Random Things to Remember

 One day I came upstairs to find this.....!

(Yes, that is underwear on their heads)

 Caleb took a science class at Waco and this is his balloon rocket.

 This is his paper rocket.

 Brother Bob brought his motorcycle to a picnic and gave the kids rides.

 This is a photo from the Pinewood Derby- belated.

Adam won 2nd place. Thanks to Aunt Michele for the photos.

Having Fun Late Winter 2012

Pictures of random fun things we've been doing lately....

There have been a lot of puzzles lately- especially with Ethan, Adam and Daddy. Here is one about birds.

The weather has been conducive to more nature hikes. I'm not sure what Ethan is intending to do with his wood....

We find these sometimes but don't know what they are. Its a seed pod of some sort about the size of a walnut but you can crush it in your hand and it looks like this. 

Climbing

"Take a picture of me, Mom!"

My kid who likes painting the best.

The baker making brownies for Teatime

The brownies

Teatime photos

Another puzzle- Neuschwanstein.

Funny Story

So, the lego building around here is really on the upswing (and it is pretty intense to begin with) but Ethan got a Lego idea book  for Christmas and so he is on a lego mission. They were working on something today and were talking at lunch about all of the stuff they would build if they just had MORE legos! I was incredulous and Ethan said, "Mom, I know we have a lot of kits but not so many just regular legos to build new stuff". So I suggested they look for bulk legos for sale on ebay. Everyone scurried upstairs to see how much money that they  had in their "spend" container. I showed them how to search for bulk legos and then how to organize the results so that the cheapest came up first. Sure enough, there was an auction for 300 legos for $.99. They were so excited! So, I showed them how to make a bid. And then they would periodically check back and found out that they had been outbid. If I was a really, really effective mom, I would have kept my mouth shut and let them learn on their own but before I could help myself, I advised that they wait until tomorrow in the last few minutes of the auction and then bid to avoid driving up the price prematurely. Caleb understood that this would take patience but the other two did not understand waiting at all yet they decided to wait until tomorrow to increase their bid. After all of this, I went in their room and there is this HUGE pile of legos in the floor. And I said, "I thought you said you didn't have any legos to build with?" And one of them said, "They are just not the kind that we need..."
Hmmmm. I think the value may be in the economics of situation and not necessarily getting something that they NEED but it's their money. We'll see how it goes.....

Girls Day

This is Aliyah and Kiersen. They are my friends and they are making gingerbread men cookies with me.

 This is us with the gingerbread men- decorating them.

 This is us painting.

 This is Aliyah with my fancy dress on that I wore for Halloween.

It was a fun day!

We're Bored.....

So, it's snowing. Half your kids are bouncing off the walls and the other half are sick (you know, the half that could play with the ones bouncing off the wall.) Inevitably, your kids will inform you that they are bored. What to do?

1. Nothing- being bored occasionally is part of childhood and a good stimulant for creativity.

But if that isn't working....

2. Shovel snow- hah!

3. Make Valentines.

4. Do a Puzzle

5. Play games.

6. Make paper dolls. Also, there are tons of websites out there that have free paper dolls.

7. Make story characters to narrate books that you are reading. Check this and this out!

8. Take all of your legos, playmobil and rokenbok and make a huge city.

9. Make a mini-office lapbook.

10. Snuggle up with a good book to read aloud.

This is just really our list of things to do today, by the way. We'll see how it goes....