Notes on our trip to Montana

An email I wrote to Grandma Fisher about our trip:

Our trip was great!  We took the train from Colombus, WI right to Havre, MT.  It took about 23 hours.  The girls were actually pretty good on the train! Amara had one major meltdown on the way back, but that is it!  We brought a cooler of food for all our meals except breakfast, which we ate in the dining car.  That was a lot of fun. 

In Havre, we stayed with Margaret's Mom.  She still lives in the house that Margo and her 6 other siblings grew up in, so that was cool to be there. 

Margo's brother Danny lives in Havre and he runs a restaurant called Murphy's Pub.  He has 3 girls, ages 9, 5 and 3, so that was PERFECT. 

I will write more in a second, but in the meantime, look at the pics!

Here's the link to the whole huge set of photos: 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hollybreeze/sets/72157630116754834/

 So, then on Tuesday, we went to Glacier with Danny and his family, except his wife and 3 year old. 

The mountains were INCREDIBLE.  When Maia first saw them, she said "Are those real?" 

We hiked a lot and Amara fell asleep on Margo's shoulders. 
We stayed in West Glacier at a motel right on Lake McDonald.  It was PERFECT! 

The motel was kind of rustic, no tvs! and the view was breathtaking.

In Havre, we went on  a "Havre Beneath the Streets" tour and we were HAUNTED!  A door opened, then slammed shut.  You will have to ask Maia about it.  It was freaky. 

Maia went to church with Grandma Kucera!   Mary (her name) went on and on about how good Maia was!  She crossed her arms when she went up for communion and she knelt and stood and did everything Mary did!  At one point, the priest called the little kids up to watch a baptism and the priest was folding his hands in a prayer and Maia did, too!  just like the priest. 

It was good to hear!  You have to take her to church with you whenever you can!  and she liked dressing up for it, too.  She even put on lip gloss. 

We also went to visit Margaret's Dad's grave.  In front of the grave is a tiny round metal thing that covers a hold to put flowers in. 

Maia was looking at it, then laid down and said into it, "I'm sorry you're dead."  Awww!!!  We wanted to laugh and cry! 

We went to a "Buffalo jump" in Havre, where the Indians used to drive the buffalo off of a cliff so that they could more easily harvest them. 

Maia and Amara had so much fun with their cousins.  They both just LOVE Ellie (she's 9).  and Abby is 5.  She has cerebral palsy, but she is super active and cute, funny and she loves fashion and having me do her hair.  Sophia is the 3 year old and she is ADORABLE, but Hell on wheels.  She is not mean, in fact, she is super sweet, but she is just all over the place!  She gets into things and she is a dare devil.  She and Amara had a ball together and they picked up on each other's bad habits.  Sophia has this loud, growl yell and now Amara does that, too.  ugh.  When we were making s'mores, Sophie took a chocolate bar and she and Amara had it gone within a minute or 2.  Sophia was practically force-feeding it to herself and to Amara.  lol.

The neighbor to Margaret's Mom is Nickolas and he is 6 and Maia played with him quite a bit. 

On Friday, Margo's brother Mark and his 2 kids Danielle and Frankie came up from Billings and we all went out to eat at Danny's restaurant and then to Danny's house for a bonfire. 

March 2012

This is an email sent to me by Margo, who is home with a sick Amara today:

Amara is pretty lethargic and just wants to be held. She ate lunch so she has some energy and is pretending to be Chester's Mom. She packed her bag and was moving into a new house with Chester.
I think she may need to stay home tomorrow too unless she makes a sudden recovery .  I'll keep you posted.
Margaret


And this is an email she sent me about a conversation she had with Maia yesterday.

She started by saying she wanted to go to Ethiopia . I agreed, said I would like to go as well.
She then stated a matter of fact like, that she stayed home with daddy while mommy went..... and said, "this was before we found you." She then asked how mommy found me. I told her Mommy and I met at work. She then said, "is that where mommy told you she wanted  to marry you?"  
This was so adorable and touched me to the core. I love Maia  and Amara with all my heart.

Amara

Amara is a goofy girl.  We already know that she has a great sense of humor.  She plays little tricks on people.  Example: Amara went potty twice at daycare last week.  This is BIG NEWS!  Margaret and I were cheering a lot as we went to pick up Maia from school.  When Maia got in the car, we told Amara to tell maia what happened today.  Amara said something completely off the wall that had nothing to do with potty and she smiled to herself.  Sometimes, if you ask her what she waqnts to drink, she'll say "wine" and then giggle. 
This past weekend, she saw Sesame Street Live with the Fishers and Amara jumped and cheered and squealed the whole first half.  Seeing Elmo is a HUGE deal for her!! She loves Elmo and Yo Gabba Gabba.  Her other favorite show is still Little Einsteins. 
Amara's best friend is Lydia Hurda. 

