It's the Future, Mom!

Driving in the car with Aaron (7) today, the low gas light came on with a beep, which Aaron recognizes. He said "Uh Oh! We need gas!"  I told him that Dad would get it later, because he has the gas gift card. I have a dislike for filling the van with gas, so I love that my husband usually does it for us.

I asked Aaron if he will get gas for his wife when he's married. He replied, "Yes, I will!  BUT, there might not be gas anymore! It will be the future!"  Cute.  Also cute, by the way, is how he likes to make faces of his letters:

In other news, we are expecting a foot or more of snow tonight and tomorrow. We're excited!  It's been a mild winter here in our part of MI, precipitation-wise. Several storms has stayed south of us. So we're ready and waiting for the Big Storm to actually materialize and give us some real Michigan winter weather!

Tis The Season

The season for Birthdays around our house!  Both Isaac and Aaron have birthdays at the end of November, right after Thanksgiving.  It's tricky planning what presents to give for birthdays and what to give for Christmas. And then plan celebrations at this busy time of year.

We had a party for Isaac on his actual birthday, the Saturday after Thanksgiving.  We've gotten fairly creative with birthdays over the years. One year we did a treasure hunt which the kids loved, and ever since then it doesn't seem a birthday party without one.  Each year we have to try to out-do ourselves!

We also did a photo game this year for the second time.  We came up with 10 different situations that the kids have to do, which then have to be photographed.  Thank goodness for digital cameras!  We used to do this type of game in our youth group when I was young, except then it was called a Polaroid Relay, and we competed in teams.

This year's highlights:

everybody on the roof of the shed

everybody stuffed into the trunk of the car

 

 

duct tape Isaac to the wall

Monday our family went out for dinner to Steak 'N Shake on Aaron's birthday (his restaurant choice, because he loves their mini hamburgers and "the best strawberry shakes"!)

He had a small treasure hunt around the house to get his present; his first own Wii game!

can you tell that he was a little happy?!

And then tomorrow is Aaron's party at Chuck E Cheese, with just 2 best friends. This will be his first "real" party, not shared with Isaac, so he's super excited!  And then birthday week will officially be over and we can start to concentrate on Christmas!

Halloween Fun

Yesterday we hosted a hobo, a hippie, and a glow stick man at the house.

 

 Aaron (almost 7)

These are the coolest costumes! Glow sticks taped with clear packing tape to black clothing.

 

Isaac (almost 12) and friend

Dancing glow stick men!

This is what they look like in the light

And here ...

Noah (15)  Groovy! He played the hippie role way too easily! Far out, man!

I don't usually dress in costume, but I could have been an ice cube, as cold as it got while walking with the kids trick or treating! At least it wasn't raining. Okay, Halloween done, now a new knitting project to start!

Always Be Prepared

You never know when you might need to defend yourself or your family from the bad guys.  So even when doing school work, be prepared!

I love how boys are just born with a natural, God-given desire to protect, defend, provide, and conquer.  It's busy work raising 3 Knights-In-Training!

More Laughs from a Six Year Old

A couple more things that Aaron has said recently that made me laugh.

Yesterday he helped me make cookies (which are somewhat rare around here because they're too hard for this Mom to resist eating!)  While I was cleaning up, I turned from the sink to see Aaron licking spilled sugar off the counter, like a dog, which was funny enough!  But then he told me, "There was so much sugar that I couldn't even taste the counter!"

Later, he declared "I love cookies!  They're my favorite circle thing!"

He's also still calling pirates "Pie-Rips", which cracks me up every time.

Here he is, ecstatic after beating everybody at UNO!  What innocent joy!

From a 6 Year Old's Point of View

Although Aaron, at 6 years old, can certainly try my patience and sometimes irritate every cell in my body, he can also be hilarious and make me laugh.  A few humorous things he's said or done recently . . .

Tuesday night while watching a little bit of American Idol with me, I asked Aaron "do you think you could do that?"  (meaning sing in a competition like AI.)  He replied, "Yea, but I can't go right now, my knee hurts!"  (he actually does have some signs of a good singing voice.)

Aaron has a bad habit lately of hugging Isaac too hard in a way that resembles tackling more than hugging, which bothers Isaac, understandably!   One day after Isaac not-very-gently pushed Aaron away after repeatedly asking him to stop "hugging" him, Aaron got mad and yelled "You just lost a LOT of love!" with his arms stretched out wide to represent just how much love!

Last Saturday we had a great time with our homeschool group, enjoying our own version of Winter Olympics.  One of the competitions was snow ball making.  The Gold went to the person with the biggest snow ball after one minute.  Aaron was so proud of his that he carried it around in his arms for a few minutes and then, after posing for a picture, told me "let's go put this in the van now, to take home!" 

I love the innocence of youth, and how small things are so important.  Wish I could have some of that back sometimes.

Weird Fruit and other Weird Sightings

Do you ever notice some of the strange and/or interesting types of fruit that show up in the produce department at your grocery store? My husband and boys are always very intrigued and feel compelled to buy it, bring it home, and check it out.

Last week, Isaac noticed something new. It's called Dragon Fruit. Also known as Pitahaya or Pitaya Fruit, it's common in Southeast Asia, Mexico, Central and South America, and Israel we discovered after looking it up on the internet. They come in a few different types, the kind we bought was the white variety:



This is what the inside looks like:



It looks almost kiwi-like with the little seeds, and you can scoop out the white fruit with a spoon, kind of like melon. But we found it to be fairly flavorless; not too interesting. To this family of fruit connoisseurs, we don't think it was worth the outrageous price of $3.49. It sure is pretty though!

Another weird sighting around our house (which happens often with 3 boys) . . . Yesterday I found Isaac and Aaron standing by the slide of our swing set, intently watching something and yelling "go! go!" like there was some kind of race. I went out to find that Isaac had spit on the slide, and they were waiting to see how long it took for the spit to reach the bottom of the slide! gross. (but of course, I still had to run inside and grab my camera!)