Occupation Day, the Back Story

The boys had occupation day at school this week, and they were asked to dress up like what they wanted to be when they grow up.

Adam started out saying he wanted to be a builder, but not a person that builds houses, a person that builds rockets and jet planes.  He continues to talk about building a rocket that can take us to heaven to see Grandma Patty and will take us to outer space.  Then he changed his mind and decided he wanted to be someone that fights bad guys and shoots guns, so naturally a police officer was his choice.  Adam is a brave boy, who is filled with courage when it comes to bad guys!  In fact, the other day I was telling Lucas that if a stranger came up to him, just to yell, NO! STRANGER!  To which he replied, "or I could just yell for Adam and he could beat up the bad guys and save me."  Lucas has full confidence in his little brother's hero abilities :) 

Adam's everyday play includes being a Jedi fighting bad droids and sith lords, being a cowboy putting bandits in jail, or just bad guy fighting in general.  He uses light sabers, swords, guns, bows, or any other weapon he can get his hands on.  If this boy didn't have such a sweet heart, I would be worried about the constant talk of violent acts against bad guys!   He made an awful cute police officer for his dress up day at school, but he had to leave all his weapons at home.

Lucas has been watching a lot of Duck Tales (with Scrooge McDuck). Scrooge is rich and bad guys try to steal his money all the time.  So his desire to be a Scientist Inventor came about from a plot  he came up with to rob a bank in order to be rich.  He insisted that he was going to invent a mine cart with a drill on the front to dig a tunnel underground that would get him and Alayna (Hill) into the vault so that they could steal all the money and be rich.  I tried to deter the idea of stealing by telling him he would be put in jail.  He told me straight faced that I could come see him on visitor's day. 

So after a week of this bank robbing talk, I finally convinced him a better way to become rich would be to continue to invent things and to sell them.  So then his plan became to build a factory and only people who care about him can work in his factory and the rest of the workers will be robots. In the factory he will build his inventions and sell them in order to become rich!  His first invention will be the mine cart and he will sell them to all kids so that they can dig for gold!

He also says he wants to be a genius so I figure a scientist inventor works as a genius too!  Either way I'm loving his current interest in science, factories, how things works, and how things are made.  His other favorite TV show right now is Unwrapped, which is a show about how food is made in factories.

I'm very proud of my two little boys and their big dreams for the future!!

Lucas's Service Project

A couple of months ago, Andy and I noticed the boys were whispering a lot and hiding something from us.  We realized that Lucas was "stealing" money from Andy's change bowl.  He was plotting with Adam for one of them to distract us, while the other one would go and sneak a few coins.    When we confronted Lucas about it he said he was "taking it for the poor."  So with that in mind, we explained that if he wanted money he needed to ask and we would decide if he was worthy at that moment, but in the mean time, the money he had taken and the money that he would "earn" in the coming weeks would go to the poor, just as he intended.

 

So throughout Lent and a few weeks after, he would ask for money occasionally and if he was behaving appropriately, we would give him some coins for the poor.  Around Easter, I told him he needed to decide what kind of poor people he wanted to help.  I explained that there were homeless people, hungry adults and children, sick children, etc.  He said he wanted to help the homeless.  "Mom, I want to give this money to those people Dad is building the house for, since they don't have one to live in".  I then went on to explain that Daddy's clients had the money to pay Daddy for the house that he is building, so they weren't exactly the homeless I was talking about. 

 

Lucas decided he wanted to help hungry children and grown ups.  So I looked for some good learning oppurtunities for him to donate his money that worked with our schedule and a very worthy cause presented itself.

 

The United Way of Southwestern Indiana said the most common request on it's 211 help line in 2012 were requests for food.  Some 20,000 people in Southern Indiana do not have enough food and I recently learned that school social workers are sending food home in backpacks for children to eat over the weekend when they are not at school to be fed.  I'm not sure I have all the numbers exact, but either way I was very surprised.  My employer, Keller Schroeder, is participating in an upcoming food drive sponsored by the United Way and we set a goal to fill 200 bag of groceries to donate. 

