Week in Summary

I apologize for not sticking with the blogging thing as often as I should intended, but alas life seems to get in the way.  For example, my week has looked something like this:

• Last Sunday: relaxing day at home with the kids recovering from my son's birthday party the day before
• Monday: My son's actual birthday.  That meant time spent with him.  We had library books due so in addition to dropping them off we got some new books.  My favorite thing... I think we found an age-appropriate series that my son likes (for those interested "My Weird School Daze" series by Dan Gutman).  He even reads these on his own at night in his bed  :-)  After the library we went to MOTE aquarium.  Not only did we get to see all kinds of marine animals but we got to see the new sea lion show they have right now.  For my local peeps...Very cute and worth the time.
• Tuesday: Robotics class in the afternoon meant preparations in the morning.  After class a few friends stayed a little while longer so the kids could actually play.  Then we went out to dinner for my son's birthday (hubby couldn't make it Monday night).
• Wednesday:  The kids had their Lego and K'Nex class and while they were at class I made phone calls and ran a few errands (much faster without the kiddos).
• Thursday: We went to the property appraisers office to file for our homestead exemption.  For those who are not aware of what that is, when you own and reside in a home in Florida you get a discount on your personal property taxes.  But in order to qualify you have to gather documentation and get it to the property appraisers office.  You only have to do it once and this is the first year we are eligible so we had to file before March 1.  I didn't want to wait till the last minute and there was a chance hubby would be out of town next week so Thursday it was.
• Friday:  Hubby had a conference call in the morning trying to get a new client.  They want him to make a few additions and then they are going to present it to the end client hopefully the end of the week.  We also found out they don't think they will want him at to fly up for a meeting this week after all (a big sigh of relief for me because I'm not sure how I would handle a real estate career and homeschooling 2 kids at the same time even if only for a few days).
• Saturday: church and small group in the evening.  

Add to all of these: reading with my kid, making phone calls for work, getting stuff together to file taxes, trying to get quotes for homeowners insurance, dishes, laundry, etc and I have a busy life.

What's planned for today?  A morning spent playing games and reading with my kids and a couple hours showing houses in the afternoon.

We've Got Skills

Any of my regular readers know that my son is a fa.na.tic when it comes to K'Nex.  He is constantly making something new out of K'Nex.  For Christmas he received something like 40 lbs of K'Nex (he already had 15 lbs or so).  The thinking behind this was that he would have more pieces to make bigger things.

He's been able to do that, and so much more!  At one point we had the following things assembled and sitting in our sun-room (I have decided to let him have this area so that I can have my sanity in the rest of the house):  a 4ft tall functioning crane, a roller coaster, a robot, an AK-47 riffle, an oil tanker, a crank shaft, a model pick-up truck, an AK-47, and a Janeson's mechanism.  And he still had pieces left to make more things!  Can you say mission accomplished.  Now all he wants (and Jon too) is more roller coaster track so they can make something bigger.

The roller coaster

The AK-47 he made (robot behind him)

Anyone who knows me well, knows that I like to be organized.  I am the person who packs lunches for field trips the night before and who likes to have a spot for everything.  I am a list person.  And my list's often have sub-lists.  :-)  My kid's toys are no exception to my desire for organization.  So how do we deal with all the K'Nex?  We found storage containers at yard sales and have found the most logical way to sort the K'Nex based on the way my son builds. 

Sorted by size and or functionality.

When there are no creations completed, most of these drawers are full.

Considering my son is not as dedicated to organization as I am (he is a boy who is just shy of 8, so what can I expect really), we have a system worked out to help accomplish the sorting.  After he no longer wants to keep a creation together, he puts it into a rather tall wicker basket.  This includes small pieces that found their way on the floor as he was building.  After the basket gets full, or if he finds he's running low on certain size pieces, we then go through the basket together and put the pieces away.  Luckily my daughter thinks it's great fun to spend time with Mommy cleaning, so she gets in on the act too.

This cycle repeats itself about every week.  A couple days ago we took apart almost all of his recent creations and he made a tower that he had to assemble outside because it was too tall for our 10 foot ceiling.  I'm guessing we'll be sorting again in a few days.  All I know is that without this system, I'd go crazy!

This is so tall we have to worry about wind knocking it down.