John Paul found a diaper he REALLY wanted to wear the other day (he hasn't worn a single diaper in over a week, but apparently airplane diaper is EXCITING!), and immediately stripped off his pants and underwear and tried desperately to get it on.  Cecilia watched while in the bin of diapers he had pulled down.

And apparently Cecilia's ready to be a big sister - here she is sitting on her baby doll, which she has found to be the most effective way of getting the baby to talk to her.  Maybe she needs to be an interrogator?  Also, she's wearing a diaper with no cover, no pants, no socks, but by golly she's gonna wear shoes!  I have to hide them so that she doesn't insist on wearing them all day long...  Girl loves her accessories!

Fountain!

It's hard to tell, but Cecilia *does* have enough hair for a little fountain on top of her head.

So, much to Andrew's chagrin, I put her hair up and *tried* to get a good picture.

Problem is, every time she sees the camera she DESPERATELY needs to get to it.

Which amounts in no small amount of wailing...

And rushing the camera before Mom can get a good picture.

And of course, crying.

And imploring Mom DESPERATELY - don't you know I NEED that camera???

Distracted momentarily by the window...

She's back again to get the camera!  I gave in at this point...  I think this series of pictures shows pretty well what kind of temperament she has!

Snow!

It snowed a *tiny* bit this weekend - by Sunday it had accumulated maybe 1/4" and only in places the wind had blown it!  But we were still excited when we got caught in the 5 minutes of afternoon snow that occurred on Saturday.

Here's John Paul catching some on his tongue (which is hard to do when one is spinning around in circles).

And Cecilia all bundled up getting ready for a trip to the nature center.

Rainbow Rice!

A friend shared a link to Rainbow Rice on Pinterest, so I thought that seemed like something pretty easy to try out with John Paul.

We got some white rice from Trader Joe's and have used about half of it so far.  Here's what we did:

Take a big freezer bag and pour in 2 cups of white rice.  Add 5-10 drops of food coloring, whatever color you want, and 1.5 tbsp rubbing alcohol (we used red for one bag and blue for the other).  Allow your toddler to mix and mix after you close the bag!  Then mix the remainder when he decides he doesn't care...

Spread rice on pans and allow to dry in the sunlight.  The rubbing alcohol will keep the bugs away.

Set up a pouring station and get ready for your toddler to be amused for hours!

We used various pouring vessels - he especially loved using a big spoon to transfer rice from bowl to bowl - good practice with utensils!

If you don't have a tray like this, get one!  We use it ALL the time for pouring activities - I spread a towel over it and we use it as a makeshift indoor water table, and it keeps most of the rice contained.  Yes, some fell on the floor - John Paul picked most of it up, and the vacuum got the rest pretty easily.  This can be done on a MUCH larger scale as well, so I think we'll make a new color every now and then to mix things up a bit.  John Paul LOVED it!!!

Books

You know when you love books so much that sometimes you have to sit down in a bin full of them?

Yeah, me neither...  But Cecilia loves books that much!  We spend a LOT of time reading every day.  The same book.  Over and over.  She particularly likes books about animals or saints.  Books that feature both animals AND saints are the best - St. Francis, we love you!

John Paul, as always, is also a book fiend.  I've started saving exciting library books for Cecilia's nap time so that he can read them on his own while I'm nursing her.  He RUNS over to the couch as soon as I tell him it's time for her to sleep.  Then he asks me for probably like, 6 or 7 different books and just sits there quietly reading to himself for like, an hour!