Mya's 3rd Birthday

How can three years have gone by since this little princess came into our lives?  We celebrated Mya's 3rd birthday last weekend with family and friends.  I did my best not to go overboard with the Minnie theme this year, and thankfully had enough other distractions that I didn't have the time or energy to go crazy.  Still, I think Mya had a wonderful day, playing pin the bow on Minnie and eating her Minnie cupcake.  

I've been comparing Mason at 3 to Mya at 3 quite a bit lately, but I've come to realize I don't really know exactly how old Mason was when he did certain things.  (And I know I shouldn't really be comparing them anyway.)  But in an attempt to at least have some memory of this snapshot in time, here's what Mya's up to these days:

• Asking why.  "Why? But why? Why, mama?  Why?"  It's endless, and sometimes frustrating, but at the same time a good sign that she's questioning the world around her.
• Saying no - while frowning and stomping her little foot.  I have no fear this girl will be able to put her foot down when she gets older, we just wish she wouldn't do it with us.
• Pick me up.  She still likes to be carried, which is sometimes nice and sometimes a work out.  This kiddo has never been light!
• Smiling then crying.  She is the happiest little girl you've ever seen, and then will switch to the most dramatic little girl you've ever seen.  The teenage years should be interesting.
• Helping out, unless you want her to.  She's great at offering to help - with the dustbuster, doing dishes (playing in bubbles) or picking up sticks.  Until you ask her to help with these things.  She's got a mind of her own this one.  
• Loving pink. And anything girly really.  And not letting Mason play with anything pink or girly.
• Following the leader.  Whatever Mason does, good or bad, Mya does too.  

We're looking forward to what the next year brings for our sweet baby girl, but we're hoping the time doesn't go nearly so fast.  

Home Sweet [New] Home

Adam and I have been talking about moving for a long time.  Back when Mason was just a baby we even put our house up for sale.  Nothing good came of that, but it's still been in the back of our minds for a long time.  I don't think a week has gone by when I wasn't looking at listings, getting excited about one home or another, only to have us not pursue it.  The timing was never right.  Our finances were never in order.  The market is terrible for selling our current home.  Our excuses could have been endless.

Finally, we decided to get our ducks in a row.  The day before we met with our loan officer to get pre-qualified to begin our search, I'd mumbled to Adam that it was too bad there wasn't anything available in the Hidden Forest neighborhood.  We'd driven through that area a few years back when one of those homes that had me momentarily excited had been on the market.  It sold, without us having done so much as inquire about it.  The day we met with our lender, I was looking at listings again and a new one came up right in that very neighborhood.  We looked at it a few days later, made an offer a few days after that and a few hours later we learned it had been accepted. 

Everything had finally managed to fall in place at just the right time. 

We took the kids with us for the home inspection, so they could check out their new place and inpect their new rooms.  I think they're just as excited as Adam and I are.  That night when I put Mason to bed, he started talking about the new house.  "Mama, it's not as big as I thought it would be."  So I explained that we didn't need a really big house, just one that fit the four of us.  And besides, I didn't want to clean a really big house.  "Mama, the garage is touching the house."  Why yes, we are especially excited to have an attached 2-car garage.  "And mama, the garage is on the same side of the house as our house now."  That little guy is so perceptive.

The whole process of buying a house is so much different than it was when we bought our current home ten years ago.  Back then you could walk into a bank, throw a couple W-2s at the loan officer and be out the door with a 0% down, 30-year loan for twice the amount you really wanted.  Now don't get us wrong, we don't think that was okay and we understand why things are different today.  We knew that going in.  But it was so drastically different, even though we were working with the same lender.  I don't know that I've ever been so stressed or felt so lost in my whole life.  At one point I commented on all this to our lender and she informed us that things were actually going really well.  I can't imagine how it must be when you don't have excellent credit, when you don't have all your documentation, when you don't have 20% to put down. 

Now the tasks of moving and selling our current home (which won't be listed until we move out) are before us.  But on our closing day today, we are going to pause and bask in this moment.  It's been a long time coming, and we're so glad it's finally here.

Ten Years Gone By So Fast

Back when Oprah was still on, she had a special theme song for her 10th season.  I've never been a big Oprah watcher, but I remember that song and even though I've never known the full lyrics, I've often sang the part I do remember:

 "Ten years gone by so fast/I might as well have been dreaming." ~ Paul Simon

Today I'm singing this little tune because ten years ago, I married my best friend.  In some moments it's seemed like a really long ten years and at other moments I feel like I've only blinked.  The hectic days, especially of late, have strung themselves together and brought us to this point.  We've set up roots, started and expanded our family - made some decisions that will impact the rest of our lives.  And sat on the couch together many an evening.


