Construx

Kevin hauled out his old Construx for the boys to play with--do they still make these?? Anyway, with Lego's and blocks overflowing in the basement, and K'nex and tinkertoys everywhere in their bedroom (WE HAVE TOO MANY TOYS!) the only place left for ANOTHER building toy...the main floor. For days the boys were building spaceships and planes and all sorts of things. Then, Josh decided to build the longest thing. From the kitchen table, through the kitchen, and down the stairs. They were so proud =)







From Wikipedia:
"Construx was a brand of plastic building toys introduced by Fisher-Price in 1983. Unlike other building toys such as Lego, Construx featured beam-like pieces of varying lengths that snapped on to cubical connector knots in order to build large shapes. These were relatively secure even though no nuts or bolts were used. Panels allowed assembly of flat surfaces. Hinges, motors, wheels, and other movable parts expanded the number of different shapes that could be built, and made moving creations possible. Construx was discontinued in 1988, briefly revived by Mattel in 1997, and then discontinued again."

Fish and Choo Choo

On father's night one of the games was fish races- with goldfish. The next day at school Josh's teacher told them they could take some fish home. Obviously Josh loved that! But Zeke was the one who was so excited, every time he came into the kitchen he was all "fish! fish! fish!" Very cute. Zeke is also obsessed with his Thomas pajamas- both pairs. He does not want to take them off in the morning, and if he finds them during the day he brings them to us saying, "choo choo! choo choo!" and wants to put them on right away.

Father's Night - three years in a row!

Preschool father's night was last night, the theme this year was Hawaii. Here are a few pictures.

I must admit, I laughed so hard when I saw this first picture. Josh's laughter and Kevin's expression are awesome- and to make it even better is the dad and son looking on wishing they were as cool as Josh and Kevin!

Kevin and Rachel's Guide to Lego Bliss

Since birthdays and Christmas our very small basement, and house, has been overrun with Lego's. They are everywhere, and Lego castles/cars/etc. were constantly being destroyed. The eldest child enjoys following the instructions and building the designs. The middle child enjoys building his own thing that he can play with wherever. The smallest, a.k.a. the destroyer, likes to play with everything that gets built, but his little hands are too rough. We needed help- too keep it clean and to keep fighting at a minimum. Here are the steps that helped us find Lego Happiness:

1. Find the problems and discuss solutions.
2. Wait. We had found all sorts of "organizational" tools that we wanted to purchase.
3. Use what you have! (Desk organizers, tupperware, cleaned out whip cream containers- these are what we used to organize. Train table and bookshelf turned on its side are our building tables, and an old TV entertainment center is the shelves for the buckets AND a wall.)
4. An obvious one- separate by color. Then builders can still build, follow instructions, and everyone is old enough to put the colors in the right bin.
5. Designate a specific area for lego playing and building, and make this area for boys 4 and up.
6. Make the area fun and accessible-- we talked about putting all the legos up in the bedroom. But our kids like to be by us and tend to play with one thing and then move on to another.
7. No rough housing in the lego area! Yes there was a fall and everything broke.
8. Make sure the older boys don't teach the younger one how to get in! (crawl behind the couch!)
9. Know that some lego will still get out and end up all over the house.
10. HAve a husband who loves to play lego too and will spend hours in there rebuilding broken castles!

By blocking off a corner of the basement, Zeke can't get to the legos- but he can still hear and talk with his brothers. The little window in the entertainment center is PERFECT for him. He can still play with some lego, but he can't get to the big stuff and destroy it. Money spent on this lego corner: $0.00

Everyday life

A typical morning for us is me constantly telling Josh to get dressed. The other morning he was FINALLY dressed and came into the kitchen to show me that he was indeed dressed. The picture shows him smiling, but the truth is he came walking in as if everything was normal. I am sure you can understand why we call him backwards boy! (He actually does this quite a bit...)





Photos of us picking up Sam from the bus stop (the stop that is waaaaay too far from the house!). Sam and Josh also insisted on walking through the snow- which was funny because they also complained of being cold and tired!

Big Brother Love--Playing nicely!