Good Times!

Maya always enjoys visiting with her Grandparents. Here you can see why....G'pa is so much fun!

Great Grandparents!

Maya is sooo lucky to have great grandparents. Here she meets her Great G'pa and G'ma J for the first time. I think she enjoyed herself, but they may have had a bit more fun! Stay tuned a 4 generation photo is coming soon:)

Mommy.... I am reading!!!

We love, love, loooove these photos of her. She is of course looking at her favorite book I'm a little tea pot. She likes me to sing it to her and she will sometimes squawk along, by far my favorite past time (and she doesn't know that mom can't carry a tune yet)!!

I love Christmas:)

Ohhhh, we had so much fun trying to take this picture. We tried on 4 different occasions. You just never know when a two month old will get camera tired or have a blow out in the lovely outfit mommy just put on for pictures. We were happy with a few we took!

I hate this outfit!!!!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

There is nothing like Christmas in Washington! This year Maya had her first encounter with snow. Mother nature enlightened us with several inches. With many firsts to come, Maya had quite a December.....snow, Christmas lights, tree, decorations, meeting G'ma Helen, Uncle Scott and Auntie Kristin (who showed the new parents you can take a 2 month old out for dinners and lunches, who knew?!),and Great G'pa and G'ma Jones!We did not visit any Santa's, mostly because I think it is a little creepy, but we did take a picture of her in her outfit! I joined 2 mom's meet up groups so I won't lose my mind and so Maya can meet little one's to play with.We went to story time at the library with G'ma Helen and daddy, she stayed awake all about 15min., hey I enjoyed it. Maya is now sleeping in her own room and through the night (don't say it too loudly or she'll hear you!) so thats been exciting. Matthew has been busy being a great daddy. He has progressed from master diaper changer to the sleep whisperer. Maya has discovered she has a voice. She is squealing and squawking all the time, especially when we are having a conversation. She likes to be apart of everything, I love it. I think we are in for it, she is going to be a little talker. I also can't believe she will be 3 months old on Wednesday....Yikes! Everyday we just feel so blessed!!! Now our next big event is the arrival of Baby Van Gelder. We can't wait for that:)

Where does the time go?!

Gosh, its already the middle of December. I can't believe how fast time flies when you have a newborn. Maya is 7wks now and is such a blast! She is smiling and cooing, which just melts our hearts. Yesterday she grabbed a rag with both hands and started sucking on it (it may have just been a fluke accident?), but we were very excited new parents! Her favorite toy right now is the ponytail on the top of my head. I have never bounced my hair around so much, but she smiles and moves her arms and legs with excitment every time. We enjoy playtime together where we dance and listen to Christmas music, occasionally start to read a book, ( we never get quite through it because she likes to be bounced all the time!!), and play with her rattles. Our night life isn't too bad. Maya sleeps anywhere from 5-7 hours, which I will take any day!!!!! She is your typical newborn, cries when she is tired, hungry, needs to be changed, or wants to be bounced. I feel like we are pretty lucky!

October and November are all kind of a blur. We worked really hard at breastfeeding which I will say did not come easy to us. We finally got it down though and things are going really well! I didn't dress Maya up for Halloween, and we spent Thanksgiving here with Matt's parents and Stacey, Doug and Isabella. Now we are anxiously awaiting Christmas. We can hardly wait for Uncles and Auntie to get here!! So for now we will just enjoy her developments and look forward for more!!