Those Things That Make Her... Her (on jumping)

You know, I always have these blog idea's rolling around my brain that it seems I never take the time post about.  This topic, is one that is so completely obvious if you spend anytime around my child (which I know most of you don't).  I know that I have mentioned this particular Sarah thing in many other posts, but I really wanted to take the time to write about just this trait. 

Sarah is a jumper, she has been a jumper for most of the past year.  As far as I can remember, it was like it her mission to go through all the motions of learning gross motor skills just to get to jump.  (See, this is why I need to blog more, because time frames get fuzzy)  For forever Sarah has jumped all day long.  You can always find Sarah is a crowd of kids, just look for the bopping head.  When anyone asks about Sarah one of the first things they ask is "Is she still jumping all the time?"  The answer is yes. Yes, she still jumps all the time.  It's just how she shows excitement, and happiness, and joy.  And she's a happy kid, so yeah, the jumping lasts all day long.

Literally almost everything can get a jumping reaction: 
Sarah do you want to wear your black sparkly heart shirt today? A jumping yes reaction before grabbing it from me to "put on"
Sarah notices I filled the basket with wipes. A jumping reaction "Well looky there!" "So many!" "Wow!"
Sarah do you want to go outside and play? A jumping reaction "outside" "out there" "socks and shoes" "jacket" "hold hands!"

And always, always, always jumping!

And those are just a few normal everyday things that I mentioned.  Things that she really loves the jumping last longer and is way more intense. Like say we let her watch TV and it's Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, or we tell her she can have a doughnut or yogurt raisins (her all time favorite treats).  She just can't contain her pure joy and it has to come out and it comes out straight through her feet in the form of jumping.  It one of those things that is just... her.

As you can probably guess, her favorite thing to do at the gym is jump on the trampoline.  The other parents ask me how we taught her to jump so well, but I don't have an answer.  We didn't teach her to jump, she just does it.  God gave her this talent, this joy.  She has this incredible balance and energy. And I love it.  I love it. I love seeing her jumping, I love seeing her joy.  I love seeing her athleticism, I love to see her hopping at the door when I come home from work.  It's just a part of what makes her... her.

I have no idea what she will end up doing with jumping, maybe be a trampoline gymnast, maybe track and field, maybe basketball, maybe karate, maybe dancing, maybe nothing.  I just know that it is inherently a part of her, and it is part of all the many many wonderful things that makes her who she is.

Our Top Halloween Toddler Books

In my last post, I talked about how I went out and bought a bunch of Halloween books for Sarah.  It took a lot of searching to find good toddler books for a kid Sarah's age (20 months, in October, she's 21 months now).  Especially since I was relying on books lots from ebay and whatever happened to be at our local thrift stores.  So, I wanted to share a few of the books that Sarah seemed to really enjoy, and I'll explain why she enjoyed them.




This book was instantly a hit with Sarah, she really enjoys the interaction of slide and find.  Each page presents the toddler with a new activity.  Some focus on riddles to figure out what is hiding, some ask you to count how many things are on the page.  Sarah loved that every page was different.







This book is a simple little board book that is basically the five little pumpkin poem, and let's face it, what kid doesn't like that poem right!? But the illustrations are super cute in this version and Sarah loved just love it.








This little book is a great transitional book that is somewhere between a board book and regular page book, so just be aware if your child is younger or is rough on books.  This is another book that rhymes and is a little repetitious, which is great because the child learns to anticipate what is coming and can "help" you read.  It also has a different surprise for the child on each page.  For example, one is a lift the flap, one is a curved mirror.  So Sarah really enjoyed reading this one!






This was one of the few books I paid more for, but we love the Stinky Face books!  The original makes a regular appearance in our bedtime reading sessions.  This one is a little longer, so I know that not all 20 month olds could sit through it, but it is super cute and imaginative.









This was the first Halloween book that was a big hit with Sarah.  I think it had the best explanation of dressing up, trick or treating, and all that.  It is a paper book, but the illustrations are adorable (a little old fashioned) and it's just plain cute.








This has got to be the simplest book ever (and it's tiny). It's literally a picture book that has a few sounds of Halloween spelled out, example picture of a witch with "cackle" written above.  But Sarah thought it was so funny when I would do the noises.  This is also the first book I caught Sarah "reading" to herself.  It was so stinking cute!  So this had to make into my top toddler Halloween books!




We had quite a few other Halloween books, some of them were good for showing actual kids with painted faces, some were cute stories, a lot were what you would expect of a toddler book on Halloween.  I really think it helped to talk about all the things she was seeing when we were out and about at stores or friends homes or whatnot.  We did a lot of talking about pretend and letting her feel decorations that were scary looking.  She loved pointing out black cats, skeletons, pumpkins, etc. and I think the books really helped with naming those things that aren't normally around and explaining things like trick or treating and pumpkin carving.  So if you have a little one, I would highly suggest throwing some good books into rotation for the month of October.  I think it made a world of difference!