 

Lucas took his $4.50 and went grocery shopping.  He and Adam helped me pick out food they thought kids would like.  We got some items kids can cook themselves as well as the bases for some family meals.  His $4.50 clearly didn't cover it, but he handed the cashier his money and he believes he paid for it all.  (We will teach him the lesson on how far a dollar goes another time.) We went home and sorted our groceries for the poor.  Lucas helped me fill our grocery bags and  we talked about how this food would help.  We talked about how his belly feels when he is hungry and how it is harder for him concentrate and be a nice boy when he is hungry.  I asked him to imagine what it would be like if Mommy had to tell him she didn't have any food for him to eat. I think he got it and he was very proud of his bags of groceries.  I'm sure many more of these teaching opportunities will present themselves, but for now I think his first service project was a success.

 

Lucas with his baggie of change.

Lucas with his groceries

Lucas with the bags of groceries

Our Fun Filled Spring Weekend

The boys and I had a three day weekend and we had a blast.  On Friday, we went grocery shopping and Lucas completed his first "service" project.  I will post on that more later this week.  I treated the boys to a little McDonald's and playground fun since it was too cold to play outside.  That evening we had an impromptu pizza party with Abi, Nathan, Amber, and Dena.  I didn't take any pictures because we were having too much fun watching the kids play together and being silly. 

 On Saturday, we did some work around the house, but still had time for a little fun.  Lucas has been wanting to conduct an experiment for some time now and Andy came up with a good one.  The result, the more Mentos you put in the diet coke the higher the fountain. 

Lucas adding one before Daddy added three more.

 

Run!!

Adam stayed back and Lucas couldn't help but check out his handy work while he ran.

That's awesome!

This weekend we also found that a robin built a nest under the boys playground and by the time I found it there was already one egg in it.  I agreed to leave the nest there since there was an egg in it.  While walking the front yard a few minutes later, Adam happened to find another robin's egg in the grass.  We took it to nest, so now we had two eggs.  The next day we came out and found a total of three eggs, and the following day a total of five.  The boys have snacks in the treehouse to keep the eggs company while their Mommy is gone.  They are planning to teach the baby birds to fly.  I keep explaining that the Mommy robin will take care of her babies, but the boys aren't convinced.  Three weeks ago Lucas and Adam made some pine cone bird feeders, so they are 100% sure that this robin was able to have five big, beautiful eggs because she was so strong and healthy from their bird seed.

 I was having a lazy Mom day, so when Adam said he wanted to stay in his PJs all day I let him.  Doesn't every 4 year old, robin hood, light saber wielding Jedi wear PJ's and red crocs.  He is always pretending to be someone and he is always fighting the bad guys :)

On Saturday night, we had a nice dinner at home.  Lucas has taken up bar tending as a hobby.  He made drinks with club soda, grenadine, ski, lemon juice, and cherries.  Yum, Yum!

On Sunday, we  made pancakes, went to church, played outside and took a Rhino ride.  Then we headed over to Paps and Grandmas for dinner with Uncle Chuck.  The boys got to go on their first successful morel hunt.  Both boys found at least one on their own.  Adam was too stubborn to get his picture taken.  Lucas ate several and said they were delicious.

This was only about half of what we did this weekend, but it's the highlights.  I just love this nice spring days and my little family!  So blessed!!

City Museum -- Conquering our Fears

Well, I'm very proud of our little family on this Sunday evening.  We had a fantastic weekend and conquered some of our fears.  We decided on Thursday night that we should take the boys to St. Louis and visit a museum we had heard about, The City Museum.  We had heard it has lots of tunnels and parents crawl through it all with their kids.  So Andy and I thought we were prepared, but little did we know, more on that later.  I am a planner and deciding on Thursday to go out of town on Saturday is not something I'm comfortable with, at all.  I packed light and didn't over think it and we had all we needed and had a great time.  Here is the first fear we conquered... Mommy's fear of not being prepared :)

This museum was amazing and I can't describe it and do it proper justice.  My cousin, Lindsey, is living in STL for a year and she met us at the museum.  She had been before.  We walk by a 14 in x 14 in hole in the floor and she said, "That's the smallest tunnel I've found and I have trouble fitting through that one."    I replied, "People crawl in there, are they supposed to?" To which Lindsey replied, "It the City Museum there are no limits or rules."  At that point, I knew we were in trouble :)

