Will Turns Eight!

As is our tradition, he decorated the cake himself. It's not his fault that it was falling apart though... or that there wasn't enough frosting. The baker (me) had a few measuring mistakes, I think. :)


This boy never looks at the camera! LOL!


Listening to "Happy Birthday" and deciding what to wish for.


Take a DEEP breath...



and blow 'em out!


He saved all his birthday money, sold his wooden trains to Jeff & I (so now we have "control" over them and can keep them for as long as we want), and took what money was in his piggy bank and we went shopping for an electric train set. After about an hour of deliberating on which set to get, he decided on the Lionel Penn Flyer, complete with whistle and smoking funnel. He proudly pulled out that $250 in cash and plopped it on the cashier's counter. His first big purchase. :)

Alabama Chicken & Egg Festival

April 10, 2010


Yes. There is a festival celebrating chickens & eggs in North Alabama. :)

There are LOTS of chicken farmers here. Jeff's family and extended family alone raise close to 80,000 chickens at a time. Each year in early Spring there is a festival of vendors, food, rides, and games. Yes, there is an egg toss! :)

This was my first year attending and we had a lot of fun for the short time we were there. I came home with some wonderful homemade sourdough bread from a local vendor, too! YUM! I always love shopping at these types of festivals.

Jeff's mom and Aunt Debbie helped me with the boys as we made our way through the festivities. First things first, though... the boys had to ride the train around the fairgrounds! :)

Eventually we had to split up because of time constraints, so I don't really have many pictures of Will. He went with Aunt Debbie and the two little ones went with my MIL and me.

And the four of us went to see some of the animals first.

But those smiles didn't last long... below Nathan is probably thinking, "Mom, I thought you said there'd be tractors!! Where are the tractors??"

So, we made our way to the tractor display area.

And of course you can't just LOOK at tractors, you've at least gotta try out the seat. ;)

And wave then wave to make sure everyone sees you.

Nathan really is so comfortable on such a big piece of machinery. Here is at 4 years old, looking like he's 16 and knowing what he's doing. :) I swear this boy will be using Papaw's riding lawnmower before he's 10. LOL!

And then, of course, Little Bit has to try the same tractor out, too. :)

And then Nathan had to try out some more:

One of the owners (an older gentleman) came over and asked Nathan if he was a farm boy. :) I think his shirt says it all, don't you?

ONE TRAIN DAY

PBSKids is having a story writing contest and Will was very excited to join. He is a FANTASTIC story teller and has been for quite some time. I think the earliest one I actually recorded though, was when he was 4 years old. Here's a short vlog of one from when he was 5.

And now he's 7! Where has the time gone??? ... but that's a different post in itself. :)

To prepare for this contest, we talked about the parts of a story. The characters are introduced in the beginning, something exciting happens (like a problem) in the middle-ish section, and then the problem is solved at the end.

His brain works faster than his hand can write, so he told the story and I typed it out. Then, I found the word limit for his age group was only 200 words. Let me tell ya, we had to CUT and CUT and CUT some more!!! His original story was much more involved than the submitted story, but what can ya do? Ya gotta follow the rules, right? :)

So without further ado... here is ONE TRAIN DAY completely written and illustrated by Will (you can click on the pictures to get a closer look if you like):

Once there was a forgotten train station. It was covered with dirt, ivy, and strawberry bushes. It was discovered when a man ran into the chimney while plowing!

The old station was cleaned up and a driver, Samuel, was hired. Samuel's steam engine, Angel, and her coach, Alex, run the station now. There is also a breakdown train, Donald, in case of trouble.

One day, the Electric Crew came to fix the shed lantern because the wires were cut. They boarded the coach. Angel began huffing and chuffing until they were moving out slowly and steadily.

They were having a wonderful ride until Samuel saw logs on the tracks! He quickly screeched the brakes on. Angel stopped an inch from the logs!

Angel put Alex onto a siding and then hitched up to Donald. She pushed and steamed behind Donald, shifting him into place. There were nine logs on the tracks and Donald could lift three at a time so it only took minutes to clear the tracks.

After the logs were gone, Donald was returned and Angel coupled with Alex again. They got to the shed before dark and the Electric Crew was able to fix the lantern wires.

THE END.

Final word count? 200.

Pretty good, huh? :)

At War with Toys for Boys

So, Will is 6 1/2 years old.

