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.)