Pigtails and Playing in the Snow

Mary Kate is now able to wear "real" pigtails that actually stay in for most of the day. They don't look too good after naptime and we usually end up taking them out when she wakes up. We think the piggies make her look older and I can't believe she's going to be two years old in just three short months!

She recently re-discovered the fun of tossing her plate off the table when she is done with her toast (she only does it when she has toast...we're not sure why?). It's a trick she did for a while and then stopped. Needless to say, I'm not thrilled that it's back in her repertoire of mealtime behavior. Now she eats her toast on a napkin instead of a plate.

In case you haven't heard, we've been having what folks around here are calling "a real Minnesota winter." I call it a real pain in the butt because it involves bundling up two children in multiple layers of clothing and outerwear whenever we need to go anywhere.

This winter's temperatures have been particularly frigid, with many below zero days that make it pretty hard to get outside play time. So, when it warms up to a balmy 15 or 20 degrees, we head outside for some fun in the snow. This weekend we had a heat wave and actually hit 25 degrees, so the kiddos got to play outside with a few less layers. Mary Kate even ditched her hat for a few minutes to help Ethan fill sand buckets with snow. Ethan wears his snowshoes pretty much constantly when he's outside...as you can see. And he's taken to wearing a pair of my old fleece gloves. He says he likes the fingers in mine because "it's easier to hold stuff." I guess the kid needs some gloves of his own instead of mittens.