All About Me Revelations

About a week ago I was shopping at Walmart and picked up two clearance craft kits: one has 30 kits to make family trees, and one has 30 kits to make "All About Me" books. They are supposed to be for classroom projects. But Lily, Ruth, and Adam all love doing little craft things and I thought they would make for fun for a long time.

So, today after church, I pulled them out and gave one to each of the girls and Adam. We decided to try the "All About Me" books. It was just a little book with a little sheet of stickers included, but we pulled out the markers, glitter glue, foam shape stickers, and crayons to augment. It was a real success. The kids spent about 2 hours working on them. And the best part is that afterwards I got to read them. Here are just a few things I learned:

• Adam's favorite things are Dora, Lily, himself, Kate, Emma, Mary, and Ruthie. (What would he do without his sisters and Dora).
• Jesus Christ is the first person in Adam's family.
• Adam's favorite place is going to Anson's house.
• Adam's favorite person is Emma
• One of Adam's favorite animals is "Daddy's scarf"
• One of Adam's favorite foods is trees
• Mary's favorite food is Tic-Tacs
• Mary's quote on friends, "I have a lot of friends. I have so many I can't list them all. I can find friends in almost every grade."
• One of Lily's favorite things is "Butterfly the blanket." (I had no idea she had named her small baby blanket that Mary made her for Christmas last year.)
• What Lily did last summer was going sledding at Anson's and Lorin's when it snowed
• One of Lily's hobbies is Emma doing her hair
• One of Lily's favorite foods is chocolate animal crackers.
• Lily's favorite people are her grandmas
• Ruth's favorite things are presents
• What Ruth did last summer was watch flowers
• Ruth's hobby is hopping on one foot
• Ruth's favorite person is Kate
• Kate wished she went to the beach last summer, but she went to the movies instead
• Kate drew a picture of her family that included Mom, Dad, herself and "etc." after those 3 figures. (It made me laugh that she drew all the important people.)
• One of Kate's hobbies is babysitting (fortunately for us).
• Kate's favorite person is her cousin Jennifer.
• Emma's comment about friends was, "My friends like me."
• Emma's hobbies are football, basketball, soccer and baseball.
• Emma's favorite place is mini-golf (see the pass has paid off already).

Needless to say, I learned a lot. They all seem happy though so that's good. I think I'll wait a few months and have them do it again, just to see what they say. It was definitely a fun experience.

The Pass of All Passes

This year, because of the baby, we won't really be able to take a family vacation. Instead we decided to buy everyone in our family "The Pass of All Passes". It's a year pass for our local water park, 2 local mini-golf places (that also have batting cages, laser tag, go-carts, and small rides), season tickets to our local pioneer league baseball team, and our local D-league NBA team. For all that, it was fairly reasonable, only $40 for a year. It actually was much cheaper than a trip to Buffalo usually costs us (though we don't get the bonus of seeing all the family we love!!).

So, already, we have gone and played mini-golf twice, once with John and I, and once with the whole family. The girls had never been to play miniature golf and they really liked it. And they are surprisingly good at it. While playing, I learned that Adam is not content to just try, he must succeed. No matter how many times he had to hit the ball, he wouldn't leave a hole until he had gotten the ball in the hole. And for Ruth, as long as she got the ball in the whole, she was a winner. After every hole she would shout, "I won 5 times!!" (on the fifth hole, for example). The older girls all had a lot of fun too. In the future we might have to split up into teams, but other than that, it went really well. And no one got hit in the head with the metal clubs, which was the real bonus. So the summer should be pretty fun. I'm very excited for lots of reasons.

The End is Near

Adam will always be our only boy, but his days as our baby are limited. We are expecting a baby sister in July. The girls are excited but I don't think Adam really understands. He will though and I think he will enjoy having someone littler than him. Everything seems to be going well so far, so we hope that it continues.

Conversation with the boy

Me: Come on, sweet cakes. Let's get out of the car.
Adam: Mom, I not sweet cake!
Me: You're not a sweet cake. What are you then?
Adam: I Adam, THE BOY.

Later, when Adam handed me his hat and gloves to put away.
Me: Thank you, sir.
Adam: Mom, I not sir! I Adam the boy!

At least he knows who he is.