Thursday, September 10, 2009

Labor Day-bor + Surprises from Ivy

(Bonus points if you know where "Labor Day-bor" comes from!)

We took the girls to the zoo on Labor Day. Sophie loves the zoo. She also loves having her picture taken as you can see.


If you can't tell, there's an alligator right behind that fence, sunbathing on the sand. I didn't think the fence was high enough, but I guess alligators have short legs. Maybe they aren't the best jumpers.

After we saw the animals Sophie rode some of the rides outside the park. She'd never been on any rides before, so we were anxious to see her reaction.

Steve got her settled in the sparkly blue VW bug she picked out. (atta girl)



She waited patiently for the ride to start, clutching the steering wheel.



The ride started and after the initial surprise that her car actually moved, she was all smiles. (I don't put quarters in the ones at the mall. She has no idea, and she loves playing on them. Why ruin a good thing?)





After the cars we headed to the carousel. She was more nervous about this one, but after the first run, she didn't want to get off. And she wanted to ride on a zebra.



I just realized that we have no pictures of Ivy at the zoo. She stayed in the stroller just about the whole time and slept while we were at the amusement park. So, here's a little clip of her latest accomplishments: crawling and dancing.

I can't believe how fast this girl is progressing. Sophie took forever to get past army crawling (though I could hardly call it that... it was more like yoga planking). Ivy has gone from being practically immobile to crawling with her knees and pulling up to things (like low baskets and stairs) in just a month. She's the most determined and fearless little thing I've ever seen. I've caught her by the feet several times as she tries to plunge herself off the couch or the bed or down the stairs. It scares me a little, and I think it means a more thorough baby proofing than we did with Sophie.

It also means we will not be putting up the Christmas tree this year.



The little shake she does does halfway through cracks me up. She does it all the time now, and I have no idea where she got it from!

8 comments:

Heather said...

I love the shake that Ivy does! Too funny! Sad about the Christmas tree, but totally understood!

Sarah said...

No tree?! You can't NOT have a Christmas tree! We just put ours on a table last year. We will probably do that again this year. I am a little nervous though to see what Silas will do. Maybe we will use one of those earthquake straps to bolt the tree to the wall...yeah, sounds good. Maybe we will get a little fence to put around it (but I think those look kinda funny)

Natalie said...

Sare, our tree is 7.5 feet tall. And we don't have a table to put it on :) We'll probably just get a mini one and stick it on the shelf above the piano... it might be our only option!

Jodi said...

Her dancing cracks me up! Hilarious! I love it! Ryan pulls himself up to things but I'm still going to have a christmas tree. It may only be decorated from the middle up but oh well. He just has to learn what "no" means. (I sound like a really mean mom just there but oh well!)

Lorraine said...

Ivy is the cutest thing ever. Rose has gone from sitting up to army crawling in just a couple of weeks. She's already starting to get up on her knees, too. I'm afraid.

Devin said...

I love it! Carter has some moves too. It must run in our family. But then again, I can't dance worth nothin! Our little home videos are proof of that and Andrea thinks I still dance that way!

Anonymous said...

Oh... my gosh. Okay, so this is probably creepy because I have never met you, but I was reading your "awesome) food blog and then I found this blog and was mesmerized by the cuteness of your children. Seriously, it is obscene. I wasn't going to comment until I saw this and was sad that no one mentioned Homestarrunner.

Natalie said...

Shipwreck - Thank you! Only slightly creepy. lol. I'm glad someone mentioned Homestar runner!