Things Laurel Loves

This post is all about what Laurel loves!

Her "blankey" and "paci" are her biggest loves. She cannot sleep without them! The other night her blanket was in the dryer and we tried to put her to sleep without it...well she cried until it was finally dry and kept crying for it. It was so sad. When she finally got it she buried her face it in saying "blankey" like you would if you found a long lost relative!

Babies! Laurel loves little babies and always wants to "kissy" and "huggie" them. Here she is with two of my old coworkers little babies when they came to visit us during their maternity leave.

Dolls! Here she is hugging the cutest little doll that her Grandma Ellis made. Besides hugging and kissing them she also loves to feed them, put them to sleep, push them in the stroller...and the list goes on!

Slide! Laurel loves slides and I finally got her one for the back porch. Her grandpa Doss watched her while I went shopping and she usually runs right to me when I'm gone and gives me a giant hug. Well, I bought the slide in with me and she ran right to that slide yelling "slide" and climbed right up and started sliding...I never did get that hug!

The lake and her friend Emily! We went to the lake a lot this summer with my friend Connie and her little girl Emily or "Emmy" as Laurel calls her. They really are good friends (well as much as toddlers can be) and play together pretty well (most of the time).

More dolls! She finds them every where; it is so cute how excited she gets every time!

Gymnastics!! This is her biggest love right now (besides her blanket and paci). She runs around like a nut for the whole class. She calls it "nastics" and she loves to get her stamp at the end of class.

Balls! She has so many balls and she loves to "throw", "catch", and "kick" them all the time. She has been getting really mad lately if she can't catch it on the first try! Her favorite thing to do with her balls is take them all to our long hallway and roll them with me.

Trains! She LOVES trains. Real trains, the Thomas train table at B&N, pictures of trains, TV shows with trains...you get the picture. Every time we pass B&N she yells "Thomas" or "Train" and gets so mad when we can't stop. She also yells "train" at some train tracks near our house because we have seen a train crossing several times. She always is so sad when the train is not there! She always says, "home?" because we tell her the train is at home when it is not there, lol.

Shopping in the car cart. I don't know why I haven't been using these all along. Shopping is SO much nicer when she can "drive" herself. Although she does tell me "set, go" everytime I stop!

So here are a few loves in Laurel's life. She has started saying love recently and tells me she loves me so I am very happy...she is the biggest love in my life!

Photo Shoot

We did a fun photo shoot today after gymnastics and the library at Rose Hill where Matt and I had our engagement pictures taken. A girl from my church is going to school to earn her degree in photography and wanted to add some children to her portfolio. Of course anyone who knows me knows how much I LOVE pictures so I was all game. Laurel was not as game as me since it was close her her nap time, but Mckensie managed to get some really cool shots of her that really show off her personality and charm. I was very impressed with her skills, especially since Laurel is a very hard subject to capture since she NEVER stays still. Here are a few of my favorites...

First Gymnastics Class!

Laurel had her first gymnastics class today. I have been wanting to do something like this with her forever, but she just got old enough to do it this past month. She has so much energy and loves to jump and climb and basically just throw her body around which can be pretty dangerous if you are not in a padded room!

I put her leo on at home and she kept running her hands over the velvet and saying "cute". We got in the car for the 15 minute trip and I kept saying "We are going to gymnastics; are you excited?" and she kept saying "yeah, yeah!" She was so excited when we got there to see her friend Emily was in her class too.

We got inside and put our shoes in the cubby holes. Laurel wanted to go into the gym area right away. She was so excited and could see all the cool stuff. She kept pointing and saying "please" and pulling on my hand. She did not understand my explainations that we had to wait until class started to go in! We met the other kids and parents while we waited and Laurel was happy to be around other kids as usual. I discovered that Laurel is the youngest in her class (like always). The other kids are all closer to two, but Laurel was taller than all of them though!

Finally (after 5 minutes, but it must have seemed like a long time to Laurel) we were able to get into the gym. The teacher asked the kids to sit on a circle and I thought "uh oh". For those of you who don't know, Laurel does not sit. Of course she surprised me and sat right down on her little circle and followed all of the teachers directions! She waved her scarf and patted her knees and put her legs in a "butterfly".

Then we got in a train behind the teacher and followed her to the first play area which had a barrel to climb through, bars, a slide, things to climb on, a trampoline, and balls to throw in a bucket. Laurel was in seventh heaven! She mostly wanted to do the slide over and over, but she tried and liked everything. After a few more stations we went to the balance beams, which Laurel did not do so well on for two reasons: number one - Laurel did not want me to help her at all and number two - she wanted to run on them! She did manage to do it a little by herself and had a good time. That's all that matters right? I don't know where she gets her "I want to do everything myself" attitude, oh wait from me!

