Studio Grow

Not to long ago my Meet-up group had a play date at Studio Grow. Holly and I had not been there for most of the summer, as we have been spending so much time in the various parks, so we were looking forward to going back.It was amazing to watch Holly play, she is a few months older now, and her level of interaction with the toys is so much more sophisticated. When we first arrived she practically ran from room to room around the big circle 5 or more times wanting to reacquaint herself with the layout.Eventually she settled in the big room and the ball pit, just as other's began to arrive. Another thrill for me was watching as Holly got to interact with kids she knew in a different environment. Many of the babies we regularly see at Chloe's were in attendance.Here Thatcher is joining Holly in the ball pit. He is still such a little guy and is only crawling and doing some basic cruising, so while he did have a lot of fun, it was similar to when Holly was little and her abilities to play were a little limited.Holly is getting to be big enough now that she is almost able to climb in and out of the ball pit on her own. There are some little stairs and when she thinks to use them she can dive in almost head first. The ball pit isn't too deep, so she quite enjoys it.Here is Chloe, She also quite enjoyed the ball pit as well. The girls liked to throw the ball out, and then later on Holly was picking them up and putting them back into the ball pit, it is so cute how she has been learning to clean up after herself.Here Holly also got to play with one of those wooden Fruit, Veggie, and Bread cutting toys. This is where we saw it the first time, and how I know it was such a fun toy to play with. It was serendipitous that she got to play with it a few days after we gave it as a gift. She even sat down at the table after taking these toys out of the cabinets.When we first came into the room, the table was empty and she looked into the refrigerator, and stove, and then the shelves to find the items she wanted, placed them all onto the table, and then had me help sit her in the chair so she could play with them. I was amazed.She is also really into balls, she isn't "kicking" them per say, but the effect is the same, she runs towards them, and then hits it with her foot and then chases back after the ball further.Here Thatcher has found something to pull himself up on, and is enjoying playing with the doll house, it was fun to look at the furniture in each of the rooms and explore it and cruise along it.It was really fun watching Holly and Chloe play with each other, they were basically following each other around from room to room, Holly being the more hyper one, can sort of run circles around Chloe, so she would run into the next room, then come back, run into the next room and come back, trying to get Chloe to chase her. Chloe is getting faster and faster as she gets more steady, and she would eventually notice Holly was gone, and or trying to get her to pursue, and would then follow into the next room.Here is Thatcher playing in the block room, for being such a little guy he really did find a lot to do. That's whats so great about this place, Little babies can find things to do, and so can bigger kids, and even the same toys can be used with various experience levels to do newer things as the kids get older. Its also nice to not have to put things away after they get dumped out.In addition to gaining speed, Chloe is getting to be such a climber. She had a blast going up the stairs of the slide and climbing, once she got to the top she was so pleased with herself, but she needed mommy to remind her to sit down so that she would go down the slide.Here are the kitchen toys that Holly never before paid much attention to, but now likes to open and close and turn the knobs, and put items in and out of the stove, she is really starting to learn to imitate us, it is amazing to see the early start of imaginative play.Here is sweet Gabriel. He arrived with an Entourage. I think it was the first time that we met his dad who had his parents and sister in tow, so Gabriel had his whole family following him around for a time while he was playing, taking video and photos, it was so fun to see the grandparents get to enjoy this experience with him. It made me miss my parents and sister.Here the kids are playing with the tubes, Holly didn't go through them, but she did play peek-a-boo with Chloe looking from one side to the other.Here the kids are all playing on the play structure, Holly the little climber is in the tube which she enjoyed, and Holly was sitting in the box with a few balls form the ball pit.Its a rare moment when Holly takes a break and sits. I think she is sitting here coming up with a new plan of action, whatever will she do next.Here is Chloe wandering around the big playroom. Once she warmed up to the space she became a lot more independent and really started to explore more.Here Holly is being a little trouble maker, pulling the little car from one room to another, I think she has decided that she doesn't want to share it with the other kids.Its a good thing there are two of them.. These are part of the Roller Coaster. This is a cool wavy ramp that you ride down on the cars. Holly is just big enough now that I can let her go down the ramp on her own, and she will hold on. Here is a video of her on the Roller Coaster and Climbing off the Car.

