What's the weather?

Twelve branches. Twelve months. Each day, we wake up, throw open the window blinds and check the skies. Then it's to the Weather Tree we go.

Cloudy days get red leaves
Rainy days get blue leaves
Sunny days get yellow leaves
Snowy days get white leaves
Foggy days get green leaves

Whatever it is when we get up is what we put. Some days, we have three or four weather types, but still, it's what the sky is when the sun comes up.

We're in Oregon. It's January. Surprisingly, our January branch isn't covered in blue leaves. This is proof to my mom who is convinced there's nothing but rain here. See? There's FOUR yellow leaves!

Puzzled?

Puzzles. Kostya has liked puzzles since he was only 18 months old. He was a pro at the little Melissa and Doug puzzles during that age. During a Thomas the Train obsession, the puzzles were put away. They were just reintroduced when my mom was visiting and thought Ivan would like them. She then went out and bought TONS of puzzles from thrift shops for Kostya. This one was very exciting for him because it had a racecar on it. He does about 50% of the work and is SO proud when he's done.

I wish I had more hours in my day to just sit and do puzzles with him all day. I do think when we move, we're going to have a special puzzle "table" that we can put in a safe place when we're not working on it.