May 29 - Little Lobo

Wow-3 posts in one week. Can you handle all this dimpled cuteness?

A few months ago Julia and I went to a parent/tot gymnastics class at a place called The Little Gym (www.thelittlegym.com). My brother recommended it (Victoria goes twice a week) as a great place for meet other kids and parents. We loved the class-the whole place was geared toward toddlers and I would call it more of a fun zone than actual gymnastics, but perfect for little ones. The kids could run around and play with whatever they wanted (mini trampoline, bars, ball pit, rock climbing wall) for most of the time and there were a few stations where the coaches worked on forward rolls or something similar. Unfortunately-it was ridiculously crowded. There were close to 30 toddlers plus 1 if not both parents per child. We could barely move without running into someone. We decided to forgo The Little Gym for the time being.

Now that the TX heat is settling in and it is too hot to go to the park on the weekends, we decided to try a different gym so we have another weekend activity besides the pool. J.D. heard about Lobo Gymnastics (www.lobogymnastics.com) and we gave it a try a few weeks ago. When we walked into the gym I felt like I warped back to the 1980's-it was an updated Yuri's! They have a smaller gym for the toddler class (36mon and younger) with pretty much your standard gymnastics equipment scaled down-vaults, parallel bars, beans, trampoline and pit. The teacher was a 16 yr old gymnast and she started off by stretching. The bean didn't understand and pretty much stared at the teacher. We then did circuits throughout the gym for the next 45min (5 jumps on the trampoline, followed by a forward roll, walking on the beam, handstand, repeat; another circuit involved bar work and another the mini-vault). Julia did not "get" the circuits at all and pretty much ran around wild. All of the other kids in the class were a year older and I felt that the class was too advanced. At the end of the class we went to the big gym and our little bean ran in and saw all the older kids practicing and yelled "OH WOW!" J.D. and I decided to go ahead and sign her up anyway and I am so glad we did.

She has done GREAT the last 2 weeks (did i mention there are only 5 kids in the class as well?). She does almost all the stretches in the beginning, understands (and completes) the circuits and loves playing around the big gym at the end of class. She definitely has a love for the trampoline and bars. We bought her a leotard last week and I can't even describe how adorable she looks!! This past week she also started jumping off a 3' platform into the big pit (into daddy's waiting arms).

We definitely seem to have a little gymnast/diver/water baby on our hands!!

May 28 - sham....POO!

Woo hoo! It's the last weekend of May. We all know what that means....3 day weekend!! Tomorrow we have gymnastics class and we'll spend some time at the pool, while Sunday we have plans to go to a friends house. I'm not sure what we will do Monday but I'm sure it will be fun packed (probably the pool again).

Now that we've been in our house for a few months we've settled into a nice evening routine. After dinner, J.D. gives the bean a bath while I wash the dishes and clean up the kitchen. Julia and J.D. have a new game (if you would call it that) that they do every night in the bath. He says "sham..." and she shouts (with gusto) "POO!" It is so cute-I then hear her giggling away while they go back and forth. She also loves to try to wash J.D.'s hair. Very adorable! After the bath, we get her dressed and I read with her while J.D. takes Amelia to the park or on a walk. Both of our girls are being taken care of! I'm sure all this will change once the baby bean arrives but for now, everything is running smoothly.

In other cute news, Jules tells us every day how pretty she is. They must tell her all the time at school, when I pick her up now the first thing she says to me is "Mommy, I'm pretty" and "I'm pretty" is usually the first thing out of her mouth in the morning (followed by: I want milk!"). She also asks for Aunt Sassah (my friend Sarah) who was here a few weeks ago. They definitely bonded!

Well-hope you enjoy these photos and have a fab weekend!

May 25 - Julia & Victoria

I have so many great photos of the girls from our recent NC trip I just had to do another post to share them. Later this week I will post some other fab pics from the last few weeks. We've been spending a lot of time at the pool and our little bean is definitely a water baby! Enjoy!

Bouncing at Monkey Joe's

Underdog with Greg!

Playing in the Sand (we know how that works out for Jules....check out the photos on the right)

The bean doing a backward roll

Victoria loves the ball pit at gymnastics!

Uncle Greg reading to our little book worms

May 19 - Your Bean Photo Fix

Bean fans!! Your bean photo fix is here!! Check out the below posts [***there are a lot of photos on the 'It's Bean a While' post***] for some adorable pictures from our Raleigh trip. Here are a few more of my adorable nephew Andrew, my precious niece Victoria and my dimpled munchkin, the apple of my eye, Jules!!

Pantry Raid!!

Andrew - snoozing at Marbles Children's Museum
Aunt Katherine playing with the girls!

May 17 - It's Bean a While

Hi everyone! Sorry for the lack of postings lately. My computer is infected with a virus and I had to mail it back to the home office. It was shipped back before I could download all the recent photos (my loaner laptop doesn't have the necessary software). Since I've been getting some worried emails from people I'll go ahead and write some updates (photos will be posted later).

The bean and I traveled to Raleigh a few weeks ago to visit the Cook cousins and we had an AMAZING time. It was fabulous seeing Greg, Jill and Victoria as well as meeting our newest cousin, Andrew. It was a super charged weekend of fun with trips to Marbles Kids Museum, the Little Gym (gymnastics class), the park, and Monkey Joe's (a place full of bouncy houses). The kids also had a great time running around the backyard, playing around the house and with the water/sand table. The girls had so much fun they barely napped the entire time we were there. Aunt Katherine was also able to drive up from Fayetteville to play one evening and the kids all loved seeing her! Overall-a fantastic (although sleep deficient) trip. Thanks for having us Greg and Jill!!

Last weekend Sarah came to visit from L.A. and we had a GREAT time. The bean loves her 'Aunt Sassah' and we had fun playing, going to the pool and shopping. It was fantastic seeing Sarah!! I hope she came come to visit again soon.

In other fun news, our neighborhood pool is open and our little bean is a total water baby. She's already deemed the baby pool too juvenile and wants to be in the big pool. She also wants to jump off the diving board!!

Until next time-happy May!