Books, Books, and Paper People

It's been a few days.  A busy few days, strange how they creep up on you sometimes.  Abby had to work long hours over the weekend, I don't know how she does it, but she is certainly one of a kind.  I'm very lucky.  Being as we only have one car, my options with the kids become limited to walking distance when she has to pull shifts like that and as my fellow Illinoisans know this past weekend was a scorcher on Friday and Saturday.

We stayed very busy, though. Friday the boys helped me compile a Big Brother photo book for Elsa's arrival and as a gift for Mommy. First I picked about thirty pictures and then had Gunner choose the twenty or so that would make it into the book.  I arranged them and then Emery helped me write all the words throughout the book.  They both thought it would be awesome to help write a book for their baby sister so that they could help read it to her at bedtime, their pride in the finished product shone through in their smiles when they finally saw it.

Saturday we worked on books some more.  I bought a bunch of construction paper, a binder, and some markers and the boys decided they wanted to draw holiday pictures for Abby.  Watching their minds work is a miracle in itself.  My original idea was for them to draw their Eelooz people again.  Eelooz is an app I found for Emery a few months ago that a guy made for his daughter.  It is essentially a bare minimum version of a Giga-Pet that were so popular forever ago, I thought the idea was pretty cool, so when we lived at the apartment we made Eelooz people together.

I think I included some pictures of the Eelooz before, but I'll repost them on this blog when I find them.  The boys really loved doing it, they made their own little people and houses for them. They made places for their Eelooz to visit like an Eelooz park, lake, school and we tacked them up to the dining room wall.  The houses started out as just one piece of construction paper for each of them that they were allowed to design their own furnishings on.  It was tremendously fun to watch Bunny tell me why his SuperEeloozMan needed a rope in the middle of his living room (because he needs to swing into action, duh!) and Emery's meticulous detail to GirlieLooz's wardrobe closet which featured superhero costumes, dresses, boots, and swords sticking out of the door.

The Eelooz idea worked really well as a reward for good behavior, too.  The boys would do extra chores just to be able to add another room to their houses, before long they had eight papers per house, three places to visit, Eelooz pets, and an Eelooz operating table (Bunny was a little rough to his first SuperEeloozMan, so Dr. Eelooz had to tape his leg back on a couple of times).

Quick funny story about this picture:

Abby, Bunny, and I went on a walk the other day and ended up at my brothers house.  We stopped by to chat for a bit and to take a breather on account of the heat.  As we began to leave, Bunny did the "squeeze-the-crotch" potty dance, telling us that he needed to go to the bathroom.  The walk is a decent stroll for a four year old, but impossible for a four year old with a full bladder, however we were kind of in a hurry, as it was nearing dinner time.  Bunny looked as if he were going to pop any second so we just told him to go around the corner and go potty.  Which brings us to this:

Yep.

Public pooping.

Bunny's explanation was simple, "you said go potty, so I went potty."

And with that, I bid you farewell. 

Good night!