'Tis the Season

Winter in our house is dominated by the season of basketball! Despite the hours away from home, we try to make basketball season a family affair. The basketball family has become Mae's family away from family. She loves most of them and they all love her. Lindsey has done an awesome job of capturing the basketball girls and their parents' love for Mae. -T

Opening Night - Patiently awaiting the start of a new season

Mom...is...AWESOME during basketball season (and always)! (Happy to be the visitors)

The center of attention whenever she's there

Players and parents alike

She gets special privileges

Maybe a distraction at times?

Mae hands out good luck fives to the coaching staff

She wanted in on the celebration for Papa D's 400th career victory

Helping Grandma Weez at the scorer's table

Wanting to get her game on...or scouting out the other team for Dad.

Getting coaching tips from Papa D

Get yo' game on, girl!

Pregame shootaround with Anne and Alyssa...and the other team.

Halftime show (and trying to get our JV girls to reverse their fortunes in the second half since we're down 11)

(Her motivation helped us squeeze out a two point win and remain undefeated through 5 games)

Finding things more her size

"Not THAT ball, Dad!"

"THREEEEE point basket by Mae Schlensker. Schlensker."

Love to see those shots falling

Happy to Sad in 60 Seconds (or 3 pictures)

Mae loves to be around people. When people leave she whines until she finds people to entertain. The love of people inspired her to take her first full trip up the stairs. -T

Food and people...life doesn't get much better than that for our Mae J.

Mealtime ends and sometimes people leave and all of the sudden our happy girls changes moods

But she has now mastered the art of finding us

Reading at Age 1?

Mae knows how to read already! Well, she at least fakes it pretty well. The best part is she doesn't rip books so Lindsey busts out a bunch of her ginormous stash for her. -T

Not only does she know how to read, but she gets through every book in about 10 seconds each!

She can't say "shark" yet, but she can read.

"Yes, shark. Shark!"

Mae-king Herself the Center of Attention

Mae likes people. Usually she stares at them. Once she's more comfortable she usually laughs at them - like her cousins, and eventually everyone else. She is kind to those of all ages as evident below of shots from time with family and time with the ward. -T

Of course one of her first stops at the Ward Christmas party is her BFF Melissa.

High five for Uncle Pete

Although distracted, a low five for Aunt Connie

A sweet, watchful eye for Grandpa Schlensker

Always good times with her cousin Cameron
(Another case of..."I'm not sure why blogger cuts out the sound to some of my videos, but Mae laughs at Cameron in this one)





Tolerant of hugs

She's not used to seeing people smaller than she is. Her days being bigger than Nathan are numbered.

Mae Does Her Santa Lucia Responsibility

As tradition has it for Santa Lucia...

"On the morning of December 13, the oldest daughter dresses in a special long white dress with a red ribbon around the waist and white socks and no shoes. She puts a wreath made out of leaves on her head. The wreath has 6 - 8 candles on it...The children serve [milk] and [amazing cinnamon rolls dripping in frosting] to the rest of the family...As they bring in the [rolls] and [milk] the girls sing "Santa Lucia" (in Swedish, of course), (this didn't happen)...and then...the children then go to their neighbors and teachers and serve them the [milk and cinnamon rolls] (this didn't happen either).

So, this is what Mae did...more or less. Bottom line...we got cinnamon rolls! -T

We took a few family pictures PRE-Santa Lucia...

Well shoot.

Too much zoom on that last one

I wanna say this is the one we ended up using on our Christmas card

There's our Catholic deacon boy?

Nope, that's actually our Mae J!

Lots of distractions going on so she keeps the candlelit hat on

She wanted no part of the Santa hat..."It's Santa LUCIA, not Santa CLAUS!"

What the...?

She didn't technically bring the cinnamon rolls to us, she actually didn't even want them for herself. Here's us...trying to trick her into eating cinnamon rolls by enticing her with broccoli first. Our daughter is not normal.
Scared to death of sweets...she actually once told us, "A moment on the lips, forever on the hips."

Eating her broccoli, keeping an eye on the evil cinnamon rolls
This is post-dinner so...Broccoli = Dessert

So we trapped her to make her eat sweets!

"You WILL eat sweets little girl!"
(she looks like she just wants to dive right in, huh?)

We gave up...Dad ate the cinnamon roll and Mae ate her preferred dessert
It's not funny Mae...you're a strange strange child.

Green=Good, Sweets=Sin

Primary Presidency Meetings

Wonder what REALLY happens at the primary presidency meetings at our house each week? Well, if it were up to Mae, she'd just play with Melissa McGladrie the entire time, and isn't thrilled when Melissa stops playing with her. -T

Family Picture Day

Keeping with tradition, every year we've been married we've taken a picture together in the fall as our two bushes in the back yard turn red. Last year, the leaves were almost gone, but we still did it. This year we had a few more red leaves left and got our annual picture. We also happened to take a few pictures of Mae. -T

Take 1
Yes, bottom and legs all looked good in the first one, but we'll still take a few more if you'd like.

She smiles a lot, but Mae likes the confused look more on pictures.
"Is it time for pictures of just me now?"

"Thank the heavens!"
(Do we have a flag or something in our yard I don't know about?)

Someone should tell her it's just right hand over your heart, not both.

"Wait...you said one smile and we're done, right?"

"Yeaaaa!!!"