Our lives are so much different than they were ten years ago, but I can't imagine our life together turning out any differently.  I can't wait to see what the next ten years have in store for us.

Kids Say the Darnedest Things, Part 5

Mason has been quite the chatterbox lately.  Once you manage to peel him away from the TV or his DS, he's likely to tell you a story you wouldn't believe.  But you should believe him, because even when his stories go off on a tangent, they're usually rooted in fact.

So just yesterday I packed up the kids and we went to a different playground across town.  On the way we were driving through a very wooded neighborhood.  Mya said, "I see trees!"  She's very good at I Spy but instead of letting you guess what she's spying she just tells you.  Okay, so she's not really good at I Spy at all. 

Mason took her observation of the trees and ran with it.  I wish I'd been listening more closely so I could quote this story word for word, but I was apparently also staring at the trees (or more likely the houses) and only half listening.  Oh wait, I mean I was concentrating on driving the car carrying my precious cargo.

At any rate, he started talking about beavers.  I can only assume because he thought they would like to live by all these trees so they could cut them down.  He's seen his fair share of beaver cartoons and specifically has enjoyed Beaver Boy from PEEP and the Big Wide World on PBS.  So he's telling me about the beavers and all of I sudden I hear, "You naughty beavers! You go back to your dam house!"  Of course I heard, "You go back to your damn house!" Thankfully before I began chastising him for using bad words, I realized that he was, as usual, correct. 

I love this kid.

Third Time's a Charm

 As everyone is well aware, this winter has been just horrendous.  With bad roads keeping us home on two prior weekends, we finally managed to get up to Bridgeport to visit my parents and belatedly celebrate Julia's 3rd birthday.  The only problem was my mom had to work on Saturday.  Never fear, Grandpa and I kept the kids occupied by taking them over to the Mid-Michigan Children's Museum in Saginaw.  The last time we were there it was St. Patrick's Day 2012.  Especially with Mya, I was reminded how little they were at that time and it made me happy and sad all at the same time.  We hope you enjoy these pictures from our trip!

The kids spent most of their time at the water table, Mason building with the pipes and Mya with the water wheels and pink fish.  Don't you love her expression in the bottom center picture?  She is not happy with the kid next to her whipping around a fishing pole.  Of course Mason and Grandpa found the train table as well.  But probably the highlight of the afternoon was watching Mya organize the bugs in the bee house.  She took out every little bug and bee and lined them up.  Yep, that's my girl!

Just Another Day Off

Today was a scheduled day off of school, in honor of President's Day.  I spent much of the morning grumbling about the fact that maybe they should cancel the day off in order to make up for the 9.5 days Mason's school has been closed due to weather.  I'm sure they couldn't do this for contractual reasons, but I have a feeling everyone (teachers/parents/kids) would rather have been in school today than making up one of these snow days in June. 

But I digress...

So I was complaining about Mason not having school on a holiday like today.  After all, wouldn't it be better to be in school and actually learn something about our presidents?  Instead we shipped Mason off to daycare assuming he'd learn nothing about American history.

I couldn't have been more wrong.  I have a feeling he had more fun learning about President's Day at daycare today than he would have at school.  He brought home all sorts of projects.  An Abe Lincoln top hat with beard (happily modeled by Mya), an American flag (unhappily modeled by Mason), a Lincoln log cabin and a George Washington silhouette with cotton balls for a wig. 

While I'm still kind of frustrated the school's day off wasn't canceled, I couldn't be more happy with the "education" Mason received at daycare.  Looking out the window now at the copious amounts of snow falling, I'm thinking we might end up with yet another snow day tomorrow.  Maybe he'll still learn a thing or two, even if it isn't at school.

Thomas Elf

The Mattens family had a new friend arrive at their home this season. When we came home from Grandma and Grandpa's house after Thanksgiving, our Elf on the Shelf and book were waiting for us. We read the book together, having watched the TV show together the night before. Mason got the gist of it, and happily named our elf 'Thomas.' We really shouldn't have been surprised by that name choice. Mya quickly began calling him Tommy Elf, which Adam and I actually liked better anyway.

While there have been plenty of posts on the antics these little elves are sometimes up to, our elf was pretty tame - mostly finding new spots to land each night. One day he did get a little crazy with the toilet paper in the bathroom, but other than that he mostly hung out in the living room and dining room. After the first few mornings, he became the first thing the kiddos were interested in when they'd wake up. Mya had a particularly good eye at spotting him, but every once in a while we had to help them find him.

I think the kids will be happy when Tommy returns next year. They actually seemed sad when he wasn't with us on Christmas morning. But we explained he had to go back to the North Pole with Santa so he could help make toys for next Christmas. You never know, we may get some pictures and letters from him during the year as a reminder that Santa is always watching them.