May the Fourth be with you, and funny kid stories

Today is Star Wars Day! I had been planning on having a fun Star Wars-themed breakfast, activities, treasure hunt, etc today, but since Buttercup and I are the only ones who like Star Wars these days, I decided to save my brilliant ideas for another day when my awesomeness will be more appreciated. :-) 


(We have watched this video a couple of times today though)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEcjgJSqSRU&ob=av2e


But I do have some things I wanted to document before I totally lose them with the rest of the important things I keep forgetting.  


First up, something funny that happened at the creek last week, after Oliver, Buttercup, and I caught tadpoles. Buttercup got bored after we caught the second round of tadpoles, so she, Theodore and I went to the playground and left Oliver at the creek. There was an overweight boy about 10 years old swinging by himself, and some not-very-nice 7 or 8 year old girls, picking on the boy. (Their moms weren't paying any attention to their behavior, and the boy wasn't my own kid, but what do you do? I didn't say anything to the girls, but I still feel like I should have.) 


After a minute or so, the boy wandered off in the direction of the creek, and I could see him talking to Oliver. Over the next hour, I checked on them every once in a while, but they were having a good old time catching tadpoles and minnows, getting dirty, and just being boys.  When it was time to go home to get ready for dinner, Buttercup, Theodore and I headed back to the creek to collect Oliver. He and his new friend excitedly showed us what they had caught, talked about what they had done, showed me how dirty their shoes were, etc. They were laughing and acting like big, tough boys. 


Then I saw something black on Oliver's arm, and realized it was a tadpole. I said, "Hey, Oliver, you have a tadpole on your arm," and I was reaching for it to brush it off. He looked down, then started screaming like a little girl while frantically wiping his arm to get rid of it, HA HA HA!!!  Oh, I laughed so hard, it was hilarious. Buttercup, the other boy, and I were just dying, we were laughing so hard. I wish I had that on video. He was even jumping up and down while he was screaming. It was so funny!


The next funny thing is something that Buttercup did after lunch one day last week. Every once in a while during a meal, she'll get out of her chair and walk over to me for a hug. On this particular day, she had yogurt or hummus on her arm when she came over to me, and ended up smearing it all over my shirt.  I gave her a big squeeze and said (kind of sarcastically), "Thank you for wiping your food on my shirt."  She looked up at my face, patted my cheek very softly, and said, "You're welcome, Mommy. I love you."  


HA HA HA HA! My sweet, crazy girl.  :-)  

Update

Here's what we've been up to!

Oliver:

He's not really into Star Wars anymore. When he gets to watch TV, lately he's been choosing a show called Man vs. Wild, which is basically a documentary about a man who gets to live out every little boy's dream in each episode -- exploring exotic and dangerous places, diving off of cliffs, swimming through rapids, wearing your underwear like a hat, eating bugs . . . fun stuff. So a lot of his pretend play is centered around that sort of thing. He's also been drawing a lot, making up and occasionally writing his own stories, and sometimes he still builds with Legos. :-) He is reading pretty well these days! He likes the Elephant and Piggie books and easy to read books by Syd Hoff, but he doesn't quite have enough reading stamina to get through one in a sitting. He's working hard though, and we are very proud of him! He's still in swim lessons and he likes them, but the only problem is that his lessons are only taught on Saturday mornings -- and that time just doesn't quite work out for any of us. We'll figure it out though. Another big thing going on with Oliver is that he was selected in the lottery for our first-choice charter school! God is so good. And wow, I can't believe that my first baby is going to be in kindergarten in a few (very) short months. I'm going to need tranquilizers.

Buttercup:

Surprisingly (or not?) she is into Star Wars. When she gets to pick a TV show, she almost always chooses The Empire Strikes Back. (And who can blame her? Hello?!) Her favorite clothes are still boy clothes but lately she's been alternating Oliver's old shirts with girl shirts. And she's also been occasionally playing dress-up in princess dresses! It's strange to see her in a frilly princess dress, but it was bound to happen sometime. :-) We've been to the doctor many, many times in the past month, so Buttercup likes to play doctor and give Big Baby a checkup almost every day. Somehow, I always end up getting a checkup, too, ha ha. She still really likes doing crafts, and one of her absolute favorite things to do is cut paper. Give her a sheet of construction paper, a pair of scissors, and she will go to town cutting that paper into pieces so small that I can't even see them! (Theodore always finds them though.) And my sweet girl is such a big helper. I can't say enough about what a wonderful helper she is. Oliver is motivated to help if he gets something in return, but Buttercup's heart's desire is to help for the sole purpose of helping others. I can see that about her already, and I love that God has given that gift to her! I have a very special job of fostering that gift in her. :-)

Theodore:

He is such a cute, little round boy. He cracks us up all day because he is so adorable! Almost everything he does is cute. If any of us are having an off day, not feeling like ourselves, being a little grumpy, etc. all we need is to have Theodore around and we're smiling again! One of my favorite things is when he makes a motorboat sound, it's so cute! Of course it's not quite as cute when he does it at the table, because he ends up spitting his food out . . . but we're working on that. He is so sweet though. He's been having some trouble settling down at bedtime for the past 2 or 3 weeks. We're not sure if it's because it's still so light in his room at bedtime, or if it's from teething, but either Dennis or I (usually Dennis, thank you Hubby!!) end up going back in his room a few times every night to pat his bottom or rock him until he settles down. Poor little guy, I wish he could tell us what is wrong! He's such a happy guy though, and I can't wait to learn more about his personality and see what gifts and talents God has given him!

