I’ve come to the conclusion that Legos are going to be a very expensive hobby!!

The boy, now 6, is finally old enough that we’ve given in to his request for Legos and he received several Lego things for his birthday and is hoping for more for Christmas. After bday shopping online and online wishlist browsing with Little Prince, I just have one thing to say — yowza! Legos are expensive! Especially the Star Wars Legos. Ay ay ay. I guess we’ll just be amassing a Lego collection little by little over the next few years.

On the other hand, Little Prince is very mechanically minded.. he likes to construct and build things. He has an enormous imagination and he is very creative. Legos are toys that also exercise his mind and keep his hands busy. It’s worthwhile, right?

For his birthday on Monday, Little Prince received a 300 piece Lot of miscellaneous Legos, a Star Wars ship kit, and a few Star Wars Lego minifigures. It’s a small start. So I sat down with Little Prince and browsed Amazon to get an idea of other Lego things he’d like to have. Of course, they call Wish Lists “WISH lists” for a reason, right? So of course Little Prince’s wish list is chock full of lots of things to wish for. < insert obvious Amazon links now. > ; )

Oh boys and their big dreams! = p Little Prince won’t get all of that for Christmas… but we can probably add to it a little bit. I definitely do want to get more Legos, though. It’s something that all three kids are having fun playing with TOGETHER. “Together” is always good!!

The last few weeks have been very busy!!

Two weeks ago we went down to my parents’ house and helped them pack and move back up here.. we also helped them unpack and settle in quite a bit over the next few days.

Over that weekend, I watched my sister in law walk across the stage as she graduated with her Master’s Degree. Yay!

This past week we worked on staying busy with our school and getting our house back in order from all the traveling and back and forth and running around. We still have six more weeks of school but we’re going to have work hard to make sure that we stay on track and finish strong.

Yesterday I house and puppy sat for my parents all day and that being AFTER running several of my errands and doing several of my own chores. It’s been busy. (And I’ve got lots to blog about!)

Seeing the need to get back on the bandwagon as much as I did, last week Big Daddy issued a challenge to the kiddos. A challenge with a reward. (In other words.. bribery.)

Big Daddy challenged the girls to get their school work done by 3 each day (also for Princess to not whine about her math and Drama Queen to not whine about writing) and he challenged our son to clean his room-disaster a little each day and get it cleaned up by Friday at 3 (and kept clean if it got clean before then.) That was the challenge. What was the reward?

Home made ice cream! As my mom was unpacking and purging, she gifted us with an ice cream and frozen yogurt maker that she had rarely used. The kids were very excited about this new prospect. Their reward for working hard (and working together — if anyone fell behind they all lost the reward) would be home made ice cream and getting to pick their own additives to stir in.

Did it work? Did they make it?

You betcha! The girls and I did have to pitch in and help Little Prince get his room clean. But I’m okay with that because I like promoting helping each other and working together. And the girls?? They had NO PROBLEM getting their work done on time. I’ve never seen them work so quickly. Huh. Bribery Works. Imagine that. ;0)

Issues with bribery aside, I’ve decided that I kinda like this idea. It reminds me of a lullaby my mom sang to us, and I sang to my own kids:

“Twenty froggies went to school, down beside the rushing pool, twenty little coats of green, twenty vests so white and clean. We must be on time said they, first we study, THEN we play…”

This week I issued a new challenge to the kids, with the promise of a family reward on Saturday if we complete it. This time they picked a special family movie night – rented movies, hot dogs, popcorn and home-made cherry limeades. I think, sometimes, one of the challenges of homeschooling (one of the same challenges with housework) is that it just seems to go on and on and it’s easy to feel a bit monotonous sometimes. We all need to learn the ability to self-motivate, to push forward, and also to break up the monotony when we need to. We also need to spend time together and celebrate our hard work and successes. So we’ll try this for a while and see if we like it.

And in the meantime — bribery works.

Photo Credit: Some rights reserved by gordonramsaysubmissions

I was already ‘set’ for Mother’s Day — spending it with my Mom, helping them pack to move back to our home town. It will be a joy to have more free babysitting them close again. No issues with leaving and cleaving here, my Hubs is definitely my numero uno, but the older I get the closer my mom and I get. Before they moved away, we’d meet at the coffee shop on Saturday mornings sometimes, or we’d get together to color each other’s hair, you know, GIRL STUFF. After they moved we had to replace coffee shops and hair coloring with Facebook and Skype – which works but isn’t as nice as getting together in person. On the other hand, after they moved, my mom and I talked on the phone a lot more than we used to – my mom has never been a big phone talker. So there’s that.

After several years, circumstance, and God, is bringing them back and we’re all looking forward to it. So here I am, packing and bringing home my/her/our Mother’s Day present. =p

So I really didn’t need anything else. Really. I’m all set.Happy as a clam.

Wait — a Kindle?? Did you say a Kindle? I’m not going to turn down a Kindle! This is like, the icing on the cake, the cherry on the sundae. It’s super cool and I already love it! I’ve been wanting one for a very long time. I used to LOVE to read, I read lots and lots, I went through books and books. Somewhere in the middle of baby-raising I got out of the habit but it’s been creeping back in. I’ve been reading more and more. And I want to read even more! I had already downloaded Kindle for PC and downloaded 150 free books, mostly classics. No. Really. A hundred and fifty. Two. How long is it going to take me to read 152 books? I dunno, but now I can find out.. a whole lot easier than I could find out trying to read them on the laptop.

And any new toy is even better with accessories, right? I already have a Skin and a Leather Case shipped and headed to my house — they’ll be there when I arrive back in town with my parents in tow. Yippee!!

I’m not sure if I’ve squeezed in enough exclamation points yet.. here are some more!!!!

And yes, you may roll your eyes at me, I even downloaded a few free games (and two inexpensive ones.) Between a few kid books and the games, the Kindle is helping to occupy my oldest two a little as we continue to pack, pack, pack. (My dad gives this Kindle a lifespan of about two weeks, but I think we can keep it around a bit longer than that – don’t you think??)

And all the while, Big Daddy is back home taking care of my chickens and collecting eggs for me and fixing our hot water heater. I am a blessed woman. I do love that man. =) And my mom. =) And while we’re at it, my kids’ too. Oh, and I can’t forget my dad, I suppose. Wouldn’t want to leave him out.

Maybe the ice cream and oreos are flowing a little too freely around here and I’ve got Sugary Sweet running through my veins..

We’ve got two more days of packing and then we’re headed Home. What does this week have in store for you? What did YOU do this weekend? More importantly, do you have a Kindle? And books or sites to recommend?

Call me crazy. Go ahead, you wouldn’t be the first. My own family thinks I’ve gone off the deep end. Maybe I have. ; )

I am now a proud owner of six chickens!

And I like it. =p

A little over a week ago, Big Daddy went and picked up six laying hens and a temporary pen from a friend of ours who was cutting back on his chicken flock. Yeah, that’s right, no rooster! At this point we don’t want any baby-makin’ going on so we don’t really need one. Plus, the roosters are the noisy ones. And my hens are actually quite quiet.

The kids are fascinated by them; they argue over who gets to collect the eggs. I love that I get to feed them some of my scraps and not feel so wasteful. (There’s always some bread crusts or apple peels or SOMETHING left on somebody’s plate!) And most of all, of course, I love the fresh eggs!!

My only “complaint” is that we’re not getting enough eggs yet. After a move it can take a week or two for the hens to settle back into a laying routine and after several days of one or two eggs, we’ve had several days of 3 or 4. I’m hoping we get into a routine of 4-6 eggs each day. That would be nice. Otherwise I may need to get more chickens. =p

A year and a half ago, three children bought their first aquarium, with much glee and joy and silly fish-naming. The three children loved their betta fish and three zebra danios, and their relationship began with much adventure.

