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:

Happy Birthday Mommy!

MiniM.E. and H. played more together on Friday.  It was the first time they actually seemed to be playing together and it was adorable.

care for some tea?

more kisses over coffee

Then Saturday it was my birthday.  I spent most of the day cutting wood for a play kitchen I'm making MiniM.E. (shhh! it's a surprise!).  While I cut wood, MiniM.E. was busy wrapping presents with Gram and helping to decorate the cake.

such careful little fingers

so many sprinkles in this cup...

and they should all be on the cake!

all gone!

maybe I can spread them around...

or just eat them!

and some candles

Later in the afternoon H. came over to say good-bye.  Cutest hug ever!

Then we sang "Happy Birthday" (to MiniM.E.) and blew out the candles- THREE times.

The best birthday present I got was MiniM.E. singing "Happy Birthday" to me.  She actually tried to sing and it was pretty much the cutest thing I've ever heard in my entire life.  She was so proud of herself.

**Note: I apologize for the lack of video.  For one, MiniM.E. is really hard to record because as soon as she sees the camcorder, she runs over and says, "see baby!" because she wants to watch the videos of herself.  Whenever I DO get to record her, I don't usually have the time to upload the videos because my computer is out of space so uploading them requires that I back up other photos and videos and get them off of my computer... a project I am diligently working on in all my free time... 

Thanks for a great birthday MiniM.E.!

The Boston Children's Museum

Thursday we went with H., C., C's mom, and Gram to the Boston Children's Museum.  It was a tri-generational adventure!  We had a blast and the kids loved it even though they were a little young for most of the exhibits.

We left for nap time, the kids slept on the way and we spent the afternoon there and loved it so much we stayed until it closed!

We started at, revisited and ended at MiniM.E.'s favorite room, the bubble room.

Trying to make a bubble around us.  Fail.

At first MiniM.E. was just fascinated.

Until...

She realized she could POP the bubbles.

Mouth popping!

Head popping

"Taking shower!"

 MiniM.E. is still talking about the bubbles.  "Making bubbles museum!" "Pop bubbles head!" "Pop bubbles mouth!" "Pop bubbles ear!" "Taking shower!" (because the bubbles popped and got her all wet) "Bubbles one more time!"

MiniM.E.'s second favorite thing at the museum was the turtle exhibit that you could lie down under!  Both the kids loved seeing the turtles swim over them.  MiniM.E. kept asking to see the turtles "one more time" the whole time we were at the museum.

There was a ball room where you could roll golf balls down all sorts of ramps.

The best place for our 1 1/2 year olds was the 0-3 room.  There were books, puzzles, games, and mini furniture.

A small play area (MiniM.E. loved the steering wheel).

A teeter totter,

fun with two

and fun with one, too.

 A tiny car that H. wanted to drive all day

H. driving with his girl

Trying to sneak a kiss!

Then we played in the big kid exhibits.  When we weren't trying to pull our kids away from trampling big kids, they had lots of fun.

Dancing on the dance floor

 MiniM.E. wanted to spend the rest of the day at Peep's Water World, but she was a little too short to actually play in the water...

We pulled ourselves up in a pulley chair...

And had fun in the Blue Man Group exhibit.

The visit to the museum went much better than we all expected.  The kids were really well behaved and had a blast (every time we get in the car MiniM.E. asks if we're going to the museum).  We thought we wore them out, but both kids must have been too excited to sleep because they were both up late!

Can't wait to bring Daddy and some of our other friends back to the museum soon!