Field Trip #2: Pump It Up!

Elsie's class took a day-before-vacation field trip to a bouncy inflatable kid's gym.  She had a fantastic time!  Her teacher apologized for the bad resolution in the pictures she sent me, but said that Elsie was having too much fun to stand still long enough to take a good picture.  Yep, that sounds like my girl!

Winter fun at the MCM

Going for a ride in/on a donkey-pulled carriage.

"I guess this is pretty fun..."

"...but can someone explain why I have to be back here with the chickens?"

Meeting a stick bug.

Looking at a friendly rat under with a magnifying glass.

Elsie has fun at school learning about locomotion, apples, and the alphabet.

Running with Lucy.

Moving with wheels and hula hoops.

Carpooling?

Working an apple peeler with Charlie

More apple fun.

Cutting apples and counting seeds.

Playing make-believe.

Fun with teachers, too!

Other ways to move (and hide!).

Different kinds of transportation.

And a little alphabet practice, too!

At the gym with Papa Todd

After weeks of begging, we finally convinced Papa Todd to come play again.  The highlight of the visit was a trip to the gym, where he proved to be an excellent spotter for budding little gymnasts!

Sylvie chilling and crawling with Papa on the gym floor

Everybody walking the plank.

Sylvie learns about the pummel horse.

Chatting with Papa over a game of catch.

Climbing and jumping.

Watching Elsie jump into the foam pit.

Sylvie thinks she is a big kid.

9 months,  1 week:

Hide-n-Seek fun.

Everybody enjoys getting in on the game.

Sylvie likes the snow, too.

Proof that she doesn't always smile- especially when big snowsuits make it hard to crawl.

Elsie enjoying the first snow of the season.

"Look!  SNOW!"

"Aaaand....SNOWBALLS!" 

Amazement.

Wonder.

Joy.

Sylvie Harriet is 9 months!

You want ME to smile?

Okay, here you go!

Sylvie now weights 16.8lbs (12%) and is 28 inches long (57%) (for those interested, Elsie weighed 16.2lbs (8%) and stretched to 27 inches (30%) at this age).  She wears size 3 diapers (when she uses disposables), and mostly wears 6-12 month clothes and size 2 shoes.

Sylvie consistently sleeps 2 hours at a time at night, with a few 4-hour chunks thrown in, too. She usually takes two naps a day, the first lasting one lasting 1-1.5 hours and the second lasting about 30 minutes.

Her hair is finally growing in enough that we can say it is going to be a light brown color.  Hooray!

No new words this month- Mama, mamama (milk) and Dada are all she is saying.  She is staring to really understand that we are talking when we sign, though, so I am excited to see her begin to sign back to us.

One of Sylvie's favorite things to do is bathe with her big sister (really, doing ANYTHING with her big sister).  She loves splashing in the water, watching Elsie make funny faces and noises, stealing Elsie's animals.  She does her best to scoot right up next to Elsie in the tub, so Elsie had learned to tell us when Sylvie get in "her space" so that we can move her back to the other side of the tub.

Sylvie's other favorite thing to do is playing "chase" with Daddy.  Daddy crawls around on the ground, and Sylvie follows him around, giggling madly the whole time.  Sometimes Daddy chases Sylvie, too, but that doesn't work as well since Sylvie loves to be "caught" by Daddy and showered in kisses!

Watch me grow:

1 month

2 months

3 months

4 months

5 months

6 months

7 months

8 months

9 months

 And just for fun, Elsie at 9 months: