Gifts for Geeks!

Tonight Nathaniel made a radio using his snap circuits.  He was absurdly pleased with himself. As well he should be. It is pretty cool.  He asked if I thought he could earn a scholarship for college now. I informed him that if he'd built the radio from scratch without directions, then, yes. But as he followed directions from a kit, probably not so much. Anyway, if you're looking for a gift for your geeky kids I definitely recommend these.

They come in a bunch of sizes, so you can start small if you don't want to invest too much money initially, and then add on as you go.  We also got a power cord to go with, so we didn't eat through batteries. Totally worth the few extra dollars!

A New Favorite

Last night I received a text from Todd while I was at dance with Caleb.

It said, "Lilyanna just prayed 'and bless that my toys can talk'."

Benjamin and Nathaniel declared it their new favorite family prayer.  

Goodness, but she is cute!

Magic Clip dresses!

If you have to buy anything for a little girl any time soon, and she happens to be at that age where she loves dressing dolls but doesn't yet have the manual dexterity to really do it, BUY HER THESE!!!  Especially if you like her parents.

The dresses are pretty and function like clothes pins (squeeze the bottom of the dress together and it comes apart at the top so you can get the doll out. Pinch the next dress open and drop the doll in. GENIUS!), so the child can easily get the doll dressed and undressed 362 times each hour without needing help. It makes everyone in our house happier.

Lilyanna plays with these things happily for hours! I like these toys less than when Benjamin became obsessed with little plastic dinosaurs at this age, because I thought of that as an educational pursuit, but who am I to complain about whatever it takes to get her to play independently?

Best $4.99 spent ever. (I got them on sale at Target this summer.)

Progress

Just in case anyone needed to be reminded that VHS tapes are so last century, here are some shots of what my kids do with them.
The truly ironic thing is that we haven't had a working DVD player for about six months now, so really if they want to watch a movie it has to be VHS.

Oh well, it would seem that VHS tapes are also great for super hero fortresses.