What do Layla and I do all week??

I often get asked, "How do you keep yourself busy at home all day?" Believe me that there is always something to do, but I thought it would be fun if I shared some activities that Layla and I do on a weekly basis.

Layla and I go to swim lessons once a week. Layla has been attending swim lessons at the same gym since she was three months old (we did take a break this summer).

See the diving toys she is playing with below?? These are for the little babies (3-8 month olds) to practice grasping skills during their classes and when we first started Layla was nowhere near able to grasp these sticks. Now she beelines for the bucket after our class and loves to check them out. Layla even has the ability to whip them if she chooses...but of course our little Layla Bug (the swim instructor calls her this too) would never do something like that, hee hee :-)

Oh and here we are in our changing room after class. Mr. Seamus, Layla's cousin, is starting to pass on his love for Crocs to Layla. She insisted on putting these shoes on before I put any of her other clothes on. Layla is just starting to make a "ch" sound for the word shoes.

We also go to a playgroup at least once a week for Layla to play with (aka chase or be chased) other kids and for me to talk to other moms. We typically go to a park one day a week but this week it was rainy so we headed to the library (we love the library, I just counted and Layla and I have been there 4 times in the past 8 days, wish it was the B-Ville library that was so close!). There are 3 or 4 other toddlers almost exactly Layla's age in this playgroup, but this week she was very interested in sitting on the little stools and running after the 3 year old little boys (I get very nervous because she seems to carefully observe all of their actions as they do things like pretend eat each other with dinosaur puppets). Below is Layla taking in all of the happenings during the playgroup.

Next up is toddler tumbling. It is run through the local park district, and this is my favorite addition to our schedule this fall. Layla LOVES it and it is fun for the moms too. Layla loves to go through the mat tunnel and do barrel rolls. Today they taught the 12-24 month olds to do a forward roll (with mom or dad's help). I thought this was crazy at first but it is very basic and safe and Layla kept signing "please" afterwards for me to do it again. So silly.

About 20 minutes into class, Layla went scrambling over to the diaper bag and dug out her sippy cup. This class makes her so thirsty :-) What a big girl she thinks she is!

And last but not least storytime at the library. I love going to this every week, and I think Layla does too. There are stories, songs and a felt board activity each week and it all really seems to intrigue Layla. After storytime, there is coloring time. This week, the librarian complimented Layla on lining up her crayons nicely :-) Needless to say, Layla wasn't too into coloring, but on a very positive note she didn't eat the crayons either! After "coloring," Layla found her favorite stool and a train and was as happy as could be at the table.

When we are not busy with one of these activities we are either playing, eating, changing diapers, napping (Layla, typically not me!), bathing or walking Howie. Poor Layla has so many mosquito bites from all of our walks this week, they are on her head, fingers, leg and even eyelid. I ordered the Skin So Soft oil from Avon to hopefully repel these bugs from our sweet-skinned little girl.

Have a good weekend everyone!!