Everything looks fun to a toddler, even building a patio.

I've been working on digging out a patio. With all of the dirt I've removed, I've filled all of the raised garden beds. I created an area for strawberries. Now, I'm scattering dirt between some sprouting spring flowers (Tulips? Daffodils? It's a surprise!). Jo decided to help spread some of the dirt by playing in it.

We're not ready for patio stones yet, but we decided to purchase them over the weekend because Home Depot had a sale on them: 88 cents each! They looked like a lot of fun to Jo.

She's kind of cute, and definitely funny to watch.
                       

Rainy Day Painting!

I discovered this fun idea from Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/pin/216383957068769139/. 
It comes from the Little Page Turners blog.

I've been waiting for a rainy day to give the project a chance because it looks promising. Today, once the hail stopped, I jumped on the chance to get outside to "paint." It was going to be a toddler activity until the last minute when I realized Jo is too little to do drops of food coloring.

Oliver was very excited to do the drops. I have all of our craft supplies packed up, so I improvised and used sandpaper instead of card stock. Oliver made a few drops of yellow and blue on the sandpaper.

He was a little reluctant to go outside, so he held his out to catch the rain drops. It wasn't really getting wet, so I coaxed him outside to lay it down on the porch (It's cluttered out there because we're cleaning out the storage shed! The worst of the mess isn't even in the photo...).

A few drops hit the paper, and then the rain stopped.

It was too slow of a transformation to keep Oliver interested. He definitely wanted to do more drops, though. He went outside and added a little red. We didn't get any more rain, but the colors slowly leaked from the paper getting a little damp.

I guess we had the opposite problem from Little Page Turners. She said their paintings only took 1-2 seconds to run together. She wished it had been longer! Here in the dry West, I guess it takes more like 20 minutes. Ha!

It didn't end up being the fun activity I'd hoped for, but I want to try it again one day. We usually get a week of good rain at the end of July, so we'll attempt this activity again then!

Rain?!

It's 9:50pm on April 30.

I was painting the back door. I noticed the windows were getting spotty, and I got all annoyed. "What is this?" I thought. "I just cleaned those!" That's when I realized it was rain. I'm such a dork.

Finally, on April 30, we got an April shower.

For a fleeting moment, I thought, "Yes! We can finally do the rain project I've been waiting for!" And then I remembered the kids are asleep, and we can't.

The rain should turn to snow in a few hours, and then it is supposed to snow all day tomorrow. At least we're getting moisture, I suppose!

Jumping in Indoor Puddles

I was so excited for rain today! I had a rainy day activity planned for the kids. This morning, I checked online and confirmed the forecast: rain starting at 2pm and continuing all afternoon.

I put Oliver and Jo down for nap time/quiet time at 11am, and I gathered up supplies for my planned activity. Then, I poured myself a mug of coffee, sat down on the computer, and went back to weather.com to confirm the rain would still start on schedule.

Nope.

The updated forecast calls for an hour or two of rain starting at 6pm. Six! I am disappoint.

So, I changed our fun plan for the day. It's not exactly an activity for young toddlers, but it looked promising for Oliver and preschool-aged kids. I got the idea from a pin from Melissa & Doug on Pinterest. The pin, which you can view here, shows some little girls jumping on construction paper puddles indoors. There's no information about that activity that I can find, but it looked simple enough to figure out.

I taped some paper "puddles" to the floor and waited for Oliver and Jo to get up for the afternoon.

The puddles fascinated Oliver. I showed him how to jump from puddle to puddle. He started jumping and bouncing and counting puddles.

This is a solid rainy day activity for preschool kids, even though it wasn't exactly a rainy day. Keep this activity in mind the next time you're stuck inside all day. It's a good way to burn some energy indoors!

It's Raining; it's Pouring

While in Chicago, Oliver enjoyed his first big rainstorm. It rained all night, every night we were there.

Pitter Patter

We barely made it through the first rain of the season.

So Bailey thinks, anyway.

Andrew and I fell asleep around 6:30 last night, we were so tired. Some time after that, it started to rain. I'm assuming the rain kept me asleep all night, until Bailey woke us up at 1am from her fear of the thunder. When it storms, she shakes violently, and no amount of cuddling or petting or playing will help. When she'd settle down enough, we'd fall back asleep, only to be reawoken later.

Her strategy to wake us up? Sit on our faces. I kid you not. She focused particularly on Andrew, which I find pretty funny. I'd wake up every couple of hours to hear, "Get off my face." Poor Andrew. Poor dog.

Andrew took her to the bathroom in the middle of the night, which allowed me to sleep in. I slept until 9:30am! Sleeping 15 hours was the greatest feeling, ever. When I finally woke up completely, I put on a light jacket and took Bailey out into the rain. There's nothing like listening to raindrops on my hood or watching the rain hit the pond.

Bailey has taught me to hate the thunder (whenever I see lightening flash, I immediately think, "Oh crap, I've got to get home to the dog!"), but nothing will teach me to hate the rain! I'm a bit disappointed it's stopped, but it's nice to have all the ducks and birds out again.