Favorite toys of a mobile baby

Well Elise has been creeping or crawling for almost 3 months now so I thought I would blog about her favorite toys. Click on the link to see the toy on amazon.com. I have become obsessed with checking reviews on amazon before I buy something. I like to rotate her toys so that she doesn't see them all the time.

Toys for Now

Leapfrog Learn and Groove Musical Table
This is a wonderful toy that she has loved from the beginning. I think we started using it when she was 6 or 7 months old. She loved to stand holding onto it, then cruise around it, then pull up on it, then get down from it, etc. She will enjoy this for a long time.

Leapfrog Fridge Farm

This is a great toy to play with in the kitchen. She loves to take the magnets off the fridge and press the button that plays a song. She is just now starting to try to put the magnets back on the fridge. Eventually it will be a matching game for her. This toy will also last a long time. I wouldn't recommend it until your baby is crawling or a VERY good sitter... you don't want him/her to fall when they are sitting on the tile! The magnets also work on my dishwasher. Elise follows me around the house, and this is a wonderful toy for her to play with while I cook or do dishes.

Chicco Activity Baby Walker

I think I got this for her after she had been cruising for a few weeks. I had previously bought and returned two other walkers because they would fall out from under her. This one has a nice wide base and is sturdy enough for her to pull up on without me holding it down. The toys on the front are an added bonus. She is just now getting interested in her shape sorters, so this is a great 2-in-1 toy. She likes to put the balls in the hole at the top (it lights up and plays music) and play with the sides.

Baby Einstein Animal Exploration Tunnel

I bought this on clearance at Walmart this summer for $15. I have seen it at Babies R Us for $40-$50. She loves to crawl through it, sit in it and play with toys, and play peekaboo with the mesh flaps. I think she will like playing with the tunnel for a long time. It folds up and stores easily in a box.

Fisher Price Brilliant Basics Shape Sorter

She has played with this toy for several months. She loves to take things out of buckets, boxes, baskets, etc, and really enjoyed emptying the box of the shapes. Now she is showing an interest in putting the shapes back in the box. She can only put the circle through right now, but she tries to get the other ones through. I think this will be interesting for a while. Other shape sorters might be better, but this is inexpensive and enjoyable.

Discovery Toys Measure Up Cups

These cups will always attract Elise's attention. We have had them for months. She loved them when she was learning to sit and would reach for them. She loves to crawl after them and pull up to get them on a table. She loves to knock towers down, pull cups out of the nesting position, and is now starting to try to stack them herself. These will last for a long time.

Sophie the Giraffe Teether

Elise still loves to play with this toy. She squeaks it and chews on it. I keep it in the car because Boss also likes to squeak it and chew on it. Amazon has a really good price on it right now!

Fisher Price Rainforest Jumperoo

Well, this toy was a major hit in the 4-9 month range but she still loves to play in it at nearly 11 months old, so I have to mention it again. I don't use it very often because I want it to be a novelty for the times that I need to confine her. If you have a younger child and don't have one of these, you need to buy one!

Graco Pack n Play Bugs Quilt

This is Elise's other place of confinement. We do independent playtime here. She enjoys playing with the toys on the sides. I recently bought her some soft toys to use while she plays in here. Now that she likes to stand in the pack n play, I am paranoid about leaving hard toys in there! My mom originally bought this to use at her house but has graciously let me keep it here. Thanks, Mom!

Elise is really starting to love books now. They hold her attention and she loves to turn the pages (in the board books). Her favorites right now are Brown Bear, Brown Bear and Goodnight Moon.


Toys for the Future

For the last few months I have been asking moms about toys that their 12-24 month children enjoy and then making myself a little wish list. I have been eyeing a bunch of bigger toys for a while and recently found some GREAT prices on a few items from the Baby Cheapskate blog. I could give them to her now and she would love them, but I am going to wait until her birthday for the wagon (since she already has a walker) and a rainy day in the spring for the farmhouse. December is such a great time for toy deals and I will plan to take advantage of that every year.

Radio Flyer Walker Wagon - I got this for $40 and free shipping on target.com last week! It is so cute and will be a fun walker. I also plan to use it to store toys.

Fisher Price Laugh and Learn Learning Farm - I got this for $40 and free shipping on target.com last week! I had wanted the Learning Home instead, but couldn't pass up the $40 for the farm.

Radio Flyer Scoot About Trike - I also got this for $20 and free shipping on target.com last week. I am planning to give this to her in the summer.

Step 2 Push Around Buggy - A friend gave this to me for a baby gift for the future because her children enjoyed it so much. It is still in the attic but when we get it out this summer, it will be a lot of fun!

Manhattan Toy Snuggle Pod - This is going to be Elise's first doll. I wanted something soft and small and this is SO cute in person. We are going to give it to her for her birthday.

Mega Bloks Fill and Dump Wagon - My mom found this toy and is giving it to Elise for Christmas. She will love playing with the blocks and pushing/pulling the wagon. I think this is a great first birthday gift!

Haba Toys - I am in love with a lot of these Haba toys! They are a little pricey so I have only gotten a few of them. She is going to get the Wonder Dice from Santa in her stocking. This will be a perfect soft toy for her independent playtime. She is getting several from other family members for Christmas. I will be sure to blog about them later!

Here are some outdoor toys that I am eyeing for next summer (around 18 months)... it is SO tempting to buy everything now but I will resist! The free super saver shipping gets me every time!
Step 2 Waterwheel Activity Play Table
Step 2 Naturally Playful Sand Table
Little Tikes EasyHit Golf Set

If you have children, I would love to hear about their favorite toys!

Happy Birthday, Mike!

Elise has a little message that she wrote for you today. We've been working on her capital letters and so far she is doing very well. We love you so much!

Elise dancing

Well Elise has discovered her inner dancer. She definitely doesn't get this from me :)

Untitled from Stephanie Powell on Vimeo.

Elise and John reading from Stephanie Powell on Vimeo.

She has also been making a little progress with walking. Sometimes she will take a step or two and then fall down on her knees and start crawling. Other times she will lower herself to her knees without taking a step OR just fall in whatever direction she is leaning.

I found this Baby Einstein tunnel on clearance at Walmart for $15 a few months ago. I think it sells at Babies R Us for $50. I keep it in her closet and get it out every now and then. She has a lot of fun crawling through it, sitting in it, and making it roll over.

Kindermusik

We had our first Kindermusik class tonight with Sarah and John. The kiddos loved it! We are doing a set of four Christmas classes. Elise was SO excited to be there and had a blast exploring the room, dancing with the music, and playing with the "instruments". She quite the vocal and enthusiastic participant. Afterwards, she took John's rice cracker right out of his hand while he was eating it. John's mom was nice enough to offer her one of her own. I think she learned this trick from Boss.





So far, I have only used my camera on auto mode, but I am really pleased with the results. One of these days I will take the same picture with both cameras so that you can see the difference. It is so nice to catch Elise in action without blurry body parts!

New camera

Mike and I decided to get a new camera for Christmas this year. I patiently waited until Cyber Monday to order the Canon Digital Rebel XSi and scored a free case, memory card, lens cleaner, and screen protector. The price of the camera dropped about $50 in the last two weeks of November, woohoo! I wanted to get a DSLR camera so that I would be able to take better indoor pictures and better pictures of Elise in action. Since she is so mobile, I inevitably get a blurred hand, head, foot, etc, in a lot of pictures. It arrived today and I decided to snap a few pictures of Elise before bedtime. The shutter speed is very fast and the pictures turned out very nicely for the setting. It was already dark outside and I just had the overhead light on in her room. I didn't experiment with Photoshop or any settings on the camera other than "Auto". I think the picture quality is wonderful!

I missed my table!

2 posts in one day! This video is too funny not to share. Elise was SOOOOO excited to be reunited with her toys after spending nearly a week in Austin for Thanksgiving.

I missed my table! from Stephanie Powell on Vimeo.