We headed to the first section, which was climbing in some "trees".  The boys both freaked out on us and refused to climb or even walk on the bars, which were the floors between branches.  I thought to myself, we just wasted a ton of money if they aren't going to do this.  Lucas was crying that he afraid of heights and Adam was just clinging to me.  They were truly, afraid.  Andy and I picked them up and walked about 10 feet and started showing them all the little nooks and crannies that they could explore and Lindsey led us down to some underground tunnels.  The boys forgot about their fears and we ended up climbing out that 14 in. X 14 in. opening in the floor before I knew it.  It was scary, tiring and exciting all at the same time.  We climbed in tunnels on the ceiling and caves underground.  We slid down a 10 story slide, inched wormed on our backs, army crawled on our bellies and bruised our knees numerous times. This was all on the first floor!  

We headed outside next and I can't believe what all we did.  About 8 stories up they have a plane suspended in the air.  Of course the boys want to go see the plane.  We climbed up and walked out across jungle gyms pipes to reach the air plane.  Clearly the boys' fear of heights was forgotten, but Andy's not so much.  However, being the awesome Dad that he is, he sucked it up and made it out the plane as well.   To get back to the building the boys picked the scariest part.  They wanted to climb through the arched tunnel that was just metal pipes suspended in the air.  The first time we did this Andy took a separate route and got a fantastic picture of Lindsey, Lucas, Adam, and me climbing through.  We did this arched tunnel a couple of times even!  The boys were super brave and loved it!!

We also enjoyed some play time in Toddler Town and in the Skateless Park.  The boys were officially worn out and Mom, Dad and Lindsey were tired, sore, and bruised.  So we called it a day and we headed to the hotel for naps! 

Andy and Adam going down a slide in the caves.

Lucas found a tunnel in the caves

Boys in skateless park

The boys riding the train in Toddler Town

That's Lindsey, Lucas, Adam, and Me in the arched tunnel coming off the plane's wing.

Here's a close up version and you can see how good the boys are doing climbing up the vertical section!

Family Photo

Adam climbing in a tunnel on the ceiling

The museum was on Lucas Avenue so we had to get a picture!

Adam found a hole to climb out of the wall.

The boys in the plane

Boys pretending to be fighter pilots

We got all cleaned up and headed to dinner.  When Andy and I go to St. Louis for dinner we go to Niche, which is owned by Chef Gerard Craft.  Well, Chef Craft has two little girls about the same age as our boys and he recently opened a family friendly Italian restaurant, called Pastaria!  Lindsey was able to meet us for dinner, too!  Lucas was especially excited for dinner, and even brushed his teeth before we left so that he would look fancy for our fancy dinner :)

The boys both ordered spaghetti (which I tasted and it was fantastic) and chocolate gelato.  They ate like champs and were very well behaved during dinner.  Afterwards we went up the pasta station and the boys were entranced watching the chefs make fresh ravioli.  Lucas talked to them about their sheeter and told them how he like to catch pasta on his arms, too!  We finally had to take the boys outside to watch through the glass so that they would stop bothering the chefs.  From outside the boys took pictures like paparazzi's of the chefs at work.  Andy tweeted the picture and got a response for Chef Craft, which was pretty cool.

The boys watching the chefs.

On Sunday we went to the zoo for a few hours before heading home.  Adam loves watching animals, so it was especially cool when he got to sit next to this chimpanzee and watch him eat  his breakfast.

The boys watching the chimp eat breakfast!

Our weekend was great and we all conquered our fears of heights, confined spaces, and spontaneous trips and had a wonderful family adventure!

Easter

Well, we had a blessed Easter!  We were fortunate enough to get to spend some time with lots of family this Easter.  We visited with Grammy and Papaw on Saturday and spent time with the Blankenberger's/Will's and Taylor's/Rudolph's on Easter Sunday as well.  The boys enjoyed a couple of egg hunts and got some yummy treats and surprises in their Easter baskets!