Happy 2nd Birthday!!

November 28th was Maiya's 2nd birthday....can't believe she's already 2!

The Dora cake was a big hit (and lucky for an unorganized mom was available from the bakery at the last minute!!).

She had an extended birthday weekend, with my Uncle John, Aunt Wendy & "Kissteen" coming over for a last minute celebration, along with Auntie Rhonda & Gavin.

Maiya clearly enjoyed the sugar rush....and I'm sure she'll thank us for this picture when she's older!

She was well-spoiled with presents, and loves her new Wonder Pets Flyboat and all-things Dora.

Being 2 can sure tire a girl out!

Poppa & Grandma, Mel, and Hodak & Max came by on the Sunday for more Dora cake & presents.

All in all, it was a great birthday. We made a donation to the TDH Dragonfly Campaign (TDH is the organization through which Maiya's adoption was completed) to celebrate Maiya's birth, to honour her birth family who are especially close to our hearts on this day, and to support the many children in orphanages in Vietnam who need medical care, milk, food, educational supplies, and other basic necessities. Our hearts and thoughts are also with them.

Happy Birthday, monkey!

September, October, November...Where did it go??

Well, if anyone is still following along, here's a little update from the last 3 months. Not sure where the time goes - can't seem to get writing every month, but hopefully this will help get you caught up.

The end of summer was great. Maiya feasted on Poppa's corn fresh from the farm quite a few times, since we were able to meet him on his truck run to pick it up. She loved eating it right off the cob & the result was quite similar to how Poppa's face looks when he's eating

corn on the cob too!

Labour Day brought our annual trip to Great Grandma Myra's cottage near Kincardine, and our "drop-in" visit to the Mohr's cottage as well. Maiya loved playing on the beach and building sand castles, and even ventured into the water - it was a little cold but she had fun splashing around in it.

September came all too fast and I started my new teaching position back in the Waterloo Board, and Maiya started her new daycare at a brand-new YMCA just down the street from us. She has adjusted extremely well to the new setting and LOVES to go and play every day. She's had quite a few colds and a nasty fall that put her tooth through her top lip (followed by a 6 hour sit in the ER - where they finally told us at 11:15 p.m. that they wouldn't do anything to treat it!), so that's kept us busy. Having more family & friends closer to babysit in a pinch definitely helps!

We took advantage of the hot weather on Thanksgiving and did family pictures for my parents' 40th wedding anniversary that we celebrated in June. Getting all the kids to smile at once was a bit of a challenge, but the results were pretty good!

Halloween was fun as Maiya was starting to get the concept of trick-or-treating. We went to the Pumpkin Patch on a gorgeous fall day & picked out our pumpkins.

We saw a few strange people along the way!

Maiya had fun decorating her own little pumpkin with markers and helping Daddy dig out the seeds and slime in the big one.

Since Halloween landed on a Friday this year, we decided to make a couple of stops in town, then headed back to Brussels to surprise the grandparents. We recycled her butterfly costume from last year since it still fit, and she made for a pretty cute bug!

We just celebrated Maiya's 2nd birthday on November 28th. It's hard to believe that another year has gone by. I'll post some birthday pics in a separate blog once I get them downloaded from the camera!

Check back soon!

June, July & August - Time Flies!

Well, so much for writing over the last couple of months! Needless to say it has been busy. June brought the move to Kitchener & the new house, plus my convocation for my Master of Education, commuting for a couple weeks for both of us, job searching, job finding - not to mention unpacking & sorting out the house! We did find a little time for some pre-summer fun at the splash park across from our condo before moving - Maiya wasn't too sure at first, but Daddy convinced her it was fun!



We then had to say goodbye to Maiya's daycare
in North York. We were very sad to leave & she will miss her first boyfriend & all the daycare providers who made it so fun every day. We are lucky to have a space at the new YMCA daycare opening up near our house in September, and are sure she'll love it there too!

