Toys my children ACTUALLY play with.

Last week I posted about Diego's love of all sorts of building materials. This last weekend my dad came to visit us for the weekend and see Diego perform in his Christmas program. While he was here Diego and "PaPa" played with Legos for hours. Here is a picture of the two of them with the partially finished Lego table that my husband is making. (Hopefully, it will be done by Christmas.)

Diego adores his grandpa so we were so happy that he can visit. An added bonus is that Diego gets to practice his English. Since we only speak to each other in Spanish (Diego and I) it is very strange to hear him speak English. He does speak in English considerably slower than in Spanish but I am always amazed at his large vocabulary and ability to form complete sentences.

The actual toy for this week was Play-doh. Besides blocks, nothing keeps Diego busier than playing with Play-doh. He seriously spent FIVE hours one Saturday morning with his Play-doh. We have a few of the Play-doh tools that you can buy, but generally he just likes to use his hands. Lately, he has been making Play-doh Transformers. He builds them, smashes them, and then "transforms" them into something else. I love to listen to him while he is playing and making up stories about the Transformers. Sometimes we make homemade dough and sometimes I buy it. He refuses to keep the colors separate so we just end up with grey no matter what. Lately, I have let him play with it on the floor since Mateo wants to play also and he can't play at the table without falling or sitting ON the table. We usually end up with quite a mess I think that the amount of time that it keeps him occupied versus the time spent cleaning up is worth it. Here is a picture of Diego one afternoon after preschool in the middle of a two hour play-doh marathon.