The Tazie Method

What happens when you tell a little kid to clean their room by themselves?

They take matters into their own hands!

Enter the “Tazie cleaning method” – throw all your toys and stuffed animals into garbage bags and drag them out of your room until your mom announces the room clean and you can bring them all back in. ;).

Teaching Moments

The other week, Jim was determined to head down to the lake to fish in the rain.  He asked if anyone wanted to come, and no one but Tazie was interested.  I figured he’d want to go without her, but he was perfectly willing to take her with him!  He taught her how to fish, and they both came home very happy (albeit with no fish).  Maybe next time!

Smart Dog

Summer knows where to stand when Tazie is helping me cook!

Art Imitating Life

Danny isn’t exactly an arts-and-crafts kind of guy, but every once in a while, inspiration strikes.  He wanted to make a paper model of himself.  I thought it was adorable, especially since it featured a cute ball cap and smiling face.

Then I noticed it:

Danny’s model was so accurate that it even featured the holes in his knees that seem to plague every pair of pants I purchase for him.  He’s very fond of the holes and doesn’t want me to buy him new pants!  Crazy kid!

 

Shorts are Back

Spring must be here – Jimmy’s wearing shorts again!  He’s so excited!

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Tazie loves to set the table with paper plates when it’s her turn, and then write everyone’s names on their plates.  Yesterday, though, I was surprised when I walked over to the table and saw she had written her own name on each plate.  I asked her why she wrote her own name rather than each family member’s name, and she replied matter-of-factly, “Well, they’re big fans of me!”

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I was playing pretend zoo with Tazie today and I asked her what animal she wanted to visit first.

Her answer?

“Popcorn chicken.”

(Clearly we spent more time in fast-food drive-thru lanes than field trips this past year, ha!)

Trash to Treasure

We call Jimmy our “junk man” who loves to hoard random pieces of junk others would throw away.  For example, a while back, the water dispenser at our church broke and Jimmy insisted on saving the spigot.  He was determined to repurpose it in some way!

Here’s his homemade water dispenser:

It leaks quite a bit, so it’s still a work in progress.  But I’m sure he’ll figure it out in the end! (or else I’ll end up throwing away the spigot myself, ha!  He’s not allowed to be too much of a “junk man” until he has his own house in which to hoard his junk!).

Chef Tazie

Tazie’s love affair with cooking has a new ally – the TV chef Bobby Flay!  She discovered she can stream some of his videos on our Alexa Show, and she loves to “cook” along with him.  Here she is transforming some of my kitchen scraps into an edible monument – look at that presentation!

Now if only Bobby Flay could inspire her to clean up the kitchen afterwards!

Games

It makes me so happy when the kids are old enough to play games with each other!  Danny is quite the card shark – hopefully he teaches Tazie his tricks!