At the end of class she got on the big trampoline with Matt for a few minutes and she just went crazy jumping. She was very sad to leave. All day I kept asking her if she had fun at gymnastics and she would just say "whee!" Hope that was a yes! Here are some pictures of her first class (and a special thanks to Matt who took off an hour from work to come and take these pictures!).

Laurel and her friend Emily before class started.

Asking me "please" to go into the gym!

Following directions during circle time!

Swinging on the bars.

Her favorite part: THE SLIDE!

More following directions. They were suppose to touch their feet up to our hand.

Rolling!

Ready for more!

Forward rolls with Daddy!

I did it! Look at that happy face.

The balance beam (she let me help her for a second!)

Walking by herself on the beam!

So our first class went great and we are ready for next week!

Fun at the Lake

We have been to the lake several times this summer. Every time we go Laurel just has a wonderful time. She LOVES the water, she LOVES the waves, she LOVES the playground, she LOVES the sand, and she LOVES the ducks, she LOVES the other kids. What more could a girl ask for? I don't usually bring my camera to the beach, but here are a few cute shots of Laurel from our lake trips.

In case you can't tell, she is eating the bread instead of throwing in to the ducks!

First Time in Nursery

Laurel's first time in nursery came just two days after she turned 18 months. Matt and I were so excited to be able to go to class again after months of standing in the hall with her! I was not quite sure how she would react since she is rarely away from me. We took her into the nursery and she walked right in and started dancing.

Then she found the toy cabinet and pulled out almost all the toys.

She was playing happily so Matt and I made our exit. I heard her say, "Mommy?" a few times and then nothing. Matt and I went to Sunday school and were able to actually sit in class together for the first time in forever! We just kept looking at each other and grinning and saying, "Man this is nice!".

Laurel stayed in the nursery for the entire time and behaved very well according to her teacher. She was happy to see us after class and ran outside and started playing like she always does after church.

My sweet baby is getting all grown up!

18 Months Old!!

I can't believe that Laurel is a year and a half already! Time has gone by so quickly these last 18 months.

She has gone from this...

To this in just 18 months!

I am enjoying all the new changes that Laurel is going through although she can be a handful at times!

She has begun singing the last word in lines from her favorite songs like I am a Child of God, and Pop goes the Weasel. She loves to do the motions and dance to songs like I'm a Little Teapot, 5 Little Monkeys, 5 Little Ducks (thanks for teaching that one to us Aunt Brandi), The Hokey Pokey, Itsy Bitsy Spider, Once There Was a Snowman, and many more.

Her favorite game right now is Ring Around the Rosy and she will do it forever! Every time we fall down at the end she jumps back up, reaches for mine and Matt's hands, and says "more", "again", or "please". It is so cute, but after about 10 rounds of it you get start to get a little dizzy!

She is also learning some of her numbers, colors, and ABCs and is talking like crazy. The other day I started to make a list of all the words she knows to take to our 18 month check up, but I stopped at about 250! She is learning words so fast it is impossible to keep up with her.

She can do about 30 animal sounds although her lion, tiger, bear, jaguar, etc. all sound kind of the same. Her frog sound is so funny, "lipplet" and we also love her snake sound, "hissssssssss". Haha! She can name almost all her body parts including odd ones like her chin and elbows. She likes to point to our body parts and name them as well. I'm not too crazy about "eye" (she will stab your eye out!) or "boobies" which Matt encourages her to do!

One of the funniest things she likes to do lately is make "nests" or piles of stuff and then sit on them. She will pull all the clothes down from the couch (where they are waiting for me to fold them) and then add her blankets, pillows, baby dolls, toys, etc to the piles. Just beware, she gets really mad if you mess with her piles!

She also LOVES to "color", but you have to be careful because she will color on the walls, herself, one time on the toilet, if you don't watch her. She is getting a lot better about coloring on "paper" because she knows I will take them away otherwise.

Of course she still LOVES to run, jump, and climb every chance she can get. I have to keep a very close eye on so she won't kill herself with her daring deeds. We will be starting gymnastics next month so hopefully that will give her a good outlet for all her excess energy! But probably it will just give her more ideas!!

It is so hard to get anything done nowadays. I have to watch her so closely to keep her safe and because I will be cleaning up one room and she will be in another room wreaking it! She is not happy when I'm doing something besides paying attention to her!

I spend most of my days just playing with her and reading and singing. She is growing up so fast and I'm trying to enjoy every minute!