His favorite toy since he was 2 has been Thomas the Tank Engine and friends. Here's part of his collection:




I'm not sure, but I think he's starting to lose a little interest... not much, but a little. I wonder if it's partly because his friends at school are saying Thomas is for babies.

We had a talk about it and he said, "The box says it's for 3 year-olds and over." So I replied with, "Well, then it's for you. Are you older than 3? It's for Mommy, too... I'm older than 3." He seemed ok with that answer.

I'm not ready for Thomas to go. I like the innocence and the stories Will makes up using the trains. He's very creative and the tracks give him something to manipulate.

Even with that said, I'm ready to introduce something new to Will, but I'm just not sure what yet. I don't want him watching Star Wars or Indian Jones... which are very popular among the boys his age. I often wonder if the parents let their boys watch these movies or are the kids just interested because of the light sabers and whips?

I just don't think I'm ready for Will to be exposed to images like this.

What's up with his eyes? That's just creepy...


Sure the star-ships are cool, but the violence is constant, the evil characters are scary and some of the good characters are too.



And then there is Indian Jones... the language, the alcohol, shootings, stabbing, stealing and gun fights.



We don't let the boys watch too many PG movies in general. We watch PBS during the day and even some of those cartoons use words that I would rather not hear (ie "shut up" and "stupid").

At what point am I being too overprotective? When does it become *ok* to let my boys watch these shows? Are these shows just the modern day Cops & Robbers or Cowboys & Indians?

Am I just over thinking all of this??

What do your boys find interesting? Do they watch these movies? Do they have questions about them? Nightmares from them?

Any suggestions for less violent toys for boys?

I know I'm full of questions in this post and I know my boys can't stay little forever. I sure would appreciate some extra input today.

Toot-aloo....

Unplugged Project - Hard

I will say that deciding on a Hard Unplugged Project was not easy. I had so many thoughts in mind from easy to hard. Jeff suggested something with concrete, and I thought that was a great idea, but Nathan was at Grandmother's house and if we were going to do imprints of hands or feet I wanted him here for that. Then I thought about hard-back books and just having a good ol' fashioned reading session.

I finally decided to do something easy with something hard: Dominoes.


In fact it took me so long to decide what to do that we ended up doing this project this morning before school. However, the tv was never mentioned this morning and that's the whole point of the unplugged projects!

So here's the fun we had this morning:

The set-up...

And the fall (original (very) short-story by Will):

Up again...


And down again (notice the Will make the engine huff & puff before he knocks them all down)...

We did this a few more times with some variations and then Will then decided to build a house out of dominoes:


And then we had to leave for school. I might have taken the easy way out with Hard, but we enjoyed our few minutes together.

The End. :)

I Think I Can

Day 1 of our week with no tv resulted in Nathan trying to turn the tv on repeatedly; I had unplugged it, though. I told him that it didn't work. He looked me square in the eye and said, "Dada. Fix!" I guess even the boys know that Jeff is pretty handy. :)

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This past week, I've been walking Will to school. It's only about 2 - 3 blocks away and it saves gas and I get some (much needed) exercise. We have a sit and stand stroller that I push the kids on. Will mostly walks beside me, but when we have to cross the street and walk through the parking lot, he gets on the stroller, too!


So, here I am crossing the street with three kids on the stroller. Then, to get to the parking lot, we have to go up a hill. Not a huge one, but big enough... let me tell ya. So, as I'm pushing this loaded down stroller,

Will says, "Mom, don't forget to say the words."

Me: "What words?"

Will: "I think I can. I think I can."

[Have I told you we like trains around here? Yes, I think I've covered it a few times...]

So as I push up the hill, I'm puffing, "I think I can. I think I can. I think I can."

Then the hill levels off and it turns to, "I thought I could. I thought I could. I thought I could."

And then, I let a big "Whoo. Whoo." Because, I'm proud of myself for making it up that hill and of course I needed to let off a little steam with a "WHEEESH!"

Then Will tells me, "Don't forget to puff, Mom!"

Me, out of breath: "Trust me honey, I'm puffin'!"

Will had the biggest smile on his face. He was so proud of his momma engine! :)

Simple & Slow Fridays: Stories - Post Your's Here

Stories are a HUGE part of everyday life around here. Will has always had a wonderful imagination for stories... about trains that is... always about trains. From around the time he turned4 up until and including now, he'd rather have had a story made up and told to him than have a book read; however, it must be about trains. Usually he will tell us which trains he wants in the story and if the story goes in the "wrong" direction (where he doesn't want it to go), he'll correct us and take over. Rarely does a story have a "The End". It's usually continued the next day or the next time we get in the car to go on a "journey".