Priority mail

Well, Elise decided that she wanted to climb in Daddy's care package and go visit him! This box entertained her for a solid 30 minutes. You will notice that the picture is not focused (and I have about 10 in a similar pose... none of them came out well). It has gotten increasingly difficult for me to take good pictures of Elise since she is never still. This will only be a problem for a few more days... Mike and I are getting a new camera for Christmas and it should be here soon. I am so excited! I ordered a Canon Digital Rebel XSi and the Cyber Monday bonus was a free case, high speed memory card, lens cleaner, and screen protector. I patiently watched the price fall about $50 during the last few weeks of November and then made my purchase.

I took her to the doctor on Monday for 2 shots. She weighed 22.5 lbs and measured 30 inches long. She's in the 90th percentile for height and weight. She gained just over a pound in the last 2.5 weeks since I took her in when she was sick. This definitely confirms the growth spurt. She is still waking up once at night to eat, but I think this is wearing off. I need to be more consistent about giving her a breakfast of solids before her first nap. Sometimes it just isn't convenient when we go somewhere in the morning because she is only awake for 1:45 or 2 hours before her first nap. Today I went back to 5 nursing sessions in hopes that if she gets her 5th one during the day, she won't need it at night. If it works, I may just keep doing this until she turns a year old (or nurse 4 times and give her pumped milk out of a cup once), and then gradually replace a couple of feedings with cow's milk. I am not sure how long I will continue nursing. We'll see what happens.

She is learning new things every day. Waving 'hi' and 'byebye' has finally clicked for her. She's done it sporadically for the last few months, but during the last two days she's done it correctly at least 90% of the time. She even waves hi to me and Boss and sometimes says 'iiiiiiiiiiiii' or 'ba ba' while she is doing it.

She loves to repeat sounds that I make. Today I tried hard to not say the word just because I was curious if she would do it herself. I know that she understands a bunch of words (probably 20?) but I wanted to see what she would say. After she took a bath tonight, she crawled back into the bathroom three times saying 'bah' for bath. She said 'bah' several times when she was crawling toward her ball in the kitchen (the ball on the tile floor entertained her for a good 30 minutes) and said 'buhn' when she picked up her stuffed bunny. It was the first time I've heard her say the 'buhn' sound. I was really surprised about the last one because she just met the bunny yesterday. Unfortunately, she might not get to play with the bunny very often. Boss tried to sneak it outside. She also says 'puh' or 'bah' to Boss.

She has also learned to hand things to me when I ask. We started working on this a week or two ago and... get this... when she picks up one of Boss' rawhides off the floor, if I say "That is Boss' toy, can you give Boss the toy?" she will hold it out for him to come get. Then she thinks it is hilarious when he takes it away from her. She did it about 5 times today. It is SO cute. My next mission is to get it on video. This is a huge step up from her previous habit of examining and then trying to chew on the rawhides.

Changing the subject...

On the weekend before Thanksgiving, we drove down to San Marcos to watch the 5A State Volleyball Championship Game. Right before the game, we were honored as the 1999 State Champions. Volleyball was a huge part of my life in middle school and high school. In 1998, we made it to the state tournament but lost in the championship game, and in 1999 we came back and won. Here is a picture of the seniors from 1999.


And here are some pictures from last weekend. About half the team made it to San Marcos. We had a great time catching up.



We spent most of last week in Austin for Thanksgiving. Elise loved eating turkey, ham, and green beans. We had Thanksgiving on Wednesday night at my parents' house. Several of my friends from Fort Hood (including John and his family) were able to eat with us. We had a great time!


On Thursday, Bryan and I ran the Thundercloud Subs Turkey Trot downtown. It was perfect weather for the race and I felt great during all 5 of the miles. We were being silly trying to stay warm before the race...


Afterwards, Elise and I met up with Mike's extended family for lunch. Elise definitely doesn't mind being the center of attention! Then we came back to my parents' house for a quick nap before the UT/A&M football game. Here is Elise with her grandparents. By the looks of this picture, you might be surprised to know that 3 of her 4 grandparents went to UT and the other one went to Baylor.


On Friday I had lunch with 4 of my good friends from high school, Cindy, Ashley, Gretchen, and Lindsay. Somehow I totally forgot to take a picture while we were all together! We are going to make it an annual event.

That's all I've got! Maybe tomorrow I will be able to post some pictures of the supposed snow... :)