making friends

We have had some awesome days of play around here! Two kids, just Kaiden's age, moved in across the street. There is Joshua, 4, and Sienna, 6, and of course their mama, Amy, who I am so happy to have around. The kids get along beautifully and can play for hours and hours. They've taken over the street with their bikes (all three kids have learned to ride at the same time which is kind of neat), toy trucks, balls, skateboards, sticks and swords. The neighbors now drive so slowly down the street(we live on a short dead end road) watching and laughing at what our little rascals have come up with this time.

Amy and I park ourselves in the yard chatting, eating, laughing, yelling...we have our chairs set up like two old women keeping watch over the neighborhood gossiping. I'm so glad this family has moved in. It makes our days a little more fun and exciting wondering what kind of adventures the kids will come up with next.

We also have 3 other children on our street - Big Seth, 8, Little Seth, 3, and Baby Rose, 1. Sometimes we have all 7 of them in our yard - talk about insane - each child being a different age!

free you say?

We are proud Freecyclers! We joined this organization (you may have seen it sitting there in our sidebar) a few weeks ago created to "build a worldwide gifting movement that reduces waste, saved precious resources & eases the burden on our landfills while enabling our members to benefit from the strength of a larger community."

We get an email EVERYDAY from our local Freecycling community offering things like - toys, home decor, bicycles, sofas, children's clothes, craft supplies, washers/driers, sewing machines.....the list keeps on going! Do you know how much all this stuff costs?

Not one penny.
Its all FREE.

No one can sell or offer to buy anything. You are expected to gobble up all the free stuff on the list, and quick!!! You're also expected to offer some of your own free stuff instead of trashing it or dumping it at your local Goodwill. And if your are in search of something particular go ahead and ask! I was looking for some vinyl records as a gift for a friend and within a day of posting my request I received 5 offers for stacks old records!

Don’t throw it out if its still good.
FREECYCLE IT!
One man’s junk….you know the rest.

Find out more about freecycling here and find a group in your community. Go ahead give it a try...

yes, we let our child do ALL of these things.

5 Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Kids Do.

This is a great video clip from Ted.com. It's a talk given by Gever Tulley, founder of The Tinkering School.

Basically, Mr. Tulley says we should let our kids play with fire, own a pocketknife, get behind the wheel of a car (uh, before they can see over the dashboard), and a couple other things. His point is that kids feel empowered when they get the opportunity to explore these often forbidden experiences. They learn things they could never learn just by watching a demonstration or hearing a lecture from a well-meaning parent. See, we do have logical reasons for letting Kaiden do the crazy things he does!!!

setsy time

Kaiden in very odd accent:

"Hi, my name is Borat...I want some setsy time. hahahahahahahah, muuuhahahahaha!!!!!"

hmmmm.....wonder who he learned that one from.

don't want to get up....

...because its freeeeeezing!
I did not want to leave this cozy cozy spot. We have no central heat, only space heaters. We walked out of our toasty bedrooms this morning into a 27 degree living room! (it was so cold you could see your breath) We put on our winter hats, slippers, and sweaters, and cozied up with some hot chocolate and a big comfy blanket in front of the heater till it started to warm up a bit.

"I shouldn't have wished for it to be winter. This is not the arctic Mom!! It's Florida...toasty warm Florida."

Now Kaiden is in the backyard in full snow gear wishing for rain so that it would snow.