Nika update - 10 months

Nika is just getting over a cold that she’s had for over a week now. Vlad got sick too. I was lucky not to get it. Thank goodness for Airborne–love that stuff! Nika is now 10 months and very active. She is turning out to be a speedy little crawler and currently loves climbing over everything and everyone. She is eager to pull herself up and stand so we are now having to childproof a lot of areas and things around the house.

Nika really enjoys interacting with other kids too. At the grocery store yesterday we sought out 2 other babies. A 7 month old boy and a 10 1/2 month old boy and she flirted with just about everyone who looked at her.

Some of Nika’s new favorite things to do…

• Watching Sesame Street video podcasts on the iPhone
• Still loves playing with her Little Superstar Sing Along Stage
• Dancing with Mommy
• Going to the indoor playground
• Riding in her Cozy Coupe
• Eating Gerber Puffs
• Playing with kitties and looking at her book about kittens

Nika’s 1st birthday is coming up soon. I’ve already started to plan her party, so exciting and amazing how fast that went by. We’re going to do an Elmo theme since she is a HUGE Elmo fan. La la la la…La la la la — yep I know all the words to the Elmo theme song and known to sing it when needed.

Look who’s 10 months today!

Look who’s 10 months old today. I can’t believe she’s just 2 months away from being a year old.

Happy 10th month Birthday Nika! XOOXO

Free Gymboree 25% off coupons

I have a few 25% off coupons to Gymboree.

Good for purchases made on February 7th, 25% off all regular priced items. Leave me a comment or email me if you want one and I can email you the code to redeem online or I can mail one to you.

Happy Monday!

Indoor playgrounds for kids 5 & under

I’ve been looking into indoor activities and new places to take Nika. Today we visited our first indoor playground for kids. We went to the Old Redmond Schoolhouse, which is now the Community Center. Nika had so much fun! Her face lit up with excitement when we walked into the gym. It was toys galore and kids were bouncing around like it was Christmas. The gym also had balls, tumbling mats, crawl-through tunnels and push cars to play with. The cost is only $2 or free for kids under 1 year.

I did a little research and most cities have an indoor playground program, usually through the local Community Center. Here’s a great article in The Seattle Times that lists a bunch of indoor playgrounds and also movie cry rooms {special movie showings just for parents with babies}. The article is a little old, but will give you good information about many of the different indoor playgrounds in Western Washington. You can also go to Meetup.com and do a search for playgroups by zip code.

Look at my happy girl! She was grinning from ear to ear the whole time we were there.

Snow fun

We don’t get much snow here in the Seattle area. Today we woke up to over four inches! After Nika had her breakfast, Daddy and I took her outside for a little fun. Nika had a great time exploring the snow. Here’s a cute pic of Daddy and Nika. Sounds like we might get a little more tomorrow too.

Nika update - 9 month milestones

It’s a nice cold and sunny morning here in Seattle. Hopefully it will warm up enough so I can take Miss Nika for a stroller walk. I’m sure looking forward to doing more things outside. I’m tired of all the cold and wet weather…I’m ready for spring!

Thought I would share some Nika updates with you today. I can’t believe it’s already been 9 months! Nika has reached some great milestones. She is finally crawling forward now. She’s also able to prop herself up from lying down too. She’s rolling and crawling all over the place. Now we need to go out and purchase some baby gates.

Teeth update: Nika loves to eat teething biscuits and now has six teeth in, four up top and two on the bottom. She’s become a very picky eater ever since having the flu. She only likes to eat the banana-oatmeal-peaches sauce and will also eat sweet potatoes but that’s about it for varieties. She also goes back and forth with liking rice and oatmeal cereal.

We’re working on getting her nap schedule back on track. She’s only been doing one nap a day since being sick. We’re trying to get back to two naps a day and re-establish her routine.

Nika loves her toys, especially getting new ones. I find she becomes easily bored with her toys after a week or sooner. Right now she enjoys playing with this pound n’ play. She likes hammering on it and gets a kick out of the balls falling through and putting them back. We also just discovered looking at old photo albums. She loves to look at the pictures and flip the pages. She recognizes pictures of daddy, the kitties and our dog Jesse, it’s really cute.

You can check out more pics of Nika on Vlad’s Flickr site, he posts some of his favorites there.

Chat ya later ~ Cathy

Free Gymboree Gymbucks

I have $75 worth of Gymboree Gymbucks free to anyone who would like them. The Gymbucks are good for purchases made from January 17-27th. These can be redeemed online or in the store. Email or leave me a comment if you want any and I can either email you the Gymbucks coupon number or send it to you in the mail.

Happy Shopping!

Update {1/17/2008} - Wow, those went quick…all Gymbucks are gone. I usually have either Gymboree coupons or Gymbucks about once a month if you want to check back. Thanks for stopping by.

Me & my girl

Here’s a couple fun pics of me and my girl. Vlad took these yesterday at Grandma’s house. We finally got to celebrate Christmas with our family.

Nika had a great time!

How was your Chistmas?

Ours did not go as we had imagined it would. Nika came down with the stomach flu around 3am on Christmas eve. I got it the next day and then Vlad got sick too. We all still have the flu, it’s a really bad one. The only person we got to see during the holiday was Nika’s doctor. We saw the doc on Christmas eve and again the day after Christmas. Poor Nika got really dehydrated as she could not keep anything down. We had to start giving her Pedialyte by syringe to help hydrate her. Since the stomach flu is contagious we didn’t get to spend the holiday with our families. We’re still waiting to reschedule getting together with everyone.

Nika is doing better but still not eating. I have a bit more energy and Vlad is the one who is taking care of us despite having the flu too. He’s so great! It’s been really hard watching little Nika be so sick. This is our 1st illness with her.

What a bummer on her 1st Christmas. We’re also missing out on the annual company party {today} that Vlad’s dad puts on. We did open stockings and presents at home on Christmas morning, but it was very quick as Nika had no energy. She got a little excited for a couple Elmo toys and then needed a nap.

I sure can’t wait for all of us to be healthy and rid of this flu. I can’t recall being this out of commission for any sickness in the last 10 years. ~ Cathy

{The Sheg} 2007 Christmas card

I just finished our e-Christmas card. Thought you all might enjoy checking it out. Vlad took these pics of Nika on Friday and they turned out so cute! It’s going to be a fun Christmas.

I made these with ScrapBlog, you can view the online version here {it has music}. Once the card loads, be sure to click the {play slideshow} button in the top right to start the card and see all the efftects.

Merry Christmas…I hope you all have a wonderful holiday!

XOOXO ~ Cathy