Friday, September 19, 2008

Fun At The Children's Museum

Yesterday Scott had the day off, so we decided to take Amaya to check out the new Children's Museum. We quickly discovered that is was awesome and Amaya definitely loved it! It was so great we'll probably join so we can visit often. Here are some of the highlights.

Of course Amaya had to take time to play with the random ball rolling around. But she quickly discovered there were bigger and better things to do at the Children's Museum.
Here she is looking up at the cool "aerial" display of origami, seen below.
There were many artsy displays like this throughout the museum.

Amaya the adventurer sets off to go exploring.
Cute little tushy.
Whoa...there's daddy. Hi daddy.
This sure is fun, mom.
Now check out this "playhouse." Here Amaya is in the kitchen getting breakfast ready before she wakes up her babies.


She's a busy mommy of octuplets if you didn't notice.
She probably would've been content to stay and play here all day, but we had a whole museum to explore.
So, after watering
and weeding the flowers,
(daddy being silly)



we waved goodbye and set off for more fun.
Here Amaya is playing with a ball game that worked like Plinko. There were lots of different learning contraptions like this. Later on we came upon a room that had lots of different, neat "inventions" to check out, figure out, and play with. That room was probably my favorite room there.
She's ready for "The Price is Right" now.
GROCERY STORE
Next we came upon a cute little grocery store.




Amaya was more interested in the behind the scenes action. She must not have felt like grocery shopping.
Preparing to unload the truck that just arrived at the grocery store.
Notice the brooms behind the produce area. One thing I don't think I've shared yet about Amaya is that she loves to clean. At home, it's her second favorite pasttime behind playing mommy, but before playing ball. So...when Amaya saw the brooms it was over. She began by sweeping in the grocery store, but soon....
moved into cooking classroom...
then I kid you not, she left the play area and took off down the hallway of the museum sweeping. She'd done half of the third floor hallway by the time I caught up to her, causing many museum employees to chuckle, and or say thank you. Too funny.



AMAYA THE PIZZA MAKER

The pizza is done. I kid you not. She went over and took this "pizza" out of the "oven" and we watched to see what she was planning on doing with it. Well she carried it over to one of the tables as if to serve her "customers." But...
then she proceeded to crawl up onto a chair and chomped down on the fake pizza. O.K. Subtle hint to mom and dad that it must be snack time. It was, too. Actually it was 30 mintues past her normal snack time. No wonder she resorted to fake pizza.
Having a little post snack desert at the....
ice cream shop.
Yum!!!
So...needless to say, Amaya enjoyed the Children's Museum. We highly recommend it for a fun family outing. We went on to see many more "exhibits" after this, but I retired from photo taking for the rest of the day. As you can see...I'd already taken plenty of pics halfway through the morning. Smile, smile.






Amaya's Latest: Our Little Monkey

What's Amaya been up to these past couple weeks? Plenty since she now has 2 extra hours every day to fill with fun, fun, fun. All of a sudden and with no warning her 2.5-3 hour daily nap turned into a 40-45 minute cat-nap. I guess she just has to much to do to waste time sleeping. She doesn't get cranky and appears well rested, so she just growing up I guess. She continues to sleep great at night. We call her our little teen sleeper because she sleeps in and loves her bed. She goes to bed at 8 and we get her up at 8 and at night when we ask her if she wants to go to bed she says "yeah, bed, bed, bed, yeah" while smiling, giggling, and pointing towards her room. There was even a period of 2 or 3 days last week when she asked to go to bed before we had a chance to for both her naps and bedtime. And a couple of those times when we walked in to her room she went straight for her crib rather that to the chair for story time. Too funny. One time I asked her if she wanted to read first and she pointed to her crib..."bed, bed, bed." She sure cracks us up. We probably have the only toddler that asks to go to bed.

On the nap front, she had a 4 day stretch (Th.-Sun.) where she didn't take a nap at all, but today she went down for her usual 45 minute catnap, so hopefully that was just a phase. She had her 18 month check-up today. She continues to follow her trend of being petite. She weighed in at 21 pounds 3 ounces, and she measured 32.75 inches long. Sooo....she would still qualify to ride in her first car seat, the car seat we took her home in from the hospital . Crazy. It holds kids up to 30 pounds and 32 inches.

Amaya continues to love playing mommy. She mothers any baby and animal that comes into her contact, including the stuffed spiders at Gymboree. Yuck. She also loves to give kisses and hugs, including to the spiders at Gymboree. Double yuck.