One of the three magic-lucky-disappearing-reappearing Danios did eventually pass on and the rest of the happy go lucky fish found new friends through one dwarf guarami, one aquatic frog, one sea snail and one male fancy guppy. They all got along swimmingly,… except for the frog who immediately.. CROAKED.

The sea snail quickly became the family favorite. He was so intriguing to watch as he quickly sped over ever tank decoration, to see the way his body folded around the molded shapes, to know that he was helping to keep the tank clean and make less work for Mommy. Alas, one day a few months later, the sail suddenly died without warning. … It was a sad day.

After some passing of time, about six months after their fish adventure began, the Mother took them back to the store to replace the frog, the snail, and another one of the Danios who disappeared from the tank one day. The Mother found it most odd that each of the small fish simply disappeared from the tank when their time was up, so much for fish floating belly up and all that.

The excited children returned home with MUCH glee, two fruit tetra and a fiddler crab! Oh they were so excited about the fiddler crab. Imagine their shock when their new fiddler crab, Mr. Crabs, seemed most inclined to climb the fake plants and try to catch the betta fish or fruit tetras as they swam by!! The children were much alarmed, but the Mom was quick on her feet as she removed the fiddler crab to a small bowl of water and quick with her fingers as she turned once again to The Mighty Google. “Tell me, great Google, will the fiddler crab eat my fish?” “Indeed he may,” replied the google “If they are small and not fast enough to stay away from him. Alas, you should also know, that fiddler crabs are not truly meant to live in freshwater aquariums.” And thus, Mr. Crabs embarked on his own journey, full of it’s own excitement and much educational science fun.

The fish lived happily together for a long time, and would have lived together much longer, if during the following Christmas while the family was away, the power had not gone out, and the fish had not suffered fatally from hypothermia. It was indeed a sad return from Christmas vacation, but the children held themselves together remarkably well (as by this point they indeed understood, such is the cycle of fish life.) Even so, there was one happy thought amongst the sadness for it seemed that once the heat was restored, the Danio had survived!

Once again the Mother returned to the store with her small children in tow. Once again they returned home with a betta fish and four fancy male guppies. Make that FIVE fancy male guppies! The store clerk AND the cashier AND the Mom had been fooled by two identical guppies in the plastic bag!! The family was nervous at first, for the danio did not seem to pleased to share his space. Soon, however, he accepted them and the fin-nipping ended. The children were happy to have found a good family of fish that would not eat each other!

Many months passed. The fish lived. The children began to bore. Apparently when the fish are living and there is no need to replace the fish there is no “new” to entertain. Still the mother liked the fish and wanted to keep them. As winter turned to spring and spring careened into summer, the weather grew hot and miserable, for the family lived in a land that was hot and miserable like the Sahara desert but not.

Perhaps it was the summer heat, perhaps it was simply their time to go. One by one the fish disappeared. The children hardly noticed. The mother watched them dwindle down at last to only just one.

The danio.

That ever-lasting danio! The mother had surely gotten her two dollars worth out of that little fish. For the final week he swam alone, all alone in his five tank. Until one day.. he died.

And then there were none. The fish tank cycling water for fish that weren’t there. No one mourning his loss but the Mother. “Perhaps if we’d moved the tank to an air conditioned room, even though he’s a warm water fish? Perhaps if I’d been more diligent about adding fresh water as it evaporated more quickly in the summer heat? Perhaps, perhaps,… Perhaps he simply had lived as long as he could, after a year and a half of surviving a score of mis-adventures.”

“Will we get more fish?” The children asked?

“Perhaps one day,” the Mother replied. “Perhaps just a betta in large fish bowl.” The Mother likes the Bettas.

{You can click on any of these pictures to see it bigger — except the last one, which is at full size. Enjoy our snow day, we did!}

Click on this too see it really big!!

This post is happily submitted to Wordless Wednesday at 5 Minutes for Mom.