Kindermusik :) and Gymboree

La di da di da...and his name is Aikendrum. Ella and I went to Kindermusik class today. It was great! The day started off with me having to wake her up at 9:15. That means she slept from 8:45 to 9:15. 12 and a half hours without waking up. Now I could get very used to that! At Kindermusik Ella jumped right in, greeting each kid that she saw, going over to all the adults to say hello and making sure the older kids that were just watching felt included as well :) She is such a social butterfly! I can see the report card now, "great student" "talks too much!" She is so friendly and outgoing. There were other kids there from 1 year to 18 months. A couple of the 1 year olds could not walk yet so Ella was really all over the place compared to them. She loved the music and dancing that we did together. She especially like playing the glokenspiel. She is very musical. She plays the keyboard here at home too and listens to the auto play songs from way back when. Makes me remember when Erin and I used to dance and sing to those auto play songs in Michigan with my Grammie Carole. We sang songs together and clapped our hands to the beat, we danced with a maypole but Ella did not like the scarves going over her face. which I was a little surprised about. Overall it was a great class. Both Ella and I had fun and it is seriously 90 seconds down the street so that makes it even better!

On Friday Ella and I went to our preview Gymboree class. The class that was led was decent but just being able to be in the gym with all the equipment and all the other kids that were from 10-16 months was amazing. She loved it! My mom came with us too after she and Ella visited Grammie Betty and Bob. She was climbing up the mats, over everything and feeling all the different textures they had out to play with. A little boy named Jackson even gave her a few hugs which she returned of course with a silly laugh. There were all different types of balls too, including a soccer ball. She saw the ball and ran over to it and started kicking it all over. She was really kicking it! Lifting her little foot to push it forward. I was so very impressed.

There are lots of things that I am impressed with right now. I am blown away with how well she is walking in the 3 weeks that she has been. She is almost flawless and definitely fearless, which can sometimes get us into trouble. She waves so cutely now too, like lots of babies waving towards herself right now, but it only took her a couple days to really understand how to use it. Today she waved goodbye to Daddy when he went to his car without a prompt!
Also when she is going up the stairs she is alternating feet! I guess this is a big deal because my mom called her PT friend to tell her about it. We are so proud of our little girl, can you tell?

Anyway, back to Gymboree, we ended our time on the parachute. Ella took a ride around and was in awe as we moved her and the 8 other babies around in a circle. She also got to "pop" the imaginary bubbles we made by shaking the parachute up and down. Again she was not a huge fan of being under the parachute or it touching her head, but she didn't complain. The best part was the real bubbles she got to pop. There was a sea of bubbles, a waterfall of bubbles raining down over her head, covering the mats, in our hair, and all over babies. She was laughing and walking looking up to grab them all. She had such a big smile on her face. It was a classic happy moment. My mom bought some of the bubbles to take to use with her kids and I would have gotten some too but they were all out. It was a great time. I think we will sign up for sure for this class.
I want to do both classes but together they are a little expensive so James says I have to choose. I want to do both since one is on Thursday and one on Friday, we will see if I can fanagle my way into doing both :)
When we got home, after Ella took a nap, we got out our bubbles at home. We also tried on her little 80s style leg warmers that are more than adorable. She is lucky I don't eat her up! Although I do try.