We spent a week in July at Chesley Lake with the Baker Bunch - the cousins, aunts and uncles on Great Grandma Anna's side.

Maiya was NOT very happy about going in the water at first (or else she's crying because of how Daddy's hair looks)...

But once she started splashing Daddy in the face it became much more fun!

Uncle Craig took her for her first boat ride too - she wasn't too keen on the water splashing her in the face at first, but she got over it pretty quickly once we started going fast!

Spent the long weekend in August with Grandma & Grandpa Clarkson & the Picton crew, and Maiya had tons of fun with everyone there too - especially with 6 yr. old Emily who played with her constantly!

Maiya is beginning to adjust to the new house, although it's taken awhile for her to stop clinging to us wherever we go in the house! She's getting back to normal sleep routines too, but still frequently wakes up in the night.

She is running, climbing, jumping, rolling - basically busy, busy, busy. She's talking more every day, putting 2-3 words together at a time & seems to remember everything she sees, hears or experiences. She's working on counting to 10 & learning her colours (although the colours have a ways to go yet!) Puzzles are a big thing right now, as are balls, the swing, riding in the wagon & reading her books. She's just over 20 months old & weighs in at 22 lbs.

She's loving her playset, and whenever it's not raining loves being on the swing & slide and is showing great promise already as a rock climber like Mommy!

However, trying to keep her out of her little pool when she has her clothes on has proven to be a bit of a challenge - wet bums are frequent! The other challenge is trying to keep her from "helping" in the garden - which consists of pulling the tops off all the flowers!



All that playing can sure tire a person out!

Our First Forever Family Day

May is a month of celebrations for us. One year ago, on May 9, 2007, we met Maiya at her orphanage in Vung Tau, Vietnam. I can't even remember how small she was - barely 12 lbs. at 5 1/2 months. All I remember is she was the baby who came out all smiles & ready to check out the world, and that hasn't changed after a year. Here's a short video of her one year ago....(and it really is short since of course we didn't have a charged video camera on this important day!!).

A few days later on May 14, 2007, we made the long trek back to Vung Tau from HoChiMinh City in the pouring rain to make it official - and she legally became our daughter forever, although she had stolen our hearts from the minute we saw her picture two months before.

The year has flown by and it's hard to believe, especially after a freezing cold long weekend, that this time last year we were sweltering in the heat of rainy season in Vietnam. On our Forever Family Day we looked back over the pictures from our trip and it brought back so many memories of little things that we had seen and experienced - both the good & the stressful! We can't wait until Maiya is older to take her back to see the beautiful country where she was born.

She is almost 18 months old now, and is running around like crazy. She is trying to say new words every day & rarely stops "talking". She also thinks she is extremely funny right now - she'll rhyme off a big spiel and then look at us and laugh and laugh, as if what she said was the funniest thing in the world. Too bad we can't understand it! She is also very into saying the sounds that animals make, as she demonstrates in the next video - she is definitely a little monkey!

Lots of changes over the last couple of months - I started back to work in March teaching a Multiple Exceptionalities class, Brett's been busy with work & flies out to Vancouver this week, then Omaha in July. The big news is that we sold our condo in Toronto & bought a house in Kitchener. We're looking forward to having a back yard for Maiya to run wild in & hopefully burn off some energy - and Brett is looking forward to having a bbq! We get the house in 2 weeks & move mid-June, so things will be busy!! So the next post will likely be later in June with pics of Maiya in the new house!

Here's a couple more pics to tide you over until then - Maiya at 17 months & still full of smiles:o)

Oh Canada....

After months of waiting, Maiya was shocked to hear the day had finally come....

she was indeed Canada's newest, #1 CITIZEN!!

The official citizenship papers arrived on March 31st, 2008 and we were all very excited! Of course we had to go outside and wave our Canada flags to celebrate...

And as a true Canadian, she decided that since the Leafs were out of the playoffs, she might as well get her "hockey hair" cut off to celebrate the end of the hockey season.Now that she's 17 months old, she has decided she better start practicing up for her driver's license...

