An Early Egg Hunt

Easter isn't here yet but MiniM.E. is ready.  We've been practicing.

Practicing Easter?!?! Well, practicing the egg part.  Opening them.  To get the treats inside.  Like at an Easter Egg Hunt.

Why? Well... it all started with the fuzzy in the bath... 

A couple weeks ago MiniM.E. was in the bath.  She LOVES the bath.  So much that she asks for it in the morning and all through the day until it actually is bath time.  At least, she used to... She would stay in so long that her fingers would get all pruny and she would beg me to "wash it off," which, of course, I couldn't, but laughed at anyway.

So she was in the bath.  With lots of toys.  And bubbles.  And she looks into the water and sees a fuzzy (for those of you not versed in the vocabulary of all things small, dark, and potentially dirty, fuzzy is a piece of lint or cloth, usually the remnants of wearing socks) float by her foot.  I saw her do a double take, but the fuzzy must have floated along under some bubbles.  

Moments later, the fuzzy returned.  MiniM.E. saw it, looked alarmed.  JUMPED up, reached for me stamping and hyperventilating and screamed, "BUG!"

I collected her from the tub, comforted her and said, "Baby, it's just a fuzzy!"  "FUZZY?!?!" She screamed, as though I'd told her it was a baby-eating monster.  "No, it doesn't hurt, it isn't scary, it's just a piece of sock!"  I even took it out to show it to her. 

The damage was done.

The fuzzy incident resulted in almost a week of not bathing followed by a week of bathing in which Mommy had to "get in too".  

I think we're over it now.  Though the occasional, "just fuzzy, piece of sock," can be heard in the midst of some of MiniM.E.'s rambles.

So, to connect fuzzies with Easter, I bought a ton of Easter eggs to put in the bath thinking it would encourage MiniM.E. to jump in (it didn't).  But she did like to play with them OUT of the bath, and is now extremely good at opening them.

Which is why we are so prepared for Easter (Egg Hunting).

Earlier this week we met with some friends for an Easter Egg Hunt at the Spa Park.

ready to hunt!

The girls are still months apart and at this age, you can really tell the difference.

MiniM.E. just wanted to open the eggs.

A. wanted to eat things (eggs, pinecones, but mostly the treats in the eggs)

H. just wanted to collect them.

 They all seemed to have a good time, though with the exception of H., they were more excited to be outside that to actually search for eggs.

the slinky was a big hit

 MiniM.E.'s favorite part of the afternoon was eating snow.

And walking down the hills.

"Come on A.! It's easy!!"

Happy Early Easter!

"Snow Melting!"

Every day since our last snowstorm MiniM.E. looks out the window excitedly and exclaims, "snow melting!"  She might be even more excited about spring than I am...

It has been warm enough to see the snow melting.  But NOT warm enough to play outside ALL day.  So we've been keeping busy...

Practicing our coloring:

wearing the crayon box as a hat

scribble, scribble, scribble!

just a few more... 

checking out the fish outside the Library play room (and taking all the children's books off the shelf):

and having coffee dates with friends:

When it has been nice out, MiniM.E. is putting her rain boots to good use pulling the wagon

stamping the snow

and jumping in puddles!

Spring Is On Its Way!

About a week ago we got a glimpse of spring.  It was sunny and the temperature was around 40.  Something in our kids must sense that the weather is nice because we had a belated-birthday brunch with our playgroup and the kids were itching to get outside.

Then, just when I was ready to pack up our winter jackets and break out the sandals, we saw inches of snow at the end of the week.  But with temperatures in the 50s over the weekend, it's all melted and MiniM.E. and I couldn't be happier.  I've never had a worse case of cabin fever than I did this winter with a one-year-old running around the house!

While we waited out the temporary snow on Friday, we played at the Wilton Mall play area and visited the new Rainbow Room at the Saratoga Public Library.

Maybe we shouldn't have gone so close to nap time

The new Rainbow Room is fantastic and will definitely be added to our list of rainy day spots.  It was perfect for MiniM.E. and we could have stayed for hours!

Crawling through a caterpillar

Riding on a snake

In the caterpillar

Firetruck!

Over the weekend I worked on MiniM.E.'s play kitchen while she and Daddy had some quality Daddy-Daughter time.  Which went really well until MiniM.E. realized I was just in the garage... 

Daddy did a quick diversion and took MiniM.E. to her favorite wagon riding spot, the car wash down the street.  (In all fairness, I don't think she knows it's a car wash... she thinks it's just tunnels.)

The rest of the weekend we tried to spend as much time outside as possible.

Stamping snow

Watching water drip into puddles

Swinging!

Puddle jumping (we need to buy rain boots!!)

Yesterday we were hoping for some more springy weather, but with the cloudy skies and wind, it didn't feel very nice out.  Good thing we had a play group to go to!

new toys!

hugs!

 MiniM.E. is finally starting to play with the other kids at play group so I think she's really starting to enjoy it, but the nicest part for me is having other moms to talk to.  Though this photo is probably my favorite thing about play group EVER: