Jake's New Way to Earn Money

Jake lost another tooth earlier this week and was QUITE happy that the Tooth Fairy actually remembered to put a dollar under his pillow.

He carried the dollar around constantly, sometimes just getting it out of his pocket to look at it.  Clearly, he enjoyed having it.

It was Kate's birthday yesterday and as Jake watched her open presents, he suddenly pulled the dollar from his pocket and handed it to her saying, "I want to give you this for your birthday present."

Awwww....  I was very surprised since Jake REALLY loved having that dollar. 

The kids went to bed and about an hour later, Jake came walking downstairs holding a wad of tissue up to his mouth.

Apparently, he had worked on his {slightly} loose upper tooth to make it come out so that he could once again be the proud owner of a dollar bill.

His tooth was barely loose when he went to bed and judging from all the blood on the tissue, he worked pretty hard to get it out.  But at the end of the day, he still ended up with a dollar in his pocket.

And all was right with his world.

I'm still cracking up every time I think about it!

{Sorry for the crummy iphone picture.}

Snowball Fight!

My dad called a week or so before Christmas to tell me that he had ordered a fun present for the kids.  It was a snowball and brick maker!  It arrived before Christmas but by then, our snow had melted.  Today....finally....there was snow and it was warm enough for it to be awesome packing snow.

I thought it would be fun for them to have a big snowball fight so Jeff and I instructed them on how to build a snow brick wall for each team. 

Jake was much more interested in making snowballs than building a wall. 

 

And of course, if you are making snowballs, you get to throw some.

As they were building, there was a sudden ambush from the direction of the garage.  Fire was quickly returned in a volley of snowballs from the kids.

Yeah....'take THAT, Dad!'

And THAT!

Back to work, team.  We've got a wall to build.

The snowball maker worked amazingly well.  

Brick maker wasn't too shabby either.

This team struggled a bit because they had smaller brick molds.

Let's give mom a cheesy smile.

Molly launches a test shot.

Their wall was coming along nicely.

Not to be outdone, the other team continues to build.

Jake...hard at work on his snowball arsenal.

"Looking good, guys!"

Kate brings shovel loads of snow to help make bricks.

 

I'm pretty sure that Jake licked every.single.snowball he made.  The girls were so disgusted.

Is it me, or does this look like a wall of toilet paper rolls?

Nice pile, Jake!  The snow was so sticky I think he could have built this straight up for quite a ways.  However...he kept getting distracted...

This team had one less child, so dad stepped in to help.

"Ready or not...."

"Ready, schmeddy.  Show us what you can do."

Pelting the opposition...

Which is quickly answered...

Alas...there is a breach in the wall!  Jordan shores it up as fast as he can.

Chloe was a formidable foe.  Notice the pink saucer full of snowballs behind her wall. 

Molly was originally just going to help build the wall but quickly got caught up in the fun of pelting her siblings.

I wish I could say that they had a marvelous time but I think that boys are better than girls at having snowball fights.  Girls take them a bit too personally and there were eventually hurt feelings and tears. 

Oh well....

It was a good way to get exercise this afternoon.  Next time they can build a fort instead!