Gymboree

This morning was our last Gymboree class. Technically Lily could continue onto the next level, but with preschool starting it would be too much. Plus I really think she has gotten everything she can out of Gymboree. It was amazing to watch her run around and play today while thinking back to last year when she was so shy and timid. She has really come a long way and I am so proud of her! Normally when I take photos at Gymboree, I just take a few before class starts, but today I carried my camera with me the whole time to document the entire class.

The first thing we do as a class is the rope song where the kids grab a color and take the rope in and out, up and down and then around. Finally the rope is a big balloon that they blow up and then let go of as it pops!

Blowing up the "balloon". They stand on it and jump up to make it "pop".

Every class we pretend we something. Last week we were dogs and today we were making cookies. Here Miss Julia is showing photos of cookies, ovens and mixers.

Lily with a handful of "cookies"

Putting the "cookies" in the "oven" and getting plates out for the cookies.

Sitting at the table with their plates of cookies.

Avery is in orange and that is her mom, Kathleen.

Lily and Avery are best Gymboree friends. Lily is so going to miss seeing Kathleen and Avery every week, but hopefully we'll still see them often for play dates.

Lily being a "cookie" and getting rolled by the "rolling pin"

Lily and Avery

They had fun chasing each other around the room.

They both cried when Barrett tried to ride with them.

Playing Peek-A-Boo

At the end of class is parachute time. Miss Julia blows bubbles and we sing songs.

Going under the parachute is usually Lily and Avery's favorite part, but Avery didn't get under right away, so Lily was crying and wanted to get out. Once Avery came in it was all good.

Saying hi to Gymbo the clown!

Finally at the end of each class Lily gets her Gymbo stamps -- on her hands, feet and tummy!

Here is a video of Lily and Avery screaming under the parachute. This is their favorite part of class. It is a little dark under the parachute, but you can definitely hear them. -- all that screaming is just Lily and Avery. All the other kids are nice and calm. :) After that segment they are doing the Gymbo dance.

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It was sad for me that it was our last Gymboree class. We've had a lot of fun going for the past 13 months and Lily has learned so much!

More Safety Town

Here is a group photo that I just got e-mailed to me today from yesterday at Safety Town! Lily and I are just right of the center in the back row!

Safety Town

This morning we went to Safety Town with the MOMS Club. Safety Town is adjacent to and run by the fire department in Frisco. They teach classes and have seminars on all types of Safety -- home safety, car safety, fire safety, babysitting safety, etc. It is actually pretty cool. Most of the stuff we learned went way over the heads of the little kids, but they had fun playing on the fire truck and meeting a fireman!

Sitting in a fire truck!

It wasn't a normal red fire truck, but the kids still had fun.

They could wear the fireman's clothes and hats if they wanted to. Of course Lily didn't even want to stand by the clothes for a photo!

But she could have sat on the front of the truck for days if I let her! Not sure what was so exciting about that, but she liked it.

Outside they have a mini town set up with working traffic & crossing signals to teach kids about street safety. The town was so cute and each building was built and sponsored by a local business.

WFAA News station. Inside was Pete, the weather man, pointing at the Doppler Radar!

(we love Pete)

All the other kids in the group drove little Jeeps around the town, but Lily was too little, so we opted to walk around instead. I think that was the smart choice, since even the older kids we having some difficulties. Instead, I tried to teach her how to cross the street by watching for the little green man, but there was so much going on and she wasn't really paying attention to me.

She was just having fun going up to the doors of all the houses and stores. This is a local BBQ place.

None of the doors were open, but at Halloween time they are all open and you can go Trick-or-Treating!

City Hall

She liked pushing the buttons.

Hospital

I think the highlight of the day was getting water and drinking out of a cone cup. She talked to Chip on the phone later and told him that she got to drink ice cream water at Safety Town and got her dress all wet! :)

Then we all went inside to the Safety House where they teach Kitchen, Bathroom and Bedroom safety. Here is the fireman in the kitchen showing us all the hazards around the room. The windows are actually TV screens. Apparently they teach tornado safety too and it looks like a storm is coming outside, while the TV shows the weather man alerting you to the conditions. Pretty cool.

It is blurry since I didn't want to use the flash and draw attention to myself, but here are most of the kids kinda listening to the presentation. Lily is not in the photo since she was standing next to me.

Pool Party

I am feeling much better. My Mom came up with the brilliant idea to pop my ears and now I seem to be cured! Not sure how my equilibrium got off, but I think it is all good now. This morning we went to Hannah and Elise's 2nd birthday party at the pool. It was a lot of fun. Lily loves the pool when all her friends are there. She was having so much fun floating in the baby pool (with her ring on) and singing and playing. I wish I could get pictures of her in the pool and especially of her jumping off the side of the big pool, but it is impossible for me to get any photos since I have to keep my eyes on Lily every second, and impossible for anyone else there to help out since they have kids of their own to watch. Someday I'll have to hire someone to follow us to the pool to take pictures! :)

Before we went to the party, Lily and Amanda (the robot doll) danced around to "Kiss The Girl" from The Little Mermaid.

