Letters from the Evans: Tuesday Fun: MOPS and playdate

Today was full of fun! This is a long post full of pictures - fair warning!
Also: today Clara is 17 months! such a big girl!

We woke up and got ready to go to MOPS.

Clara was looking so stinking cute scarfing her breakfast, I just had to get a picture :)

It was a really good MOPS meeting. We had a speaker - a child psychologist/counselor - who spoke to us about bullying, and what we as parents can do to help our children make us aware of bullying being done to them, as well as notice when our child is the bully. The statistics are scary - even for those of us with small toddlers. Bullying is usually noticed as early as 3-4years old. That is just crazy to me. It make my inner mama bear want to come out and do some damage. I pray that I have the wisdom to handle these situations as they come up.

Clara spent the time playing with her friends in the nursery, and riding the bouncing and spinning zerbra. They said she was a wild child on it and it wore her little self out :)

I do love sleepy snuggles!

After nap time we washed our hands 8 million times. It's an exaggeration, but seriously people - why is she OBSESSED WITH WASHING HER HANDS!?

Upside: her hands are clean.

We mowed the drive way for a little while.

And then it was time for our play date with Michelle and Zachariah! There is an indoor playground at the United Methodist Church of The Woodlands that's open to the public most of the time.

By this point it was starting to get a mite chilly, so even Clara was willing to wear a hood! Well, until the moment we stepped inside of course :)

Our friends weren't there yet when we arrived, so Clara got acquainted with the smaller tot area.

in the tree

I've been eaten by a hippo! oh no!

riding an alligator! it made a great balancing beam too

There was this cool area in the bigger kid section with all of these punching-bag-ish type things hanging that you could run through or play in. Clara thought you were supposed to give them all hugs.

Then, after playing on the big kid slide (crawling up half way and then sliding down), guess who was there!? Zachariah!

it's my friend, mom!

Then the kiddos got brave enough and I finally felt comfortable enough to let Clara climb up into the actual play area for the big kids because there were very few kids left playing.

There was only one thing that scared Clara - this black rope thing that you climb up and down on to get to the other side. You can see all the way to the ground through the holes and her feet are so little they would get caught. I carried the munchkin over that particular hurdle and she had a great time after that :)

Zachariah took the other way across, a rope bridge. I'm not sure if Clara would've liked it better or not - either way requires some bravery on these kiddos' part!