The weather, as is usual these days, has been glorious.  I'm trying to get outside with the kids at *least* once a day.  The problem is, the second we get outside Cecilia makes a run for it and John Paul thinks we're going to the playground.  I can't get them to just play in front of our house!

But today I figured, sure, why don't I let *them* lead on a walk?

So I took both their hands (no stroller, no carrying either child, they're getting so big!) and we walked to the little playground down the hill from our house.

Oh, it was MUDDY.  This playground is not my favorite...  The equipment is a little too old for my littles, and the slides tend to have standing water on them at all times.  Cecilia, of course, made a mad dash for the slides and very tentatively put a finger in the water.

PLAYGROUND TIME RUINED, KIDS GETTING DIRTY!

Nope, I decided to say, "Yes!"

I told Cecilia she could splash in the puddle.  She got a HUGE grin on her face and spend the next 10 minutes splashing in the puddle, picking up wood chips to taste them or see if they floated in the water, and splashing some more.

She was WET.  John Paul decided to join in.  He was a lot more wary than she - immediately upon getting his pants wet he started pulling them down saying, "Pants off?  New pair of pants???"  I assured him that we were here to get messy and we'd change when we got home (this did not prevent this from occurring several more times.  He does NOT like to be dirty.).

Cecilia decided to take it one step further and climb up onto the slide, belly flopping down into the water.  Lovely :)  Then she fell in the mud several times, but "washed" her hands off in the mud puddle.

We walked home, soaking wet and muddy, and went straight upstairs for a bath.

Clothes can be washed (next time I won't wear a hand-wash only shirt...  But we were being spontaneous!).  Shoes can, too!  But this tired John Paul enough to take a LONG nap this afternoon (and those are rare these days!), so it looks like we'll be getting muddy as long as the bugs haven't started biting yet!

Pretty awesome

Andrew:  "John Paul, guess whose feast day is today?"

John Paul:  "St. JOSEPH!!!"

A:  "That's right, and St. Joseph is pretty awesome."

JP:  "And MAWWY is pwetty awesome."

*Cecilia starts freaking out in her high chair yelling "MA-WAY!  MA-WAY!!!" and flailing towards a picture of the BVM*

JP:  "And JESUS is handsome awesome!!!"

Baby Jesus?

"John Paul, what kind of baby do you want Mom and Dad to have next?"

*Disclaimer:  We are not knowingly pregnant, but these kinds of conversations are really funny with a 2-year-old


*John Paul thinks long and hard*  "...Baby Jesus?"

Then I explained to him that that's not an option.

"Baby boy?  For John Paul?  And baby girl for Cecilia?"

Boy is always his preference, although apparently now he's being generous and allowing us to have another girl TOO!

A Funny

John Paul likes to ask for a piece of tape at some point every day; he likes to stick it to his shirt, pick up lint, etc...  He's also very used to asking me to tape up pages in books that Cecilia rips, flaps that she pulls off lift-the-flap books, and various easy mending jobs.

So he came asking me for a piece of tape, and I obliged him.  Then I saw him bending down and trying to tape something on the floor...

A piece of apple that had broken in two.

I thought that was pretty adorable - of course you can't EAT a broken piece of apple, you have to FIX it!  I convinced him to eat it anyway, but I'm wondering if he would have eaten the tape, had he been successful in taping the apple back together...

Little weirdo...

Apparently it wasn't satisfactory to leave the piano on the floor...  John Paul normally likes to curl up on the love seat with a pile of books while I'm putting Cecilia down for her nap.  But the piano seems to have trumped the remainders of the pile...