Maia

Maia told me "When I grow up, I'm gonna live with Grandma Fisher." 

This weekend, Maia was watching a movie and there was a poor girl who was freezing in the cold and someone gave her a blanket.  Maia sobbed.  She was so sad for the poor girl and other poor people.  She has a book that shows a lady giving some poor kids some cookies.  She stares at that picture and talks about how sad it is.  Maia has a tender heart.  She is very in tune with other people's feelings.  Sometimes, she is sassy and acts goofy, but just under the surface, she is very emotional and sensitive. 

Thanksgiving 2011

Here are emails from pat about Thanksgiving weekend:
The girls were really fun.  We played Old Maid and Maia was really a good sport if she lost; only once.  Then we played Yo Gabba Gabba.  They have 2 versions; we played the simpler one for a few hands and then we decided to try the older version.  She needed a little help with the more advanced version but she understood what she was doing.  It was fun. 

A bunch of us went to see the Muppet movie on Friday night.  It was a little too old for her.  Lots of humor that you would understand only if you had seen all the other muppet movies and shows; even I didn’t understand why people were laughing at times.  But she enjoyed being out with us.  Sesame St. was totally fun.  Amara’s reaction was so totally into it; unlike Maia’s first time when she was 3.

Amara related to everyone much more.  She still won’t go to Peggy and Peggy wants so much to hold her.  So when it was time to leave, I told her that Peggy really loves her and I asked her to give her a hug goodbye.  She said “will it make her happy?”  I said yes, so she gave her a really long hug goodbye.

Have to go; will write more later.

Mom 

Maia's first parent-teacher conference

Margaret and I went to the conference.  She is EXCELLING at letters, letter sounds, knowing which letter starts a word, etc..
She's doing pretty good at numbers, and she has to work on counting by 10's and knowing all the "teen" numbers.  She knows all of these now, though.  
She is doing a lot of work that they are expected to know by the end of the year, so that's super great!  
Now the bad things: she frequently doesn't listen to the teacher.  During carpet time, she doesn't sit in her spot, she pokes other kids, etc... and she gets time-outs for not listening to the teacher.  We have the same issues with her at home and we're working on them.  
She doesn't know her own strength and gets rough with other kids.  She wrestles and hugs too hard, etc...
Ms Sandra said that Maia has a very tender heart, though.  If one of her classmates is crying, she is the first to go help them.  
She said that Maia doesn't have any close friends in class and that her close friends are the ones she knows from Kids Korner and they play at recess.  
She said that Maia hangs out by her a lot, helping her with things and watching her do things.  Sometimes, she has to tell Maia to go play, and then she does.  
There's a girl names Ava that Maia is very competitive with and the teacher had to put them at separate tables.  They would tell each other that their work isn't pretty or they would say "I am done first" and things like that.  
She said Maia loves to learn and she puts a lot of effort into her work.  
We met with Ms. Brink, who is leading a session that we signed Maia up for about divorced families.  They play games in there and talk about dealing with feelings when you live in 2 different houses, etc.. She said Maia is doing really well in there. That's a 5 session "course".  Next, we want Maia to take "How to be a better friend".
We met with maia's music teacher and we loved the music room!  It's happy and big and they have really cool things in there.  The teacher said Maia is great in her class.  

a morning in the life

Just so we remember....
Here is a typical weekday morning in our lives. 
Margaret and Amara wake up early, around 5 or 5:30 and they make coffee, change the liter box and cuddle while watching Little Einsteins.  Mama makes cinnamon raisin toast and Amara and Mama eat.  Then Mama comes and wakes me (Holly) up.  She gives me a "snooze" warning and then I am up.  I start getting ready and then I wake Maia up.  I like to wake her up by singing a silly song or just kissing her head many times.  Then I help Maia get ready and when we're both ready, we go downstairs.  Mama comes upstaris to take a shower.  Sometimes when she blow dries her hair, the girls run up there so she can blow dry them, too.  They giggle and run and then come back for more. 
After Mama is ready, she gets Amara ready while Maia is either watching Curious George or eating cereal.  Mama and Amara come down, all ready, then we all get our shoes on and leave the house by 7:05.  We drop Amara off at daycare (Kids Korner and she is a Magic Monkey) and Maia goes to the Kids Korner School-age room).  and Margaret and I are off to work at WPS.