We visited Armstrong Redwoods States Natural Reserve for a beautiful hike in the redwoods.  Maiabeanie did pretty well walking most of the way herself, but of course with much backtracking, climbing of benches, jumping, and examinations of rocks and sticks.

One other fun thing we did on this trip was stop at Howarth Park in Santa Rosa, where Maia got to run around some awesome play structures and also ride a little train and carousel.

To all the moms:  You do so much, give so much, and love so much.  You’re totally awesome.  Words can’t express how much appreciation you all deserve.

To my mommy:  You’re the best of them all.  <3

To Tom and Maiabean:  Thank you for my delicious Mother’s Day waffles.  They were scrumptious!

Beanie is talking up a storm these days.  She links words together into phrases (“blue cup”) and even tries to tell stories.  It cracks me up.  She has the most earnest expression that stems from her strong desire to communicate, but with her limited vocabulary her stories sound like this one from today: “Mama!  Baby!  Choochoo!  Mama dada baby!  Mama dada baby choochoo!  Baby choochoo tawberry choochoo tawberry!”

We took a little two night trip to Guerneville, about 1.5 hours north, this last weekend.  Maia slept pretty great in the travel crib, thank goodness, the best she has of all the times we’ve used it.  We stayed in a cute cabin that offered s’mores at a firepit in the evenings.

We visited the nearby Korbel Winery, where the wine tasting staff were really nice to us and gave Maiabeanie my bunny a pile of corks to play with:

Tom got some totally cute pics of Maia outside the tasting room:

Today Maia was looking for the “W” amongst her alphabet blocks, and when she found it she delightedly exclaimed, “Double-doooo!”  😀

Maia has recently been calling me “mommy” at times instead of “mama.”  Although we originally pushed for “mommy,” now I want her to stick with “mama!”  To me the change is an indication of how she is quickly getting older.  I want her to stay my baby.

Here’s Beanie enjoying her new sand toys at the local playground.

I’ve mentioned before that Maia loves to watch Dada shower.  It’s one of the highlights of her day!

In other Maia updates:

• She often holds hands now, but she has to be the one wrapping her hand around my or Tom’s finger.
• Ever since I showed her how to jump two months ago, she has been jumping non-stop!  She jumps down stairs.  She jumps off ledges and curbs.  She jumps when she is happy.  She angry-jumps when she is upset, which is kinda funny.
• She seems to know like 5 or more new words every day, it’s crazy!  She’s been pointing at letters and numbers so we read them out to her, and now she knows her numbers 1-10 and a lot of her letters, too.  She always points from right to left.