Airplane ride home for Christmas...

So our first flight was short and great.  We had a happy little girl, smiling and laughing.  Everyone on that flight thought she was just the cutest, happiest little girl ever, especially the couple who sat behind us.  After flirting and laughing with them Mya climbed over the seat and plopped herself down in the woman's lap.  We got off the plane feeling confident and thankful that it had gone way better than anticipated.  Did I mention she even napped for about 40 minutes on that flight?!
On our way to the next flight we found out it had been delayed.  That should have been our first clue that the day was going to take a drastic turn for the worse.  The delay was spent strolling Mya up an down the airport, finding things she could play with such as straws, and trying to feed her. She really needed to get some energy out, however, an airport floor...we just couldn't do it...   After an over two hour delay, we boarded plan number 2.  This is where the fun began.  It actually started out fine and Mya was happy.  After the first hour, however, she was done traveling.  With an hour and a half to go her first meltdown began.  Now I must say here that Paul actually got the short end of the stick in all of this.  Being a Daddy's girl through and through, all she wanted to do, while she was screaming at the top of her lungs was do it on Daddy.  So that's how Paul spent a good half an hour, standing up in the back of the plane with two flight attendants(who were very nice I have to add) while Mya screamed and cried until she finally passed out.  There were a lot of helpful people on the plane who offered us videos, baby drugs(Tylenol) and other "tips."  But what the first crying fit came down to was an overtired little girl who was just ready to be off the plane.  She slept for a while and when she woke up we had just started the descent.  She seemed to be feeling better, however, that lasted for about 5 minutes and then, we believe, the pressure change hit her and the screaming began again.  This time she was in pain and there was nothing we could do.  AGAIN, she only wanted to be on daddy, so AGAIN, Paul was stuck with a very unhappy little girl, but this time he could not get up because we were getting ready to land.  Let me tell you 30 minutes of descending with a screaming child feels like at least 2 hours.  I'm sure those around us will back us up on that one!  Then as we got closer and closer to the ground the plane started swaying from side to side because apparently it was very windy out.  I do not love to fly as it is, however, when the plane started getting blown around, Paul then had both Mya and me to comfort...  I am not kidding you when I say we hit the ground hard, on one side of the landing gear only, slammed back and forth from landing gear to landing gear and with a final thud, finally made it safely to the ground.  Gulp.  And with that final landing Mya stopped crying and was once again happy, that is until we then got into the car for another hour.  But, after all was said and done, we got Mya to Paul's parents house in one piece and put her to bed, which she went to happily and immediately.
And guess what?  We have to do it all again next week...  Merry Christmas to us!

Mya's First Haircut :(

Note to parents:  If your daughter has gorgeous, curly, long hair DON'T cut it.  Not even if the hairdresser swears it will make it grow out fast and even better, not even if it is getting pretty ratty and seems to really need a haircut, not even if family members are commenting on how badly your daughter needs a haircut.  Whatever you do DO NOT cut your daughters hair.  Apparently Mya knew this rule, as you can see from the pictures below, however, mommy and daddy did not.  Although the last picture after the haircut looks cute, we are missing her curls terribly and are hoping every day that they will grow back ASAP!  Of course we did this right before the BIG holiday trip home next week, again, a rookie mistake.  Thankfully, hair grows back and in a few more weeks we will look upon our child with relief, but right now we wish we could go back to that day and maybe ask the hairdresser to only take a teeny, tiny bit off, instead of the amount that she did.  This was only supposed to be a trim...

The final result.  YES, she is still adorable, however, it was not quite what we expected!

Holiday Photo Cards...

SO, I was very excited to send out Holiday cards this year with our cute little daughter's pictures on them.  Below is the evidence of these attempts, need I say more??!!

And after MANY, MANY, MANY more attempts that I will not post, we finally got at least one shot that was "ok", except for the food stains around her mouth.  :)

And for the record I did not use this photo, instead our holiday card includes the first three shots above because I thought it was more humorous.

All I want for Christmas is Teeth...

SO, Mya, at 10 months old, finally got her first tooth.  On November 7th as Paul was changing her he noticed that she had a big white tooth sticking out of her gum.  It was her top left tooth.  I was in MA at the time, so I was both excited and sad about the first tooth(since I technically missed it).  We were both so impressed as she had had no major symptoms besides a little drooling and putting everything in her mouth,  but don't all babies do that anyways?  We bravely thought that this whole "teething" thing might just be a "piece of cake." What have all those people been talking about we wondered?  WELL, a few days later, when 5 other teeth started all coming in all at once, we began to find out.  Our sweet natured, laughing and smiling at all times chid, suddenly became cranky, fussy and what we like to call a velcro baby.  Velcro Baby appears any time Mya doesn't feel well, is tired, or is getting another tooth!  Thankfully, for me, velcro baby usually happens to Paul.  Mya is a Daddy's Girl already through and through, and so most of her velcro baby times are spent velcroed to daddy, which gives mommy some free time. :) This is not to say that I have never been the one she is velcroed to, however, 9 times out of 10, it's all about Daddy.  In fact her first phrase, that she started saying a few weeks ago is "Where's Daddy."  AND, even though I know most kids say Daddy or DaDa first because it is the first and easiest sound for them to make, Mya definitely says Daddy and DaDa in direct relation to Paul, she knows who he is and has for at  least the past two months!  She also says Mama, however, much less frequently and when I say Mama to her she often responds enthusiastically with DaDa DaDa DaDa!...