Just a bunch of random stuff

I'm trying to remember to teach the kids practical stuff this year so instead of yelling at them to stay away from my sewing machine the other day when I was making something I decided to let them try it out.  They loved it!  Jack knew exactly what he wanted to make: 8 white rectangles with 9 red hearts over them sewn into a necklace.  That's just what he did and as soon as he finished it he told me that he made for his friend Eduardo's mom and he grabbed his coat and ran across the street to give it to her.  I never did talk to her about what she thought about it...

Another thing we are trying to get better at is teaching our kids some responsibility and ownership for our home.  I'm reading "The Entitlement Trap" right now and I totally agree with everything in that book about kids today feeling like they are entitled to a free ride and a mother who caters to their every desire.  Plus I'm getting really sick of following behind them cleaning up their little tornado messes.  So far their chore charts are still a novelty and so they are doing awesome at keeping up with the house.  We'll see how it goes when the satisfaction of putting an X in the box isn't enough anymore.

Charlie is obsessed with John right now.  There was a time not so long ago that Charlie was all mine and we enjoyed a special connection, but not anymore.  I don't understand him and I get pretty annoyed with his little path of destruction.  But thankfully he has his dad and his dad gets him.  He spends every moment that Johns in the house perched up on his shoulders, or in this case sprawled on his back while he tries to do his push ups.  Every moment that John isn't in the house he spends at the window calling his name waiting for him to come back.   

Jack has been spending a lot of time building little gum-drop tooth pick structures.  After we ran out of gum-drops he started into the marshmallow supply.  Some of his designs are pretty amazing.  Today he made one with marshmallows that looked exactly like a molecular model of carbon dioxide.  My little organic chemist.

 

With all the new toys that came with Christmas the kids favorite thing to play with are still the blocks we got for Charlie's birthday back in November.  I agree, for some reason big foam blocks are just so much fun. We make all kinds of games with these, this one is called play dead while your brother buries you and then suddenly come back to life scaring him to death.  It's really fun.