passionate. You are full of energy and life, you are on the go from the moment you get up until the moment you go to bed at night. You are so in tune with music and movement and spend much of your day singing and dancing. You are intelligent and curious. You are opinionated and like to push my buttons (sometimes it makes me scared of what the teenage years will be like). You are 100% girl and love to live in a fairy tale world filled with princesses, ponies and everything pink. You are emotional and sweet (when you want to be ). You are you and we love every bit of you, even when you are driving us crazy.
There is so much you love in life. You love reading and always try to get an extra book read to you at bedtime even though we already read 3 every night. You love coloring and creating art projects. Some days you’ll sit for hours and just color and color. You’ve started writing letters too and can write your own name. You are so imaginative and spend many hours each day creating little worlds of adventure for your princess dolls, your my little ponies and your strawberry shortcake dolls. You love to include Mommy and Daddy in your play and even sometimes the cats, especially when it comes to dress up play. You love talking to, playing with, reading to and laughing with your baby sister. You love music and dancing.
I love you sweet Maya. I love that I get to have you in my life and I get the privilege of being your Mom. Happy Birthday, I hope it was everything you dreamed it would be. I love you to pieces baby girl.
