Practice Snow and Hadley at 28 months

On one of our regular trips to the local elementary school playground, we came across some random piles of snow!  The kids were so excited.  Hadley played until the snow soaked through her mittens, but Owen stayed near the ice/snow piles the entire time we were at the playground.  I'm not sure where the snow came from, since we hadn't had any and temps were in the upper 40s, but some of the local kids even brought their sled and let Owen go down the ramp a couple of times.  Me?  I'll wait for the real stuff, which is coming soon enough.

For indoor entertainment, the kids have finally gotten into Legos.  Hadley's still on the bigger blocks, but Owen loves building cars with the smaller, original version.  They are a good activity before bed and keep them quietly occupied for quite a while!

I've begun to notice some OCD/engineer qualities from Hadley.  For example, one day I gave them some fruit salad with their lunch, and I realized she had sorted everything out, including her crackers and lunchmeat.  Poor girl never had a chance!

I also wanted to document some current Hadley-isms that make me smile:

• "beppas" - breakfast
• "Happy Ween!" - Halloween
• "Yaygos" - Legos
• "I do!" and raising her hand when something agreeable has been suggested 
• "I wanna turtle, Mom" - I want to color, Mom
• "It's dark outside!" - every night at dusk
• "I sleep all night!" - comment to everyone when she waits until her clock is green in the morning (at acceptable time to holler at us)
• "pizza" - zebra
• "rie heeya" - right here, with a Jersey accent
• "move!" - when someone is obstructing her path, we are still working on following that with "please" or "excuse me" :)

And some notable behavior:

• She is very gentle with the younger babies in boot camp and often pets their heads 
• She is also a great cleaner-upper even singing herself a song while she does it
• When she gives an adamant "no!", it is sometimes accompanied with a "talk to the hand" hand
• Sometimes she shushes me when I'm singing to her at night, complete with a finger to my lips
• She can also be argumentative just for grins.  Like when I ask her "what's this?" and point to a picture of a zebra, she'll say "jaff" (giraffe) with a big smile on her face. I'll say, "no, what is it?" and she'll say more energetically, "Jaff!" with a laugh. Repeat until I break first.  
• When we do a block puzzle, she'll ask "Where does this go?" when she already knows, just to get your participation.  And she'll playfully try to put it in wrong places to draw it out, "Does it go here?", "Here?", smiling all the while.
• Often when we get in the car on a clear day, she'll declare "It stopped raining!", which makes Owen say, "It wasn't raining.  It didn't stop.  It's just not raining!"  Then Hadley says, "Yeah, it stopped raining."  Owen escalates, "It wasn't raining!"  This can go on for a long time, until I change the subject.  I think she likes to get a rise out of him.  Should be real fun in a few years!
• She likes going to MOPS!  It's like a mother's day out twice a month.  I let her take her backpack, and she's ready to say good-bye in the parking lot!  It's quite a change from last year, when she cried enough that they would have to bring her back to me every time.