...and when she's not busy driving, she's just hanging around waiting for the spring showers to end and summer to begin.
Stay tuned for our next post which will celebrate our first "Forever Family Day" - the year anniversary of Maiya's adoption on May 14, 2007. Time flies when you're having fun!

A very special blog day...

One year ago, on March 11, 2007, this little face appeared on our screen after we said "yes" to our agency that we were ready to accept a proposal for a little girl. We waited as the pictures slowly downloaded onto our screen and instantly fell in love the second those eyes first smiled back at us from thousands of miles away. A whirlwind of a year later, she's had many firsts - first airplane ride, first teeth, first steps, first words, first snow, first Canadian Christmas, and many more...

Some days have brought challenges...

And some days we could all use a little more coffee....

But every day has brought us surprises and smiles ....

And a whole lot of love...

Christmas, a New Year and Another Month Passes By...

Well, over a month and I've been promising to get Christmas pictures posted so thought I'd better get to it before we're into February! Christmas was of course lots of fun as Maiya experienced her first Canadian Christmas. She especially loved the gifts wrapped in gift bags with lots of tissue paper, as her favourite activity was to rip the tissue paper into progressively smaller and smaller pieces. She'd hand each piece to me, until she was down to a tiny little piece, and then put it in her mouth. Who needs presents!!

We spent most of the holidays back in Brussels visiting with grandparents and other family & friends. By the holidays crawling was still the preferred mode of getting around, but she was walking more and more with all the encouragement she was getting! We were so tired out from the Christmas holidays that by the time we returned home on New Year's Eve, we decided to just have a relaxing night at home (translation....we're old and tired and had neglected to make any plans!!).

We started Maiya's visits to her first daycare in January, as that was to be my return to work date. I'm off until after March Break now so that I can continue to work on my research for the Masters, and Maiya can get used to daycare. We had some fairly serious issues from the first day I took her to her daycare (all I'll say is, being escorted to the door by two plain-clothes police officers - or so they said - was a little unnerving for our first day!) Needless to say, it was a very stressful week, but we were very fortunate to find a daycare not far from my work that was able to squeeze us in, and we made the switch. She loves her new daycare and I think she's gained 5lbs. already from all the good food they serve! She's brought home her first artistic masterpiece entitled "Snow" (black construction paper with some little white crayon marks on it) so we're sure she's destined for greatness in the art world now as well. Her class is now gearing up for the big Valentine's Day party on Feb. 14th, so it will be interesting to see what that entails with 7 little 12-14 month olds running around!

In January, Maiya & I were able to get together for brunch with a few of the families who also adopted around the same time as us. It had been a few months since we'd been together so it was fun to see how big all the kids are getting. They are all growing and thriving in their new homes and it's great to be able to maintain such great connections to Vietnam with them. We will be celebrating Tet, the Vietnamese New Year in February. It is based on the lunar calendar, the same as the Chinese New Year. This year will be the Year of the Rat. The Families With Children From Vietnam group will be celebrating together downtown on Feb. 23rd, and we're hoping to have our own family celebration by visiting the new Vietnamese restaurant that opened down the street from us.

At 14 months, Maiya is going strong. We think she must be close to the 20lb mark now, and seems to be getting taller every day. She has 6 teeth so far, and I think a few more are working their way in. She walks/runs everywhere, although she has discovered how to slide backwards on the hardwood floors so every once in a while I find her sliding past me, bum first with a big grin on her face. She has learned a few words in sign language, and signs for more, milk, all done, fan and light. She's not saying many words yet, but is "talking" non-stop, so I have a feeling it won't be too long before she's talking our ears off. She has a great sense of humour and keeps us laughing (although she has started to assert her independence a little more so we may see some of the "terrible twos" a little early!).

Hopefully it won't take me as long to post next time, so keep checking in February for more news!