My son, Sam, is in first grade and their assignment for the Valentine's Day party is to decorate a box to put their Valentines in. Last year, as a first time mom to a school-aged child, I completely forgot about it and he didn't even do a box. We were having a really bad year. So this year, I decided we would do something really fun. Sam loves Herbie the Love Bug and agreed that would be his theme. I got all the supplies together and encouraged him to help me. As it turned out, he was sick this week and never felt like doing much of anything. So here is the box that I made. I'm not passing it off as my son's work. I even told his teacher that I did it and thought I did a great job. Here is Sam with the box, just before I drove it over to his school so his classmates could fill it with Valentines while he was home sick today. He is so proud of the 2 heart stickers he put on for tail lights and the one wheel he cut out.
And to go with the Herbie theme, here is his pinewood derby car (3rd place in his den for speed). His dad did this one - we can't have a 7 year old using a saw, spray painting and using graphite, right?? The pink car belongs to my daughter. She got to race in the sibling race and place 4th out of 26 cars! At some point, maybe they can make their own cars.
An observation from my daughter this morning... she tells me that she thinks she is the healthiest person in our family because the older you are the closer you are to dying.
Yesterday was a snow day for many schools in the Midwest including ours. It is always an exciting day for my 4 year old when her older brother is home from school and she has an all-day playmate. They played all morning and had a great time running through the house making up games while I baked bread.
We took a break from the fun and watched a kids show on PBS about trading up. Some kids started out with a flyswatter and kept trading for better and better items until in the end, they end up with a family 4 pack to a theme park. Sound familiar? Kyle McDonald started with one red paperclip and ended up with a house after 14 trades.
There is something so satisfying about trading something you no longer want and getting something better. The other person gets that same satisfaction. I've traded a toy vacuum cleaner for a beautiful Tommy Hilfiger dress for my daughter. I've traded a bag of flour for a bag of tomatoes - our garden had not produced any enough tomatoes last year and the other person did not have a grain mill. They were both great trades.
My son is jealous of his sister who got a ladybug pillow pet for Christmas. She actually wanted a unicorn. His solution - we took some of his Christmas money and bought a unicorn pillow pet so he can trade her and get the ladybug. That was his idea - he figured he would just get his sister what she wanted and then he could have the ladybug. How sweet is that? They have made their trade and are both sleeping now with their new pillow pets.