Rides the Roller Coaster: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiVSAbpqhvE

Gets off the Car: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpeRCSh63bg

Here are Thatcher and Chloe following Holly into the main play room, it was so cute watching Thatcher crawling around, he is fast.These magnetic boards were really fun to play with, last time we were here Holly only pulled them off and dropped them to the floor, but this time I was convinced she was making patterns, you can put them on to of each other and the edges stick together and make little three dimensional shapes and she was beginning to do that.She was back into the kitchen again, this time she was playing with the table settings. She was putting the food on the plates and into the various containers.Here she is feeding the baby, though I am not sure that it likes salt so much. While she did do a lot of imaginative play, she is still experimenting with physics and tried to get these plates and bowls to spin around when she dropped them onto the floor, a game we have played before.This is the puzzle and small figure section and there were some new toys here, little animal blocks that stacked and stuck together with magnets which were fun for her to play with, explore, and of course eventually chew.Here is Gabriel climbing up the slide, His mom Khanh is in the background, his dad is taking some video, and I think that's his Auntie watching in the front.He is such a cutie. Holly used to be able to crawl up the slide before she learned to walk. Now she tries to walk up the slide, which is more difficult. She uses her hands and feet, but I think if she got back on her knees she would have a better go of it.Here is Thatcher and Nathaniel playing with a extra large drum. All of the kids were having so much fun in the music room playing with the bells and shakers that the owner took this out from the staff area. I think they use it for the music circle in the morning, it was so nice to let the kids play with it.Nathaniel was eager to climb up on it, but Holly got the idea to bang it, basically if I did, she would do it after me, and she found some "bam bams" to use too.Here is Gabriel shooting some hoops. It is so cute! I definitely think its a Daddy encouragement, boy thing, I am not sure that I have even thought to try and get Holly to throw the ball into the hoop, but next time I might.Although she has certainly figured out how to do it on her own. They rearranged the room a little and put the ball pit in the front corner, so it had walls on two sides. We invented a new game where I would throw one of the big balls against the back wall and it would bounce down into the pit. Holly loved it, and would then go after the ball and throw it back to me so I could do it again.Here is Chloe pushing Holly in the little car. She was pushing the empty car at first like a walker, but Holly insisted on climbing on board, unfortunately she was too heavy for Chloe to get anywhere.Here is Holly climbing through the tube, its one of her favorite games, it is great to see how fluid she has become and how easy it is for her to climb in and out now.This was a fun tube because she could peek out at us half way through, and she had to decide which direction to go, in and out, or into one of the various containers.Here we are back in the kitchen. I considered posting pictures by grouping them and posting all of the rooms together, but I decided instead to post them chronologically. I guess the advantage of that would be to illustrate how off the wall Holly can be, she goes around and around in circles from one room to the next, and next and them back to the beginning again. She is like a little butterfly who flits, flits, flits.Before long she was back to the Magnet board. She had a lot of fun there, and the keyboards were really cool too the little ones get such a thrill typing on them when they aren't normally allowed.This is one of the block bins, these have letters on them, it will be fun as she gets older and is learning her ABC's to play with these.I think Holly has something up her sleve, this is quite the mischevious look she is making.Here Gabriel has one of the pom pom's from the music room, all the kids are hanging by the blocks, so he had to come in and join them, but didn't want to give up his new discovery.Chloe got it into her head to climb into the block pit which we thought was just about the most adorable thing ever. She then proceeded to stack the blocks on the ledge.Holly decided to put them back in and stack them up on top of each other to make things a little more exciting.Eventually though Holly just couldn;t help herself and had to join in on the fun. It was pretty amazing that she was OK with sitting in the bin with Holly so close to her, she had no issues with needing personal space which means she is getting to be so comfortable around Chloe.Chloe climbed out and Holly had fun playing with the blocks as well, here is a video of it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Rh20Urhm0c

I also took a video of her on the slide.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wy06-clOyYU

She really enjoys climbing up and going down, I think though that as she got bigger and had a few spills she has wanted a little more mommy support and reaches and looks for my hand to give her the extra confidence. We played until closing, and had a wonderful day!