Amaya continues to learn new words and tricks every day. It's crazy how toddlers pick up on things. It makes the day so fun just waiting for the next entertaining moment and the next discovery. Amaya is definitely into imitative play. Just yesterday she was "clipping her nails" with her comb and today she was feeding her bunny crunchies. Her latest words include shark, bumbo, bike, walk, and wolf to name a few. She continues to love balls and playing "catch." And....she continues to be our little monkey, as witnessed below.

CAUGHT IN THE ACT
So that is how she keeps getting onto the dining room table.








IDENTITY CRISIS
Amaya forgets she's not a doll and gets stuck in her baby doll stroller.





Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Amaya's Busy, Fun-filled Weekend

Pictures, Pictures, and more Pictures
(see previous entry for a narrative update)

Amaya coming for my camera.
Amaya "eating" one of her bows. They never stay in her hair very long these days.
Amaya carrying her bunny...she never goes very far without it.
We went over to Grandma Cindy's and Grandpa Jerry's on Sunday to watch the Jets game. I always fill up Amaya's suitcase with toys when we head over there and Amaya discovered her suitcase is a fun toy in itself. She started crawling into it, so I helped her finish getting in and she was thrilled. She kept ducking her head down inside like she wanted me to zip it up, but it isn't quite big enough for that. But, the good news is, when she turns 2 we can get her one that's a little bigger and continue having her fly free. Smile, smile. Just kidding of course.
Here she is ducking her head inside. I started pulling her around in it after this picture and she thought that was sooooo much fun. Who needs Disneyland.
G and G bought Amaya this stroller for the upcoming Christmas holiday...but decided she should have it now. Why not let her enjoy it for a few extra months. What a great G and G! Amaya had a ball pushing her babies around in the stroller on Sunday. There were definitely signs these past couple of weeks that she would enjoy a stroller for her dolls. She'd put them in or on anything she could find and push them around. On a stool, on the office chair, in a box, and even at the gym in a toy grocery cart and on a little chair. I'd see on the monitor pushing a chair all over the toddler room with a little baby on it.
Having a ball.
Wow, her bow is still in. Guess she's sidetracked with her new toy.
She should enter the stroller Olympics. Here she is just a blur of speed.

I think Amaya wanted to take her baby for a walk outside. Sorry Amaya...not during the Jets game.
She was fine staying in to watch the game.
She took her babies for a walk inside instead.
Oh, daddy's hair is soooo per-ty. Guess that means the bow is no longer in Amaya's hair.
After the Jets game we headed home and I had coincidentally planned on giving Amaya some of my toys from childhood Sunday afternoon. Here she is playing mommy with her bunny and using my old Cabbage Patch Kids playpen, high chair, and infant carrier.

After she got bunny up from naptime, it was time to feed him.
Then they had errands to run.
Here is my old Fischer Price cook-set. Blast from the past! Did anyone else have this? Our neighbors Carrie and Nate were over for Monday Night Football (along with our good friend Rob and his girlfriend Kim) and Carrie said she had the same set growing up. Neato!
Amaya cooking while holding bunny. Kind of dangerous.

What a good mommy! She put bunny down while she made the coffee...
and started dinner.
Amaya piling bunches of stuff into her "new" toy playpen...
including herself.
Sooo silly.




Stroller time again.
My cpk dish set with potty chair.
Amaya back to feeding her bunny.
She must be stirring up some chocolate milk.
The meal is done, time for Amaya's baby to use the potty.


How cute is that?!?!
Yet more evidence that Amaya may be ready for potty training.
I gave Amaya one last retro toy set. Check out these Tupperware relics. Did anyone else have these? My mom had the big version. Our neighbor Carrie had these, too. Our moms must've shopped at the same store.
Such cute little cups and bowls!
Amaya had a ball stacking the cups within each other and making a tower.


I can't wait until she's old enough for tea parties!
What fun that will be!
Creatures of all sorts have the ability to share a stroller ride peacefully. The Packer and Viking fans in the room at the time did pretty good, too.
Amaya had a ball (no pun intended) watching the Packer game on Monday. I think she enjoyed our guests more than the game, though. Smile, smile. Above she has a pretzel in her hand and below she's chilling in an empty beer box. Now, if those are signs it's football season, I don't know what is.








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