Oliver's clone walker

After a brief (very brief!) hiatus from building with Legos, Oliver got back into it again big time this week. He made a couple of police stations, an animal rescue center, and a restaurant. Then, yesterday afternoon he decided that he wanted to draw his own Lego directions for a Star Wars clone walker and then build the model based on his design. :-)

Here he is, with his own directions! Later on he added text to describe the parts of the model, but I was busy with a fussy baby and didn't get a picture of it.


Here's the front of the walker, with a rotating laser cannon and other cool stuff (I can't remember what he called everything).


On the back, he added a storage unit for holding droids and tools.



Good job, Oliver! :-)

Ages 7 and up? No problem!

This year the kids' birthday party was in the morning, and we were mean parents (ha ha) and made them wait until after their naps/rest time to open their birthday gifts. As soon as Oliver got up from resting, he made a beeline for the gift bag from Grammy. :-) He knew that she had bought him a new Star Wars Lego set, and of course he wanted to put it together right away!



Since it had so many pieces, I asked him if he'd rather until his daddy woke up from his nap, just in case he needed help. But of course, Oliver said, "No thanks, Mom. I got it."

And he did. I just love watching him work, he's such an awesome little guy. :-)




On a cute note, this is what Miss Buttercup was doing while Oliver worked so studiously:


Glitter glue. Lots and lots of glitter glue. :-)

More Lego creations!

Oliver has, as usual, been spending a lot of time building with his Legos. I love how much he focuses on what he's doing, and he will literally sit in one place and build for over an hour. It's crazy, since he usually doesn't stop moving. :-)

What's really neat is that lately he's been using this book as a guide to build the models inside. He'll study a picture in the book, choose from the Legos scattered out on the table, and will spend a very short time -- around 5 minutes -- putting them together into different space ships (or whatever they're called) or speeder bikes. I just love seeing his creativity blossom!!



He calls this one an "X 35 Maintenance Death Cruiser":



This one is an "ATT Walker":


This is "Count Dooku's Speeder Bike":


And he named this last one "A1-17 Clone Spaceship":


He's just such a smart, creative little guy! I know that God has great and wonderful things in store for him!

Star Wars finger puppets

This is another cute idea from our Star Wars craft book. I made these on my own time since there was really nothing that the kids could help with, and I forgot how relaxing it is to sew! I kind of want to make the kids an army of finger puppets, just because I enjoyed it so much. :-)

Oliver wanted a "bad guy" puppet. He asked me to make General Grievous, but I vetoed it (too many arms and weird shapes to cut out!), so I made him Darth Vader instead.

Buttercup likes Yoda and "R222" (R2D2), but she wanted her guy to have a purple light saber. So I chose Mace Windu for hers, since he's the only Jedi I knew of with a purple light saber. :-)



I'm going to toot my own horn here -- I think they came out really cute. :-) And they were an instant hit with the kids!

What will he think of next?

Oliver likes to make all sorts of interesting creations with the items from our recycling bin. He usually makes boats or rockets (and uses a ton of tape in the process!). Over the weekend, he wanted to build something, and he had a different -- and very specific! -- plan in mind.

He selected a plastic strawberry container, a small box, and 2 paper towel rolls. He asked me to cut the rolls in half, and while I did that, he started taping the small box to the plastic container. I asked him what he was making, and he said with a smile, "It's a surprise!" Pretty soon, I figured out what it was -- an Imperial Walker!



I ended up having to help him with duct tape to hold the boxes and cardboard tubes together, and pipe cleaners for the guns/lasers/whatever they are. But everything else is his own creation. I'm SO impressed!

He also made a Rebel and a Snowtrooper, to reenact the Battle of Hoth. He's something else! :-)

Making snow globes

The kids and I were at Barnes & Noble the other day, and Oliver saw this book:


Of course it would be perfect for him and Buttercup! So I bought it. Actually, I went home and ordered it for half the price on Amazon, but same thing. :-)

Most of the crafts are pretty involved and geared for adults to make for themselves or their homes, but there are a couple of cute crafts that kids can help with. The snow globe looked the easiest, so that's what we made first. The only thing is, it's a long process (painting, letting paint dry, gluing, letting glue dry, etc) so you may either want to most of it on your own and let the kids help at the very end, or make sure they have something to keep them occupied while they're waiting. :-)

You'll need:
a small glass or plastic jar (I used baby food jars)
distilled water
a strong, non-water solvent glue (I used super glue)
glitter
acrylic or spray paint (I used washable poster paint so the kids could help me)
glycerin or clear dish soap
a plastic bottle cap
a small toy to put inside the snow globe

First, paint the jar lid and set it aside. After the paint dries, use super glue to attach the bottle cap to the inside of the lid. After that dries, use glue to attach the toy to the bottle cap. (Buttercup chose a Squinky because she didn't want to use one of her "Wegos.") :-)


Once the glue is totally dry (about 15-20 minutes), add distilled water and either a few drops of glycerin or clear dish soap to the jar. Place the lid (with toy attached) on the jar to see if you need to add or remove water. The goal is for the water to cover the toy completely. If the water level looks right, add glitter to the jar.


Then spread glue inside the lid, and also on the rim of the jar.** Screw the lid on tightly, then set it aside to dry overnight.

**I used too much glue on this step and it dripped down while it was drying.


Finished product! In addition to using too much glue, I think I also added too much soap, because the water is pretty cloudy and bubbly after you shake it up. They're still cute though! :-)