49/52: Snowy Day and Baby Dolls

We had our first snow of the season the other day! I knew it wasn't going to be much, so I didn't want to make a big deal out of it... Rain boots and regular coats would be fine, I told the kids. 

Well. They knew where all the snow gear was stored, so they pulled it ALL out and helped outfit each other. I suppose I shouldn't have been annoyed, since I really only had to zip one coat, they did all the rest. Still, the snow in those pictures is about all that there was - they did NOT need every single pair of snow boots out. It's nice when they get old enough to take care of those things themselves though, along with throwing everything in the dryer so that it's toasty and warm for when they're reading to go back out later in the day. Such a difference from back when we had 4-under-4!

...

For some reason ALL the baby dolls are in rotation right now, and I'm not sure why. Technically one of the little Baby Stella dolls is Edith's (Cecilia gave her old one to Edith for Christmas last year) and one of the Bitty Babies is Peter's (also a Christmas present from Cecilia), so the middle four kids have been playing all sorts of elaborate games revolving around the six baby dolls. Obviously there are lots of pregnancies, births, baptisms, etc. Peter's doll is named "Bid" (short for Bitty Baby) and he insists it's a boy, despite being dressed in all pink (we really need some boy baby doll clothes...), and one of the soft baby dolls has been christened, "Perkins" because of somebody in our history studies, but Mary Claire and Elizabeth have stuck with their original names of "Anna Pelowski" and "Mary Pelowski" for their dolls. Don't try to call them by their first names. There will be screaming.

Apparently a big part of the baby doll games involves dumping toys out of bins so that they can have beds, and then having Peter read board books to all of them. I don't even care what they do, since it's keeping them from the constant potty language for a few minutes out of each day.