Lazy Saturday

Things might get a little wonky around here.

I'm on Spring Break (cue The Little Mermaid scene when Ariel gets her voice back) and I finally have time to make some of the updates that I've talked about for years. If you noticed, the URL has finally moved. Somewhere in that process a few of my sidebar widgets got erased. I plan to continue the updates over the next couple days so bare with me if things are a little unpredictable.

No Words Necessary

LEGOs, World Domination, and Beach Boys

Yes, I'm still catching up on holiday posts. One day I'll be on top of blogging but, as you and I both know, today is not that day. Tim & I headed out to see his parents for New Years at the beginning of the month! We arrived on New Year's Eve just a couple hours before the ball dropped. Our trip was filled with LEGOs (legi?), world domination games, and a Beach Boys concert... talk about starting the New Year out on the right foot!

If you ever wondered where Tim gets his knack for organization, rest assured he comes by it naturally. Before assembly started the LEGOs were sorted according to color. :o)

The piles didn't last very long however, we put together the entire Winter Toy Shop before breakfast the next morning.

Tim & I laughing at the LEGO-boy, it's a bit of an inside joke from our apartment-living days.

The next day Tim and his dad pulled out their old Axis & Allies game and the quest for world domination commenced.

I actually got several *very humorous* videos of their global conquests. They stayed up well into the wee hours of the morning battling over territories.

The next day I wore the shirt seen above. Upon seeing me that morning, Tim immediately requested that he be allowed to take a picture of me sitting in this chair. He quote was, "Where'd you go? I can't see you anymore." He's a funny guy that husband of mine.

The plan was to go see The Beach Boys play that day. Tim's parents went to see them perform a couple years ago and really enjoyed it. The concert may or may not have prompted me to edit my Freebie List to include John Stamos, who is known to periodically play with The Beach Boys. It was an edit that sadly went unfulfilled as he wasn't there on this particular night. Despite the lack of Uncle Jesse, it was still a great show!!

Living Things

The kids are learning about living and nonliving things. It's a pretty simple concept in general... by first grade definition a living thing needs food, water, and shelter to survive; they're also able to change/grow and reproduce (if you ever want an interesting challenge, try to introduce the concept of reproducing to a group of first graders and see what colorful conversations can come about... at one point I actually had to cut off a child and redirect back to a less detailed explanation).

During our wrap-up for the day, one child raised their hand and asked, "Is the Earth a living thing?" What a great question!! The kids were pretty divided as to their beliefs so we spent some time discussing it. Some kids insisted that the energy from sunlight qualified as food (although not entirely accurate, I thought it was a great addition to the conversation); many thought that rain proved that it needed water; most agreed that the Earth needs space/shelter (i.e the solar system) and also that the earth constantly changes. Ultimately we decided that the Earth is not actually living. The main catalysis in their decision was that the earth doesn't make baby-Earths. Instead of being a living thing, we decided that the Earth supports living things by giving them what they need to survive. I was super excited at how in-depth this conversation was - it was awesome to listen to them work it out!