Sensory Play

We have been doing a lot of sensory play lately as well.  One day I put water in the sensory bin and L absolutely loved it.  He's really into scooping and pouring now so he worked on that practically the whole time.

  He went on his first egg hunt when I switched out the sensory bin for an Easter theme.  We put in Easter grass and hid the eggs within the grass.  He dug out several of the eggs and played with them.

My favorite sensory play that I think we've ever done has been the Oobleck that we made.  It was so neat, it kind of felt like a solid but behaved like a liquid.  Of course L had to dump it and stand in it (he loves to do that with liquid or slimy sensory activities haha).  We had a great time playing in it and I had little Oobleck footprints all over my house to clean up.

We also spent about an hour one day playing in dyed rice.  L spent most of the time scooping and pouring but at the end he decided to dump it all out and walk on it haha.  I wasn't able to get any pictures of that but it was a lot of fun.  He went and got a small bowl to pour the rice into after he scooped it, I thought that was pretty good thinking on his part.  :)  Also, one day he played in a bowl of water beads while I cooked dinner, he seemed to really enjoy those again, he hasn't played in them since Christmas.

Stream play

One of L's favorite things to do at the park is to play in the stream.  He LOVES to get close to it (or in it haha) and throw rocks of different sizes to watch the splash.  We absolutely love hanging out by the stream with him, it's so relaxing!

Often he will end up in the stream!

Painting, Climbing, and More!

We have been busy doing a lot of outdoor activities and enjoying the beautiful weather!  One day we made sidewalk paint and put it in condiment bottles for L to paint our driveway with.  This activity was a blast and he loved dumping and squirting the paint everywhere!

We've been to the park almost every day since the weather warmed up.  L loves the slides so much!  I caught a great pic of him relaxing on a slide after a long day.

He really enjoys walking across the bridges at the park and throwing rocks off of them into the stream.

We've been really impressed with his climbing skills lately.  When he first attempted to climb this it made me and my husband so nervous but climbed up and down it several times with no trouble.  He's such a little monkey!

L is such a wonderful little guy.  We feel so blessed to have him in our family!

Play Dates and More

A few days ago I went with my cousin and her two boys to a program called Totsicles at the local ice arena.  They rough up the ice and put out toys like balls, riding toys, etc. for the toddlers to play with.  L had a blast!  He was a bit skeptical at first and he got in a toy car and wouldn't get out lol so I pushed him around a little bit.  Finally he decided to switch to a sled and my husband and I took turns pulling him around the ice before he decided it would be ok to walk around and explore a little bit.  :)

I think his favorite toy turned out to be the hula hoops, he loved watching them spin around on the ice after he would throw them.

After Totsicles we went to a local playground and had a blast.  L had a great time climbing and going down the slides (he absolutely loves slides now).  He ended up splashing through quite a few puddles as well so we were really glad we remembered his change of clothes haha.

Beautiful Weather

We've been having some awesome weather lately so we've spent the past two days outside.  We've been in the backyard and at the park.  I haven't snapped a whole lot of pictures because I'm usually in a mud puddle or climbing playground equipment behind my little guy.  :)  L has discovered that he loves streams and mud.  There's a stream in our backyard that he's been playing in, he loves to throw rocks into it and watch them splash!  Almost every time we have gone to the park we have ended up in the creek and L LOVES it!  I get in with him and we walk down the stream for quite a ways.

He also loves slides.  Not the baby slides though, the big kid slides.  I love that we taught him to go feet first on his belly when getting down from anything and he's applied that concept to slides.  He can go down any slide no matter how big that way and he loves it, no slide is too scary.  :)  Of course he also loves dirt and mud, what kid wouldn't?  Yesterday he found a huge mud hole and walked all around in it splashing until he was covered in mud from head to toe!  His face lit up with pure excitement and delight, I've never seen a more content kid.  He also played around a little in the dirt, digging and throwing it.

I'm so glad he loves being outside because so do I!

Messy Fun!

We've been really busy around here lately!  It seems that we never slow down with a walking toddler in the house.  :)  A few days ago we put shaving cream in the sensory bin.  It was fun for a minute or two but L wasn't a fan of the way it felt so he quickly lost interest.

We also played a matching game.  L had a great time with this and he really impressed me with how quickly he figured it out!  I placed all of our pots on the floor and I put their lids on the floor with them.  L is really into putting lids on things so I knew he would love this.  He went to town placing all the lids on the different pots!  After he figured out which lids went to which pots he experimented a little with putting smaller lids into larger pots and then putting the lids on over them.

We put glow sticks in balloons one night and the balloons glowed!  L had such a great time running around grabbing different glowing balloons and throwing them in the air.  Unfortunately since it was a night time activity I wasn't able to capture a good picture, but we had a blast!  L was able to have his first painting experience and boy was it fun!  I put down sponges and a small paint brush but he chose to paint with a fork ( he has a slight obsession with kitchen utensils :P.)  He was completely covered in paint by the time he was finished and I took him straight to the bath haha.  We have framed his first painting and hung it in our living room.

Today my husband got a snow day and I really wanted to take L outside to play in the snow but we're fighting off lingering colds so we decided to just put green sand in the sensory bin instead.  We're starting to get a little festive for St. Patrick's Day haha.  L had a blast in the sand and he's starting to get into the scooping and pouring stage so this was the perfect activity for him!