Puddin' and Fun

What to do when all creative ideas have been used and it's too cold to go outside???  This is a question that always enters my mind on cold winter days around 3:00 pm. 

I force myself to take the kids out on an outing every morning (no matter how cold or snowy).  So, unless we're practically snowed in, the kids can count on getting out of the house everyday for at least for a few hours.  After our outing, we have lunch, I put Mercedes down for a nap, and then Joshua and I spend a little while doing preschool.  But, when three o'clock rolls around, Mercedes is awake, quiet time is over, and we still have four hours before bedtime.  We don't really have anywhere else to go and the museums are getting close to closing.  Sometimes I am at a loss as to how to entertain the kids.  Somedays we invite the neighbors over to play, other times we build forts and such activities.  On this particular day, I decided to let the kids paint with pudding.  It was a lot of fun, a huge mess, and they thought I was the coolest mom ever!  I was smart and laid down some paper that was large enough to cover most of the table, and I never left them alone with the pudding... that could have been disastrous.   

Mercedes had NO problem jumping right in and exploring her creative side.  She painted herself more than the paper, although I'm not sure if it was on purpose.  She still hasn't quite mastered the whole spoon and fork thing, and as a result she uses both hands to shovel it into her mouth.

Joshua is always a little more careful about getting himself dirty.  I had to talk him into using his hands to finger paint.  He wanted a paintbrush.  But, eventually he did even venture to put some pudding in his hair (which I fully encouraged because sometimes he needs some help in learning how to let loose).

Notice the towel nearby.  There was another one at my feet.

Is that Mercedes under there???

I told Joshua that I wanted a picture of him kissing his sister.  Apparently, that's a disgusting thing to do for even a three year old.

After our pudding adventure (which probably only lasted about twenty minutes anyway), it was into the bath for more playtime with bubbles and toys.  Mercedes is terrified of the bubble maker that I bought them last Christmas, but she does like a good, old-fashioned bubble bath. 

Just as a side note for journal keeping purposes, Joshua has now proven that he does in fact know how to get out of the tub on his own.  For months now, he has insisted that I pick him up out of the tub when it's time to get out.  This hurts my pregnant belly and back and so I have asked him time and time again to try to get out without my help.  He's never been able to do it.  Well, the other day I was bathing Joshua and Mercedes when all of a sudden Joshua leaped out of the tub like a bat out of you know where and ran to the door of the bathroom.  He would have escaped if I had let him, but I don't want his wet feet running on the slippery floor.  He was exclaiming, "Mercedes pooped!  Mercedes pooped!"  I looked at Mercedes, who looked at me quite puzzled and I looked back at Joshua.  I didn't see any poop in the water, I even fished around in the bubbles.  I asked Joshua where this said poop was, and it turned out to be a teeny tiny speck of dirt or something the size of the period at the end of this sentence.  I swear.  SHEESH!  Anyway, needless to say, his cover has been blown.