Creativity abounds.

Do you know how much tape we go through at our house?  LOTS.

All my boys are very much into creating things.  Some of it may appear to be junk, but creative junk none-the-less.  I love it! Owen created a Walle-E costume last week all by himself using a butter knife and a diaper box.  It's awesome.  We couldn't locate it this morning, and I feared that Jason may have recycled Wall-E.  Fortunately, he was just behind the couch.  Phew!

Also pictured here is a cool drawing by Jake.  The boys were drawing roller coasters the other day.  This is Jacob's roller coaster invention with lots of little stop signs sticking up to tell people to slow down.
There was a big, big block-building convention here last night with the neighbor kids.  It's never great when 5 kids are trying to build their own special thing, and one of them stretches out their leg or turns around suddenly, knocking everything over.  Tears were shed.  Owen's frowny face was a result of my taking his picture before his fort was completed.  I ruined everything.

Some other ways my boys have been creative recently is through words.  Tonight Owen was coming up with different ways to spell Finn's name.  (We call him Finners.)  Completely on his own, he said we could spell it like this: F-I-N-N-A-S or like this: F-I-N-N-R-Z-Z-Z.  (Gangsta style.)  Also, Owen's vocabulary is starting to amaze me.  Here are some of the words he has recently used:  opaque, rather, prefer, hilarious, towards.  Too cute.  

A couple of weeks ago, I was able to help Owen unravel a mystery I could tell he had been pondering on for quite some time.  He asked, "Mom, is it Give Said the Little String or Stream?"  I answered him that the song says "stream."   "Ohhh," he said, with squinty, thoughtful eyes, "So water..."  I could see that this really helped him understand a song which had previously been really weird to him.  "Give, said the little string as it hurried down the hill," just doesn't make sense.  I loved it.

Speaking of words, Bennett is honestly freaking me out with his reading abilities.  I love watching him encounter words he's never seen before.  He literally laughs out loud when he reads a word that I have told him is too hard for him. :)  Examples from his take-home books:  crescent, amphibian, nonpoisonous and commercial.  Also amazing to me is that he continues to think that math is the greatest thing in the world.  I'm so glad!!!

Now, lest you think this post is just a big brag session about my kids...  Oh wait, IT IS!  Because they are smart and funny and that's what blogs are for, right?  But let's round things out and keep it real with some recent quotes from Jacob McGregors, as we affectionately call him.  I don't know how it started, but that's the latest nick-name.  This kid CRACKS US UP. 

"Believe in yours self.  Dat's what Yoda says."

While eating ice off the ground he asked, "Tan dis be yummy?" instead of, "Can I eat this?"

"If I shoot da bad duys, dey will by tozy (cozy) and dead.  Dead and tozy."  What???

"If bad duys tome (come) in ours house, I will punch them and say, YOU. ARE. DOIN'. (goin') DOWN."

"I didn't pee in my pants...      It's just raindrops.            From my pee-pee."

And one I've been hearing a lot lately:  "I DIDN'T DO NUFFIN!"

Now picture him walking around with a funny little rooster-strut all the time, using a deep and growly voice, and often carrying a little gun made out of legos.  Sweet.