Now that Halloween is over, I've put up all of the Halloween specific books, but kept the fall/autumn books out and added some Thanksgiving books to the mix to get her ready for the next Holiday.  I just put them out over the weekend, so I'm not sure which ones will come out as favorites.  I'll try to do an update after Thanksgiving to let you know which were the front runners.  Do your kids love books?  Do you try to spice things up around the holiday's and add some festive books to the mix?  Let me know ~ thanks for stopping by!

October Recap

Hi!  So I wanted to do a quick recap of our October/Halloween fun.  This month has been a little crazy for us schedule wise, so we didn't get everything on my to-do list done, but we got some it accomplished.  We took Sarah to the pumpkin patch and corn maze right by our house on the 12th.  It was a beautiful afternoon and we all enjoyed being outside and showing Sarah the pumpkins, corn, goats, bunnies, etc.  It was so much fun teaching her things now that she is getting big enough to understand a little of what is going on around us.

It's still amazing to me to see and hear just how much she has learned this past year.  We've talked about farm animals for such a long time, that she was so excited to feed a goat, and to see a bunny hop. And to be able to tell me she saw pumpkins.  It was super important to me to get books and talk about fall and Halloween with Sarah for the whole month of October.  So I started searching for toddler books at thrift stores, Goodwill, Ebay, etc. (Hey, books are expensive!) to have a good stock built up long before the month started.  Then I changed out most of her books to just be fall/Halloween so we could really talk about the changing weather and that Halloween was pretend, and give her a good understanding of trick-or-treating, pumpkin carving, changing leaves, face painting etc.

This next picture is just super cute to me, because Sarah has recently been really into sitting on things that are just the right size for her.  She loves to find little places just big enough for her to sit, so when we went into the pumpkin patch, she insisted on sitting on one of those round fat pumpkins that was the perfect size for her.  The only problem was that it was exactly cooperating staying upright, so Mike had to help hold her steady, but when she made it work, this was her smile.

Other than this day, Sarah go to go to her little gym's Halloween party.  I kid you not, from the time we walked through the door, to when we left, Sarah did not stop jumping.  She only stopped long enough to zoom from one end of the gym to the other to continue to bounce.  She loved pointing out the different kids who were dressed up that she recognized, as Minnie Mouse, or pirate, monster, etc.  I told myself, after that party, that if this was the only thing she got to do for Halloween it was enough, she has that much fun!  (Plus she slept great that night, holla for gym time right before bed!)  In this picture she was pointing out the jack-o-lantern snacks they had set out.  They were little clementine oranges with faces drawn on.  She loved counting them, and they were a health snack when it was all over. (I may steal this idea for next year;) )

But luckily this wasn't the last Halloween fun Sarah had.  On Halloween here, it was rainy and windy.  Some communities decided to post-pone trick or treating until the next night, but where we were planning on going decided not to.  I didn't necessarily want to take Sarah full on trick-or-treating, as she is not even two, but I wanted her to have a taste of the holiday.  So I ended up taking her to a trunk or treat at our local church that they moved inside.  I just wanted her to be able to see the other kids in costume and to get to say trick-or-treat.  She was so well behaved y'all.  It still warms my heart to think of just how sweet she was.  She stayed right with me and Grandma (daddy had to work), holding one of our hands.  She had fun pointing out the decorations and putting the candy into her pumpkin (yes, she insisted on putting in herself) and she said "Thank-you" to each and every person who gave her something.

After that experience, we took Sarah back to Grandma's to trick-or-treat with Papa.  I thought this would be the one house she'd get to do traditionally, but when we got there, my mom informed me that some of the neighbors were expecting to see her, so I took her to (3) houses.  Of those (3) houses, she got (1) trick and (2) treats.  I can explain that in another post if anyone is interested.  But of the two treat houses, they were so excited to see Sarah, I'm pretty sure she was the only spook they got all night, and were just thrilled that I took the time to bring her by.  We made one last stop before bed to see Gammy (Mike's mom). And that concluded our Halloween fun!  Mike and Haley were able to carve up our pumpkins one night.  Which they had a blast doing, and I made roasted pumpkin seeds.  I took them over Grandma and Papa's on Halloween so they could be on their porch and be viewed by the neighborhood.  (Our house is just too secluded for anyone to ever see them and they deserved to be on display)

So that was it for our family.  Did y'all do anything fun for October!?  Oh and hooray for piggy tails!  Sarah's hair is finally long enough to do some cute hairdo's, which just happened in October :D

Oh! Here's a little bonus video just for my blog readers: