Snow Day: Take One

As predicted it was a snowy cold day here today. I knew it was coming, I was dreading it, but had prepared. I was suppose to go get my hair cut today, but when I heard there had been three fatalities one the roads before 8 a.m. I decided my hair cut could wait. This set us up for a day inside, admiring the beautiful snow from afar.

After Zane's morning nap, when Zane started crying by the front door wanting to go outside, it was time to bust out the pipe cleaners and pom poms. I know what you are thinking, Audra your house is full of toys. That is true, but Zane has played with those toys everyday for quite a while, so we needed to mix it up a little, to get his attention away from the fact that there would be no trips to the playground or the zoo today. It worked perfectly. This is what I gave him, the strainer, a package of pipe cleaners, a bag of colorful pom poms, and a muffin pan. He had access to all his normal toys as well, which he did take advantage of filling his trucks with pom poms, but mainly he was kept entertained by my $3 investment for a solid hour. That is a long time in 18 month old land.

 He focused very hard at getting the pipe cleaners in the holes, but did not want any help from mommy.

 He loaded up Zig with his pipe cleaners and pom poms.

 Silly boy

Once the fun of the new pipe cleaners and pom poms wore off it was time to finally go explore the snow, ever so briefly. It took quite a while to get bundled up, but once we did we had tons of fun. Zane didn't have any gloves or mittens so we had to steal the mittens off last years snow suit. They were very small, but they worked.

Here is Zane, bundle up, ready for the snow.

 He really wanted all the snow off of his playhouse, so he spent most of our time outside cleaning it off.

 Discovering what snow feels like, turns out it is pretty dang cold if one of your tiny mittens keeps falling off.

 This was Zane's last ditch effort to not have to go inside, he thought he was hiding in his house, but really I saw him rolling around in the snow. Too fun!

 Of course there was quite the melt down when we came inside, but he got over it quickly. We watched the end of the Lion King, which he had found and requested to watch earlier, and then it was nap time again. I tried to make some discovery bottles when he went to sleep. Turns out it isn't as easy as it looks. I made one with baby oil, water, and green food coloring. I thought a couple drops of food coloring would be fine, but it was way to much, so it looks black. I also fill the bottle completely up, which meant you couldn't really get the effect of the oil and water separating. Then I tried baby oil, water, and glitter only to find out the baby oil makes the glitter ball up, ruining the effect, so that bottle was wasted. The last bottle turned out ok, though not that exciting, there are pom poms, ribbon, glitter and water which made a little bit of a snow globe affect. We shall see if he enjoys it at all before I try making any more.

It is still snowing outside, hope it clears up before my early drive to work tomorrow.