Happy Thanksgiving!

Carly had a very enjoyable and busy Thanksgiving week and weekend. It all started with a visit from her Aunt Julia.

We made yummy treats, introduced Aunt Julia to Discovery Place Kids, and had a wonderful time. (David and I were able to even sneak away for a date night to see the new Harry Potter movie.)

After Aunt Julia's visit we ventured down to Columbia to see my parents and to eat many Thanksgiving goodies. Carly had a wonderful time playing with a "new" push and ride toy my mom found.

Carly even enjoyed rocking in my old rocking chair. She used it to "watch" the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade (a whole minute or so).

The next morning I did a little shopping (not as successful as I had hoped) before we loaded up and headed down to Seabrook to visit with more family. Carly really enjoyed playing with her grandparents and great-grandparents.

After such a wonderful weekend, she was quite exhausted.

PIctures from Fall

Happy Thanksgiving Play Date

Carly attended a Thanksgiving themed playdate today, and really enjoyed herself. During this gathering the kids ate a variety of snacks, made headbands, and played. Carly decorated her headband with Thanksgiving stickers and I added 3 feathers before she walked around wearing it for a few moments. She also really enjoyed playing with all the many kids. They played magnets on the refrigerator, ran (or walked quickly in Carly's case) in circles around the downstairs, and ate as many snacks as they could get their hands on.

As a result of such a fun filled day, Carly took at 2.5 hour nap while our neighbors had a few trees cut down.

Stairs

Carly has been crawling up our stairs now since about the middle of July. Recently she has really started trying to use the rail to walk up the stairs and contemplating how exactly to come down the stairs. Dave and I would really like for her to either sit and scoot down the stairs or to crawl down the stairs backwards. However, her little short legs aren't allowing us to work on that skill quite yet.

Today, Dave went to participate in a flag football game and one of my favorite parks/playgrounds. Carly and I had an errand to run before venturing over to the park to watch him. Unfortunately, Carly had different plans when we arrived at the park. She was VERY interested in the two different sets of stairs. They had a nice double rail on each side that was the perfect height for her to use to walk up the stairs and then side step her way down the stairs.

I was able to get video of her walking up the stairs. Unfortunately, I didn't trust her new found skill of side stepping down the stairs enough to video it.

Big Kid

Today Carly and I took Dave to Discovery Place Kids. Carly showed him around to a few places, but then he was gone. I knew that Dave would really like this place, but I had no idea how much. He was in awe with the large water table, brick making area, and many other aspects that are currently above Carly intellect. I tried to tell him to go off and have fun, but apparently he thought there was something creepy about a grown man playing in a toy area without a kid he knows with him. Oh well. Eventually, she will be old enough to play with all of the different parts of this wonderful museum.

Dinner Time

HD version here

Twice

Carly has had quite the past 24 hours. Last night Dave started to sing the alphabet song (A-B-C...Z. Now I know my A, B, Cs next time won't you sing with me?). While he was singing this song, Carly walked over to the table with all of her books and pulled out Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. (An A-B-C book that has the alphabet printed on the back pages, which we sing to her after the book.) I thought this was just a coincident.

Tonight, while we were playing before dinner I began singing the alphabet song. And she repeated last night's action. She walked over, got the book, and brought it over to Dave to read. As a result, we repeated this book many, many times this evening. (Although, I'm still thinking it is a coincident, even though she has done it twice now.)

Carly also used her spoon independently twice today. She used it to feed herself some peach yogurt this morning and then some green beans and chicken noodle dinner. She is still quite messy, and needs help holding the dish while she is "dipping" the spoon into it, but she can complete the motion for a few passes. We are a long way from her feeding herself an entire meal using utensils, but we are taking big girl steps in the right directions.

Update (11/10/10) - Carly fed herself some at all three meals today with her spoon, and went and got her Chicka Chicka Boom Boom book on two different instances from two different places today when someone began singing the alphabet song. (She also ignored me once when I sang it, there were some blocks that were a lot more interesting.)

Year 2

Back by popular demand is the One a Day gallery for year 2. I have added a slide show on the side bar for the new year, but here it is in all it's splendor.



If you missed a day the first year, here is a link to the gallery: Carly Year One

Discovery Place Kids

Carly and I made a much anticpated trip over to Discovery Place Kids today. It is a hands on museum currently geared towards children 1 - 5 (although there overall plan and proposal was for birth - 7, so I'm expecting more as the center matures and more donations flow in). I was very excited that this museum would be less than 10 miles away from our home, but slightly skeptical about how my one year old would do and what the crowds would be like this inital winter. I went knowing that more than likely Carly and I would go through, enjoy ourselves, and I would walk out applying today's admission to an annual membership, I was absolutely surprised that when Carly and I walked into the first exhibit of the museum I was ready to turn around and go sign up for our membership immediantly.

The museum is set up as a huge Play Town (think of a play house on a town size scale). There is a fire truck, medic truck, veternarian's office, doctor's office, grocery store, theater, airport, farming area, cafe, bank (with a car pulled up at the drive through teller), car mechanic's shop, and art studio. There are also many other exhibits that represent our area - a small scaled NASCAR car and boat for kids to play in. Along with two HUGE water tables, one for kids to walk around, and a smaller one for toddlers to walk/cruise around and with highchairs attached to it for younger babies. There is also an area fenced off (with a cute white picket fence) for babies 0 - 36 months. This has a small cottage style place house, small ride on toys, the smaller of the two water tables, and a mat area for non-mobile babies.

Carly had an absolute BLAST playing in almost every exhibit. She wasn't interested in the dress up clothes that were at each exhibit, and we did skip over some of the I CAN exhibits (like brick making, car mechanics) that she wasn't tall enough to investigate. There were also some that she cognitively wasn't ready for that we bipassed, but that made me very excited about being able to explore this new museum for many years to come. (It would have been a disappointment if she could have done everything.)

Carly working as a veternarian.


Grocery Shopping


Now I'm a chef!


Cleaning up my mess in the kitchen.


Weighing the baby!


Walking on the "sunken ship" in the "underwater" exhibit.


Driving through the bank with her BFF (although the car doesn't move).


Flying the helicopter.


Water Table #1


Water Table #2


Ready for the rapids!

There are a lot more pictures on SmugMug. Unfortunately, my camera battery did begin to die so I had to choose my photographic moments wisely during our last 45 minutes.