NEW Busy Bags!

On a very rainy and wet day, we went to the park for our busy bag swap. (The temperature was in 80's, no thunder, and the rain stopped shortly after we arrived!). We took our busy bags, traded with friends, and came home with a new bag full of fun and different busy bags!

So far Lydia's favorite has been the dress up doll (such a girl!) and the bag full of notebooks, crayons, and stickers. But before she found the notebooks and dress up doll she played with some of the other activities.

"What's in this bag"?

I can COUNT!

And build towers and race tracks for my cars! 

And look Mom I can FISH!

Red fish, blue fish, one fish, two! I feel a song coming on ;) 

Gender Neutral Toys

James has been wanting Lydia to have "boy toys". He is having a hard time playing babies and kitchen for hours and hours and hours.

I found Lydia a tool box. It was a good price and a boy toy so I bought it.

"Ok Dad. I think we can handle this tool thing". 

"Really, Dad. Isn't there an easier way? I might mess up my curls."

"Be right back Dad. The baby dolls need to be fed."

Really at heart James is still a little boy. And Lydia is a very girly girl. James is back to teaching Lydia how to play boy toys and spending the majority of his play time dressing baby dolls!

Toddler Lesson of the Day:

When sitting on the big potty don't clap for yourself!

Electronics

Electronics are having temper tantrums just like the toddler! Simply unplugging the device for a forced rest makes the electronics as happy as the well rested toddler. Hmmmm, things to ponder...

We Love Aldi

When Lydia found out today was Aldi day, she just HAD to get all dressed up. Blue shirt AND blue hat. Yes, it's a beach hat but for Aldi we can wear beach hats...

Apparently Lydia has been missing sour cream and cheered for a solid 5 minutes about the fact that we got sour cream!

Oatmeal. Oh, oatmeal. Apparently you are a dearly loved food.

AND then we found frozen spinach. Aldi has never had frozen spinach before and Lydia picked up my enthusiasm for frozen spinach and held to the spinach tightly.

We can't forget the joy that we discovered when we saw the lunch box displays. Seriously, exciting. Lydia is counting down the minutes until she can take her lunch some place. Any place.

Lydia was ever so delighted to be at Aldi. The poor cashier got all the 2 year old's enthusiasm as Lydia talked about hugging Uncle Paul and playing with Miss Sarah and Avery.

The moral to the story: maybe my child doesn't get out of the house enough!

A Little Break From The Summer Heat

We woke up this week and discovered that it was only 70 degrees and cloudy outside! After inhaling a quick breakfast we ran outside to play as quickly as we could. (Ofcourse in the 30 minutes it took us to get outside the temperature was already in the 80's!).

We played with ice cubes. Lydia was a bit distraught that her favorite toy kept "getting lost". She didn't quite understand that ice melts and spent a good chunk of time looking for her ice cube toys!

Where is the ice mom???

"I really just don't understand..."

And then we put shaving cream in the water table... 

But apparently playing in the water table without water is "wrong". 

Shaving cream toys do not disappear like the ice! 

And when the ice cubes were gone, the shaving cream had lost its luster, AND the sun was still in hiding we worked on our pedaling skills... 

Sometimes its just easier to not use the pedals though! 

Eventually the sun came out and chased us back into the cool house. But we enjoyed our couple hours of a cloudy summer morning ;)

Imaginative Play

We reached a new milestone this morning.

Lydia came up to me broken hearted because one of her babies fell tragically and got blood all over her pretty new dress. Being the great mommy that she is, Lydia lovingly "washed" the dirty clothes and put band aids on the baby. We won't mention that the band aids were actually decals from her bedroom wall!

I think that the baby seems to be surviving from this injury quite nicely...