Things that you might not care about, but that I want to remember

Rand had a bad habit of doing his 30 minutes of "electric" (tv, wii, iphone.....) and then complaining for the rest of the day that he was bored and had nothing to do. So a couple of weeks ago I wrote "BORED" on the top of a piece of paper and told him that every time he complained about being bored, I was going to make a check on the paper. At the end of the day, we would add up the checks and take that many minutes away from his electric tomorrow. Problem solved. He hasn't said a peep about being bored since then.

I have been trying to be more purposeful about doing fun things that take a little extra work. Some things we've done in the last few weeks:

Gone to the local creek to go wading and throw rocks in the water
Made crepes with nutella and bananas in smiley faces
Hooked up Fred to the cart and went for a drive around the neighborhood
Go for bike rides around the neighborhood lakes
Stay a little later at horseback riding and go for a trail ride when Rand asks

Rand learned how to tie his shoes over spring break. I told him that he could watch "The Empire Strikes Back" once he learned how to tie his shoes, and that was a great incentive. He is a very rewards-based child, can you tell?

Rand and Ella love seeing what states the cars on the freeway are from. Rand also figured out that some Arizona plates are different because they support kids or animals in Arizona. He wants one of our cars to help kids and the other car to help animals when it's time for us to renew our license plates. This also led to a great conversation about helping people, animals, the kids we sponsor through Compassion International, our church, and so on. I love it that you can have really serious, interesting conversations with him.

We finished reading "James and the Giant Peach" and two Boxcar Children books. We're in the middle of a third Boxcar children book. Rand read "The Littles" at school and then asked to bring it home because he thought I would enjoy it, so we're also reading that.

For show and tell on Monday, Rand brought his new red beta fish to school. Its name is Nemo, and Rand was so thoughtful -- he fed it a little in the car so that it wouldn't get scared, and he held it so carefully on the way to and from school.

Rand and Ella are taking ice skating lessons and are so cute together. They wobble out and usually hold hands until they get onto the ice. Rand is getting pretty decent and was jumping on the ice last time. Ella is very careful and is just adorable all bundled up.