The Littlest Helper

Maya has become quite the helper lately. At the grocery store she'll help me put items into our bags. Of course, when I'm not watching carefully, she'll also pull random items off the shelves into our cart. ;-)

When we get home from the store, she helps me put stuff away in the fridge:

She also helps with the sweeping:

And on weekend mornings, she'll help crack eggs for her Dada to fry them or scramble them! I didn't get a photo of that today, but I'll try to remember that next weekend. :)

We are Ready for Some Football!

Another fun thing about the fall is the start of football season; at least, it's fun for Hyder! And of course, I don't miss an opportunity to dress Maya in her adorable Patriots outfit:

And of course, she's got a Texans outfit as well since she roots for both teams:

As usual, she's cheering for touchdowns as much as possible. :)

Fun with Apple Picking

We seem to have switched somewhat abruptly from summer to fall weather here in New England, which has been a bit disconcerting. But fortunately there are some great things about fall here, one of which is apple picking. We planned a visit with our friends who live in Harvard MA, and they took us to Doe Orchards. There were several varieties of apples already in season for ripeness, including McIntosh, Gala, and Honeycrisp.

Here Maya is explaining to her Dada how to pick apples:

After a little while Maya got down and did some picking of her own:

She inspected them to make sure they were good:

And then posed with Mamma and Dada:

Another fun activity with our little monkey!

Fun at the Pond

Continuing our efforts to take advantage of the warm weather over Labor Day Weekend, we headed to Spot Pond the day after our beach adventure. I had a coupon to rent a kayak or canoe, so we decided to head out in a double kayak. We had previously gone canoeing with friends over Independence Day Weekend, so we figured Maya would enjoy it again. After some initial fussiness, which we solved by snacking on some cheese crackers, she seemed to have fun in the kayak.

Here she's hanging out with Dada:

And here she's hanging out with Mamma:

And here she appears to be trying to dive in to the pond:

The water probably would've been warmer than at the beach, though swimming is not allowed in Spot Pond! And the water is probably quite a bit deeper too - good thing we all had on life vests.

Fun at the Beach

Over Labor Day Weekend we decided to take advantage of what could be the last weekend of warm weather and did a couple of fun activities that included playing in the water.

First, we headed up to Salisbury Beach in northern Massachusetts near the New Hampshire border. The last time we went to the beach was way back in April in LA and Maya would not get down on the sand. This time fortunately she was fine with the sand; in fact, she was fascinated with it!

She did head down to the water with Dada at one point:

But she soon decided the water was too cold and focused on digging in the sand:

After digging in the sand, she switched to flinging the sand:

We spent a bit more time in the sand and water, then cleaned up and headed to the boardwalk for food, drinks, and games. Maya played a bit of skee-ball:

All in all, a fun trip! I'm really glad we got up to the beach at least once this summer.

Even More Adventures in Eating

As with many other kids, Maya's tastes seem to be changing as she gets older. Some days, she'll refuse foods that she's loved eating in the past. Other days, she seems happy to try new foods, even veggies that I wouldn't imagine a 2 year old would like!

For example, here she's snacking on cranberry shell beans that I picked at Red Fire Farm a couple weeks ago:

And here she is trying out chopsticks to eat her stir-fried veggies:

I think she actually got one piece of food into her mouth before she gave up and threw the chopsticks on the floor. She went back to the fork and actually ate most of the green peppers, carrots, celery, and chard (!) in her bowl. We really got lucky with this kid!

Visiting Family in Houston - Part III

Maya's next adventure in Houston involved a visit to the Children's Museum, with lots of fun activities. She got to play with magnets, which apparently are quite fun:

She also learned about viscosity with Nana (her grandpa):

She got to sit in a big van and pretend to drive it:

And it looks like she tried to climb into an auto rickshaw:

All of that climbing and walking and playing seems to have tired her out, so after she got home and put away her shoes, she went to bed. Here she is with her stuffed animals (the dog is named The Rock and the raccoon is named George Cooney):

Visiting Family in Houston - Part II

Maya and Hyder had another fun adventure while in Houston, taking some time to visit the aquarium downtown. As expected, there were lots of fish, sharks, and even tigers. At first, she looked a bit worried:

But she seemed to cheer up once she saw the tiger statue:

Here's the family at the statue:

Later that evening the family went to visit some friends, and Maya got her groove on to some desi rap. She looks like she's having fun!

Visiting Family in Houston - Part I

Hyder and Maya went down to Houston to visit his family a couple weeks ago, a visit that was extended by a few days due to flight cancellations from Hurricane Irene.

They started the week by visiting a shop that sells desi (South Asian) clothes and jewelry. Maya seemed to be in awe of all the fancy stuff, even saying wow a few times. Here she's checking the quality of the clothing:

Here apparently she's dancing to the Bollywood music in the store:

After a busy afternoon of clothes shopping, of course the next stop is for food. Here she's ogling a display case of desserts:

Pretty good life for this little one!