It was cute. Lily was swinging Amanda around and Amanda was yelling, "Mommy I'm cold, can you put my dress back on." and Lily would yell back "NO Amanda!"

Taking a break from swimming for snacks. Lily never misses snack time.

She immediately spotted the bubbles in the favor bag and had to blow some before we headed home.

Catching Up

Sorry no posts over the weekend. I am not sure if we are sick or what. Saturday night I felt dizzy and lightheaded, but didn't think too much of it. Then yesterday afternoon it came back even worse than before and Lily started up with a runny nose. So I am not sure if we have a small head cold or allergies. Chip said his allergies have been bothering him, but Lily takes allergy medicine every night, so I would think that her nose wouldn't run, but I don't know. All I know is that I feel perfectly fine except for that my head is so heavy and when I stand up or sit for too long I get dizzy. It better go away soon because we have a really busy week ahead with birthday parties, outings, Lily's last day of Gymboree and then we leave for CA for 10 days, so I have tons to do this week!! Luckily today, we had nothing major planned, so we have just been relaxing at home. Yesterday before I realized I didn't feel good we went to Target and stopped again at the playhouses and grass maze.

Riding her horse before we left to go shopping.

Behind the desk at the train station, but Lily said she was working at Wendy's and was serving me nuggets. Lily loves Wendy's nuggets! :)

Back home having a tea party with Hannah.

Later that night we watched part of A Bug's Life, The Little Mermaid and The Jungle Book. It was the first time she watched any of them, so it kept her entertained and allowed me some time to relax.

School, Stats & Smarts

This morning Lily and I ran around town getting the paperwork together for her to start preschool! First we had to stop by her doctor's office and get her immunization records; and then we had to go get the permission for medical consent form notarized and finally to the school to drop it all off and pay tuition! Her first day of school is September 1st, but all the paperwork is due next week. Lily was excited to go by her school, but of course was super shy once we got in there, and then was all upset after we left that she didn't get to stay. So hopefully she'll be as excited once school actually starts and still wants me to leave her there!

In other Lily news, I recently measured her height again on the back of the door upstairs -- we did it last August 5, so it had been a year. She is currently 36 inches tall (4.5 inches taller than she was last year). Surprisingly that is the 50th percentile, so maybe she is evening out some, but I find that hard to believe since she is still so much taller and bigger than most of her friends her age. She also got on the scale last week and weighed in at 32.5 pounds! My little girl is getting so big!

One last Lily story -- a few weeks ago she was "helping Daddy with his homework" and looking through Chip's anatomy book (the one with black and white drawings, not the book with the photos of cadavers that makes me sick and gives me nightmares!!). She was looking at a diagram of the body and pointed to veins and said, "that is where the blood goes". Then she turned the page to the digestive system and pointed to the rectum and said "for the poo poo". How weird is that? Chip didn't tell her any of that and I didn't even know she knew what blood was -- she has only bleed once since normally she just gets scrapes and bruises. I was blown away, but figured it was just a crazy coincidence. Then the night before last Chip was studying the muscular system and Lily asked what it was; Chip told her they were muscles and Lily said "Oh, muscles. Like to help squeeze your hand and open and close your eyes." I thought for sure Chip had taught her that, but he was just as shocked as I was and swore that all he said was muscles. Where on earth is she learning this? As her mother of course I think she is just a natural genius, but seriously it is crazy weird!! I haven't heard Winnie The Pooh or Mickey Mouse explain the muscular system. She says she wants to be a doctor when she is "old", and she may just become one!!

Here are some photos from this morning:

Getting ready to leave. She is showing off her sticker that she found somewhere in the house. I am loving that she is keeping a headband on (knock on wood). Not only are they cute, but they also help to hide the bald spots on her head that I can no longer comb over! Yeah for headbands!Looking up again and being silly.

At the doctor's office they have a little fountain and flowers which I thought would make a pretty background and wanted to do a quick photo shoot. Of course she was not cooperating -- she just kept calling for the ducks. There weren't any ducks, but apparently since there was water she felt there should have been ducks too.

Once we got home she wanted to play with the play-doh.

She was yelling at me to put the camera away.

Making a "snake". She made snakes, trees and butterflies today. At one point I asked her what she had, since it looked like she had just finished making something new and she looked at me all confused and said "Play-Doh, Mom". Apparently she thinks I am an idiot. :)