Open Gym!

Hooray for Open Gym! What is that, you ask? Well, every Saturday the Hopkins Family Center sets aside 90 minutes for kids 0-5 to come play! They have a gym with fun equipment and a school room (M-F it's the 2-3 yr old classroom of a daycare) that has more "educational" toys and activities. We've been twice now and wonder what took us so long to start! Madeline enjoys the "social" time with other kids, and we like watching her take off and run around!

One of her favorite things to do is jump on the inner tube (see below). They have a giant inner tube - probably from a tractor or something - with verticle poles and a big pillow in the middle. The kids can climb up, hold onto the poles, and jump! The big pillow in the middle provides a soft landing for anyone who falls / jumps inside.

I think her favorite part about it, though, is when other kids climb on and jump. She doesn't have to do a thing and she goes flying!

(People kept saying she reminded them of Cindy Lou Who - do you see it?)

She also got her first taste of power when she "drove" the little red and yellow car. And by "drove" I mean we pushed it.... *sigh* She loved it though!



And, because I promised Jan, here she is wearing her new Snow White costume (it's hiked up a bit, I know):

The moment she sees the camera out, she immediately wants to see the pictures - even if I haven't gotten a good chance to take any yet!

"Mama, lemmie see!"

Her vocabulary is growing in leaps and bounds lately. We lost count at over 60 words and phrases, not including names or letters of the alphabet. The other day she was wandering around the living room calling out, "Elmo! Are you? Elmo! Are you?" Now when she can't find Caleb, she'll say "Daddy? Work." She also becomes fixated on certain words (which one changes every few weeks). The last word was "guck" (stuck). It has many uses:

"Guck!" -- "Mom, I'm in my crib and can't get out!"

"Guck!" -- "Mom, my toy is stuck in the box!"

"Guck!" -- "Mom, you buckled me into the shopping cart and I can't get down!"

She's even starting to use words that we can't decipher yet. Hmm, does Amazon.com sell a "Madeline to English" dictionary?