Here is an excerpt from a story I took the time to record one day. Will was 4 years 9 months old at the time. I help him along through the story, but now he's very self-sufficient in telling a 15-20 minute story all by himself!


Me: Who is the story about?
Will: Engines
Me: What kind of engines?
Will: Oliver & Molly


Me: Tell me about Oliver.
Will: He has Toad the break van
Me: What color is he?
Will: Green
Me: Number?
Will: 11
Me: Where does he work?
Will: Coal yard




Me: Now, what about Molly?
Will: She's a yellow engine with no number on her side
Me: What's something neat about Molly?
Will: She's a new engine with two big wheels. She collects some coal and gets all dusty from the trucks... the trucks pull her back into the coal hopper.

Me: What is a coal hopper?
Will: Something that shoots down coal.

Me: What do they use a coal for?
Will: To burn up their firebox.

Will: Molly got dusty and she got so dusty she was really mad and she coughed. She cleared out her funnel of dirt.
Me: How did she do that?
Will: "Ahh... Ahhh...Ahh-CHOOO! She blowed dust right into the air and covered the other engines.
Me: Who else was there?
Will: Oliver!
Me: What did he think about getting dirty?
W: I don't know; what did he say?
Me: Did he say, "Molly, you just sneezed on me!"?

Will as Molly: "I just needed to clear my funnel."
Me as Oliver: Well, you should look for other engines around you. We don't want to get dusty. We might sneeze too.

Will: Toad became covered up, too.
Me: Who is Toad?
Will: He's a Brake van.
Me: What does he do?
Will: He just always gets coupled behind.
Me: Behind who?
Will: Behind Oliver's freight cars.
Me: How does he help?
Will: By watching behind what they ran over.
Me: Does he apply the brakes?
Will: Yeah, that's why he's the brake van.
Me: Oh, that makes sense.

Me: So, what did Oliver and Molly do? Did they get a wash-down? Where did they have to go?
Will: To the wash-down yard.
Me: What happened after they were clean & shiny?
Will: Oliver got a small tender that didn't get much heat.
Me: Tender? What's a tender?
Will: Something that engines pull behind them.

Will: Molly has a very small firebox and she didn't know what to do. Mom, what did Molly say to Oliver when she had a very small firebox and didn't know what to do?
Me as Molly: I think I might need some work done, my firebox is not working properly. Who would do some work on me?
Will as Oliver: I think some workmen and the workmen's yard.

Me as Molly: Will you come with me, Oliver?
Will as Oliver: Sure, but first I have to collect some cargo cars.
Me: What do cargo cars carry?

Will: They carry special stuff like hives. (bee hives)
Me: Are you collecting hives today?
Will: Yeah.
Me: Be careful with beehives... you know what can happens with beehives...
Will: But cargo cars are built with heavy wood and they won't break.
Me: Just remember, James got stung by a bee on the nose!
Will: Don't worry, I will just "weesh" them away!






This story with Will goes on and on with twists and turns and finally a "The End"(with my persuasion). I need to record another one of his stories now that he can tell one by himself. It shouldn't be hard to come across a story, Will tells them at least 2- 3 times daily...

Click here for next week's "assignment" of One-on-One Time.

BOX

This week's unplugged project assignment was "box". Hey, I've got a ton of those at my house! This will be easy! I gathered up my diaper and wipes boxes (I buy in bulk), went to my garage for some Southern Living at HOME boxes, and found a few others out there as well.

This project came in very handy this week as Will was home sick 4 out of 5 days. I brought all the boxes into the living room, taped them all closed and let them have some fun. Of course, they had to get in the big box before it got closed up:



Will enjoyed staking them. He was especially proud when the stack went above his head. He called it a "tower".


I stepped in and told the boys we were going to make a fort. Here's the base:


And here's the top:

It didn't last too long as you can imagine. It really wasn't tall enough and Nathan kept standing up in it. So back to stacking we go...




Oh, have I told you that we like trains around here? Check out this video of our "box" cars! We did this part on Sunday afternoon when everyone was feeling better.



Go to Unplug Your Kids to enter your box project and see the other ones. Join us next week for our "Thankful" project.