Olivia Rose Nelson: Little Gym

Hello again! So, I have been wanting to get Olivia involved in some sort of organized activity and Sophia at Olivia's daycare goes to The Little Gym and absolutely LOVES it and her parents have been raving about it to us for quite some time. So, now that the summer has come to an end, we figured that it was time to go check it out (since the classes for her age group are on Saturday mornings). So, we signed up for a trial class for last weekend (and even managed to convince Sara to sign up to bring Gracie along, too!). It took Olivia a few minutes to warm up to the class and get used to the environment the first class - but then she had a good time. Gracie didn't need ANY time to warm up! She was off and running around from the first minute! Both girls loved it and Sara and I signed them both up to continue on with the class through the rest of the semester, which runs through mid-January.

Here are some pictures from the first class. That class was "backwards day" so they learned how to do a backwards roll and back handspring (over the little octagon log - with help).

Here's the big inflatable bouncer they had for them to jump on. Gracie jumped around all over it - it took Olivia a little while to figure it out - then she started moving around on it pretty good.

Here's Olivia working on the balance beam:

Here we are working on her backward roll:

We had our second class yesterday and it was "counting day" so we counted some balls, bean bags and scarves. Then counted our fingers and toes. Olivia and Gracie had a good time with the bubbles again and had a good time meeting some new little friends.

Let's just say that I was calling these two the Dynamic Duo (Randy was calling them Thelma and Louise!) So, remember how we said that Gracie was running around in the first class and Olivia took a little bit to warm up, well in the second class - Gracie was still running around (but did come back to the group activities once we started them) and every time she ran off - Olivia followed! Monkey see, Monkey do! This was their favorite place to run off to - the donut wheel:

They worked on their basketball skills and Olivia did get the ball through the hoop on her own before I got my camera out - but then she wouldn't do it again for me to get a video of her doing it on her own - so I got a video of Miss. Rachel helping her:

Here's Gracie getting one in:

They all LOVE the bubbles at the end of every class:

See if you can see the bubble that got caught in her little alfalfa hair sprout sticking up on her head. It almost looked like one of the Who's from Who-ville with a bubble hanging perfectly from the end of a curl and it stayed there for a while!

After class we went out to lunch and the girls practiced their driving skills in the arcade:

This afternoon we went to visit our friends Ralph and Sheetal from college and their family. We got to see all the new little ones and they got to meet Olivia for the first time. The last time we saw them I was pregnant with her. We always love going over to see them and their family - they are all so wonderfully nice. We really need to try to see them more often. Hopefully it won't be so long until the next time we get together!

I also wanted to show you you guys some cute pictures of Olivia eating some ice cream from last week. She did really good all day and finished all of her dinner - so as a reward, she got to have some ice cream. She LOVED it! We also brought some of these little ice cream cups as dessert today to the get-together with Ralph and Sheetal for all the kids and they all loved them, too!