Eight Year Old Privilege

when jack turned 8 it took us a while to figure out what we'd give him for a privilege.
we settled upon something fun thing that he'd also learn alot through.
every friday jack gets one dollar to take into this convenience store right by school to pick out a snack to share with his brothers.

he goes in alone, picks it out, heads to the counter and brings back his change.

we had a BIG chat before he went in the first time (and honestly every time since) about not speaking to anyone, only asking help of a worker in an official shirt behind the counter, not going to the bathroom, coming to the door and signaling if he needs help and making sure it's a snack he can share.

it's been awesome.

turns out, the same guy is always working at that time, and i've had the opportunity to talk to him about what we're doing.
he's had to help jack several times to make a choice he can afford.

as you can see, there are windows along the ENTIRE front of the store so i can see jack pretty much at all times.

see.
i can totally stalk him.

he loves the freedom, the snack and is learning so much.

i "get to" keep the change.
his 8 year old responsibility has been to load the dishwasher after "dinners at the table as a family" which has led to the dishwasher being filled in some very interesting ways.

QUIP O'THE DAY
i hate watching the news (TV in general).

Lego Club

talk around the house for the last couple of weeks has been the "lego club" at school.  now this is not a school recognized organization.  it's more of a kind of underground playground posse.  jack is the second in command under will, the "president."  it's a 2 member club.  apparently there were more members, but they've left to join ellie's "lego club."  ellie is known for being quite fast and uncatchable.  catching ellie was once a requirement of joining will's lego club.  that or the one poor boy who was required to do 100 push ups. 

i've met ellie.  once when i was a volunteer reading buddy up at school.  she has curly blonde hair just like goldilocks and is well aware of her speed and uncatchableness.

the lego clubs have all since disbanded, but their memory could not fade without allowing you to see the "comic book" that jack made.  all members were to make a comic book and have enough copies for the entire club.  jack made three.

i realize that i'm the mom, so correct me if i'm wrong, but you have to admit it's kinda awesome.

jack went into jon's office one afternoon after school and returned with this.  he was photographer, director, graphic designer and script writer.  i shouldn't be so shocked.

Jack's Broken

i'm sure by now everyone knows that jack broke his little arm.  i knew there'd be a day, just as i knew there'd be a day we went for stitches.  i just didn't expect both of those days quite so close together.

we had just set out to bike finn the short distance for soccer practice.  we were for once all going, and for once all ready in time to bike.

our neighborhood streets are wide and quiet.  jon and i were chatting and slowly pedaling.  jack was riding his new bike.

all of a sudden, i heard a horrible scream from jack and a crazy sounding crash.  it was an awful feeling.  i don't know how i got off my bike and back to jack, but somehow i was with him in 2 seconds.  i knew the instant i saw him he'd broken his arm.

jon quickly biked back home with the little boys in the bike trailer and came back with the car while i sat on the curb holding jack's arm stable.

we threw jack's bike in the car and left mine (cause it's not worth stealing ;) on the curb.  i sat in the back, still immobilizing his arm.

once again, i've been pleasantly pleased at the proximity of our home to the hospital.  it was probably the wisest aspect of the home purchase at this rate.

jack was a bit of a mess until the percocet came through his IV, then he was laughing and talking and asking a million questions like always.  he was probably asked 1000 times if he was wearing his helmet.  it's a good thing he was or i would have felt like a total schmuck.

it took a while to get the full story put together of what happened.  jack said he was "watching his shadow" :)  so cute.   he looked up and instead of breaking for the parked pick-up he was about to crash into, he stiff armed it.  bad nasty reflexes, very bad.











so pathetic.



we swung through culver's on the way home, and jack pounded a cheeseburger and fries.  and a cookie dough concrete.



angry birds were clearanced for $2.49 at walgreens when i picked up jack's medicines.  he had to have one :)



and he got a red cast to match.



all the kids at school were so cute and thoughtful and concerned.

jack was stoked to have them all sign up the cast.





boom.

Jack is 7

i love that jack's birthday is on st. patrick's day.   he loves it too.  says that's why his favorite color is green. 

so this year we've instituted a new policy.  starting with this birthday.  now it's not going to be everyone's thang, but we've decided it's going to be our family's thang.  we are no longer going to have birthday parties.  yowza. 

it seems like kids parties are getting out of control, and pinterest is certainly not helping anything ;)

using the money we'd spend on a party, we've decided to do a unique family event instead.  this year we're going as a family to disney on ice in lieu of a big shebang for the j-man.

we got to thinking about the last party we had.  how it cost a pretty penny even doing it inexpensively. 
i really like the creativity of planning a party, but we just would rather create memories as a family.  doing things we wouldn't normally do or think to spend money on.  our hope is that we'll do some pretty fun things together over the years celebrating the lives of our boys.  it'll take a ton of creativity coming up with three special birthday events every year!

disney on ice isn't until this weekend so on jack's birthday day we did some fun family hanging out.  we took a two hour bike ride in the afternoon, and jack helped me make his cake.  green on green.  his dinner request was stouffer's mac n' cheese and hot dogs.  we drank mini coke bottles and had a great day celebrating him.

jack's 7 year old privilege -  to check the mail by himself every day
jack's 7 year old responsibility - to take his brothers to brush their teeth every night

side note: we ended up changing finn's privilege from turning on the tv when he woke up to being able to get frozen grapes from the freezer any time he wants (just trust me)






early morning presents from family and friends.











chocolate milk straws from hallie, jason and sadie jane



growing monkeys of the sea variety.





earlier in the week jack helped me make a birthday banner.  we sewed little gingham flags onto yarn.   the day of his birthday he asked me to add his name to it "jacky" just like that, with a "y."  so i tracked down some felt and fulfilled the request.







rc helicopter from grammie and papa



he wanted to decorate his own cake, and i obliged although it took some overcoming in my mind.



so glad i did though.





perfectly imperfect.

















why am i the only one who looks like we went on a two hour bike ride in the wind and heat?







we can't wait until our disney on ice adventure next weekend to keep the celebrating going!