Building, organizing and fingerpainting

I've been trying to organize/structure/vary Elle's toys and activities a bit more lately - now that Wesley isn't nursing 24/7 (you know, more like 20/7), I try to spend as much one-on-one time with Elle when he's napping. And since I've spent a lot of time at home in the last few weeks and we just got an influx of new toys for Elle's birthday, the overflowing mounds of toys were on my last nerve.

I knew that a lot of the toys she had weren't being played with often because the pieces were scattered or she'd forgotten she had them, so I set out to purge, regroup and make sense of what we have. I've also been enforcing a "put it back before you get something else out" rule so things stay a bit tidier, but I am not delusional - I know that the toys will be all over the place at times. But still, it brought me some calm and satisfaction, so I'll take it. I totally rocked the toy reorganization - she "helped" me build the bookshelf that we used to house most of the toys:

She's big on Handy Manny right now. Her attention span isn't so hot, though, so she frequently left our project and came back to it as she deemed appropriate. Wesley hung out in a wrap on my chest as I assembled it, so technically he helped more than her ...

But as part of my quest to break out new, fun things, I brought out some finger paints for her to play with, and they were a hit. At first she was a bit timid, but soon she was a color-mixing fool. She had a blast - the more color, the better. She's always loved coloring and chalk, but the paint is definitely a new favorite as well.