Happy 4th Birthday Maverick!

Art Class

We ended up missing 2 ballet classes this past semester (once for illness and once because we were out of town), but thankfully we were allowed to make them up in a different class. I chose the Big Messy Art Class because it's something more along the lines of what we can't easily do at home, plus since we're going to start a gym class in 2 weeks, it's her opportunity to do this instead. You may remember my post from the first make up art class, but here are a few more pictures from round 2 from this past week! (and this time Lulu came with us!)

Lulu helping Clara get her smock on

I think Clara's favorite part of the art class is when they hang up butcher paper on the walls and let them paint all over. Last time they had brushes, this time they had miniature rollers for the kids to use. 

The theme was city life, so cars/buildings/etc. They put paint on in increments that built a "car". 

Red wheels

It was actually more fun for me this time (even though that's not the purpose) because I was able to really interact with Clara during the class. Last time I was constantly trying to wash Clara's hands, help her glue, keep Emma from eating all of the materials and listen to the teachers instructions - too much input! But this time Lulu wrangled Emma, freeing me up for girl time with Clara. I really did appreciate that (especially since Clara prefers Lulu at ballet!)

Emma reaching for Lulu

Green body of the car

 Then there was a yellow smiley face person and blue windows... but you can't really tell anymore :) Clara had too much fun smearing it all around!

Deep concentration

Having fun going "bang bang bang"!

 Clara's art work from afar:

Then they created the Houston skyline with strips of black paper, little mirror like pieces and lots of glue and glitter.

(You can also see the lines drawn on the yellow paper from the first activity I didn't get a picture of - they drew tracks to drive cars all around, vroooom.)

I asked Clara about putting the windows on the buildings and she looked at me like "huh" - so I showed her how those little rectangles were like windows. I was told, "No, Mommy. Those stars. Why stars on house?" Well, when you look at it that way, little one, it makes perfect sense to put them in the sky :)

working hard

 Then they always close the class with play dough time and a song, which Clara also really enjoys. 

We worked up an appetite having so much fun, so Lulu treated us all to frozen yogurt next door. "Delicious!" in Clara's words :)

Don't worry, Emma go some too :)

  

Lots of fun! 

"Mama!"

Today, not only did Emma say, "mama" for the first time, but it was correct in context! And she managed to pull out calling Bryan, "Dada" and back to me, "Mama." She likes to keep her skills to herself until she's really got the hang of things, and then she just goes and blows us away!

I will work on video evidence :)

So fun!

Added to the Word Bank:

1. Hi

2. Yay

3. Buh (Bye Bye)

4. Dada

5. Mama

Ballerinas and Crawling

Guess who decided to crawl "officially" at ballet!?

Love this in black and white - with the motivational bubbles that finally got her to do it! 

We KNOW she's been crawling for a while because she gets places quickly, but she's always refused to do it when someone is watching. Apparently the bubbles were enough motivation to start crawling even WHEN someone's watching!

Clara did SO well at ballet!

Participating in all of the songs

cutie pie

And attempting the dance for the recital coming up 

Working on her kicks and other ... tricks (what ARE those things called?)

Diaper change break for Emma. What a goof.

Obstacle Course

So many hops!

Putting on her OWN shoes!!

 Ballet and crawling are a lot of work - good thing it's time for dinner!

And ice cream!

Clara writes her name

She can spell it out loud! Though she occasionally spells it Crala :)

Still working on the writing. She does "C" and "a" fairly well independently, it's the r that really trips her up. 

So fun to watch her learn so many things!

Incredible Pizza with Friends

A week or so ago we went with our good friends to Incredible Pizza. This was primarily out of desperation for a fun place to play in yucky weather, with the secondary benefits of not having to cook and getting to spend time with fun people ;)

About a quarter of the way into the ride, Bryan decided Emma would probably enjoy the ride too - and he was correct!

Huh?

This is fun!!!

Clara's favorite ride as always:

 The munchkin loves choo choo trains!

Riah was nice enough to let Clara drive 

Fed and tired children = win! 

Clara says the Pledge - and sings!

Clara really enjoys reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. I think it's awesome!! She did it several times, so I'm going to post just a couple. Not perfect, but I'm thinking for a recently turned 2.5 year old, it's pretty good :) (biased mommy here)

And a video of Clara singing Row Row Row Your Boat, Jingle Bells and the ABCs:

Open Gym Time!

Knocking over blocks, clapping to the beat, riding on a car like the coolest big sister ever and swinging from up high!

It's been cold and wet and rainy and just yucky around here lately, so Saturday morning I decided we needed something fun to do that was "park like" without being out in the nastiness. I did a couple of coupon and local searches and realized that the place where Clara does ballet was having an open gym time for members - perfect! off we went.

weeeeeeeee 

Choo choo train

Clapping for some kiddos

This is so fun! 

Daddy has such fun ideas!

After Bryan built these structures for Clara to crash into, several of the other parents did it for their kids. Such a trend setter, Bryan :)

She wanted to transport blocks, so she put two cars together and stacked accordingly. I thought that was pretty brilliant!

The girls had an awesome time! Both of them found a few little friends to play with (although I don't know the families well so I didn't include them in any pictures on the blog). They were exhausted by the time our hour and 15 minutes was up, and they both took really good naps :)