Accounting for Six Year Olds

Last Thursday Graeden and I were driving to go pick up some pizza for dinner and I asked him what he had done in school that day. He was pretty excited about an art project he had been working on so we talked about that for awhile. Then I told him that I don't get to do art at my school. He asked what I do there. I'm taking an accounting class and an economics class right now so I told him I work with numbers. When he asked more about it I tried to explain accounting to him which turned out to be harder than I expected. It went something along the lines of, "when a business wants to grow and they need money for it they ask other people to give them money. Those people then get something saying they own part of that company. Companies that do this have to follow special rules so that all the owners can make sure they are making enough money to want to still be owners. Does that make sense?"

With that he replied, "Maybe it will when I'm older. Right now all I hear is, 'blah blah blah'" Pretty funny kid.

Lemonade

This morning Bridget and Jovana left for Alabama for a week so I am home alone with all of the kids. I wanted to get some yard work done today so I tried to think of something that would keep the kids occupied, and since today there is a neighborhood-wide yard sale and the weather was beautiful we went with a lemonade stand. Elliott and Jett were more interested in eating the chips and drinking the lemonade so after they finished with that they took off to play. Graeden, however, was very into it. He stayed out there for four hours. He made $10 (Not bad for a five year old's first business venture), of which he spent $2 on a hot dog from the neighbor who was selling BBQ'd food and $.50 on another neighbor's lemonade stand. According to Graeden that kid's lemonade was better.

A Day at the Races

Today was a beautiful day. For the first time in awhile (or at least I think...I've been pretty busy at work) it didn't rain. Because of the good weather we were able to fulfill our plans of taking Graeden to the race track near our house for some racing fun. The kids have to be at least 4 1/2 to race the Quarter Midgets so only Graeden got to drive, but the other boys had fun at the track anyway.

Before the race started they played at the park nearby and did the bean bag toss game.


Elliott went around collecting all the balls, but he was more than willing to share with the other kids.


Waiting in line for Graeden to get suited up.


They even let Elliott try on some gear with Graeden.


Here's Elliott doing his Marvin the Martian impersonation.


Graeden getting prepped for the drive.


And he's off...




Good job Graeden! He kept his turns very smooth and responded perfectly to the flagger the entire time. He did excellent.

How Big is the Earth?

So the other day Graeden and I got on the topic of how big the Earth is. Generally he thinks in terms of feet so I asked him to guess how many feet the world is all the way around. His first guess was 100 feet. I told him that is the size of our hose in the back yard. This helped him put things into a bit better perspective for his next guess. Before I tell you what that was...what do you think? What's the circumference of the Earth in feet (at the equator)?



His next guess was 1 million feet. I really had no idea so I guessed 500,000 feet. He was closer. The Earth is 24,901.55 miles around at the equator, and there are 5,280 feet in a mile, for a total of 131,480,184 feet. Now the next time you're on Jeopardy, and you get that question, you'll have no trouble spouting out the answer.

Graeden's Award

On Monday I took the morning off of work to go to Graeden's school, because, unbeknownst to him, he was up for an award. Since he only goes to P.M. kindergarten, and the assembly was at 10:30 a.m., I drove him to school. I think we got the wrong time though because all the kids were already sitting down and names of award recipients were already being read when we walked in. I got the camera out just in time to capture this:



The award was for, "Great progress blending words & remembering his glasses!" I'm not sure what blending words involves, but it sounds impressive. Good job Graeden!

Snow Day

Today I got up for work and decided I'd better stay home because of all the snow. We live up a pretty steep hill and I was concerned I wouldn't be able to make it back up once I got down. After telling my wife I was going to stay home, she said she was going to go to the dentist. Turns out I'm just a wuss. Here is a video of Bridget leaving and some other events of the day:

Story Time

Ah, the blessings of repetition...

The Split Decision

The idea for this movie came to me a couple months ago in the shower. I had finished with the shower and then stepped out to grab a towel. I then got back in and dried myself off. When I opened the shower door for the second time, I looked down and saw a wet foot print on the floor mat. My initial thought, upon seeing the foot print, was, "Whose is that?" Of course it didn't take more than a split second to realize it was my own, but the concept got me thinking and eventually led to the creation of this movie. We started filming last week, and we premiered it at the ward talent show Saturday night.

The Board Room

This is a video I made yesterday with the help of our exchange student Jovana. The concept was hers and she helped get everybody in their places. She tried to help Graeden with his lines, but as much as he seemed to want to be in the movie he just wouldn't say his lines. Finally we got frustrated with him and called it a wrap. Since Graeden was obviously frustrated too I talked to him alone and found out that he was embarrassed saying his lines with Jovana in the room, so the two of us went back to work and he did a great job repeating back all the lines he had to say.

Enjoy!

Disappearing Kids

Here's a video I made of my kids walking through the wall. I probably could have made it a bit better if I worked with the kids more on the speed they approach the wall, but you know what they say in Hollywood, "Never work with children or animals." There is also a little bonus feature of Jovana at the end. Graeden is pronouncing her name correctly for one of the first times ever.

Post Mortem

In a recent blog entry I talked about Graeden and I serendipitously coming up the alley where Brett (my brother-in-law) and his friends were making a movie. Well the movie is finished and posted to Youtube. If you're interested, here it is:

Post Mortem - 2008 48 hour film festival

Home Alone

Since Bridget is out of town with Jett for a few days, I have gotten to stay home with Graeden, Elliott, and Evan. It has been really fun so far. Yesterday was my company's annual picnic. It started at 11 a.m. and we got there right on time. Apparently that isn't a very common thing to do because there were only two or three other families there at that time. It was ok though because we got to do all kinds of stuff as soon as we wanted, as opposed to waiting in lines like we would have had to do if we came later. Some of the things we did were; hay ride, paddle boats, big bouncy slide thing, bouncy house, eat hotdogs and hamburgers and corn and cotton candy and ice cream and watermelon, climb a climbing wall, have a clown make a plane and a sword for us, pet a baby goat, knock down pins with a ball for a yoyo, and probably a bunch of other stuff that I can't think of. Unfortunately Bridget took the camera with her so I didn't get any pics but I might be able to gleen some from Panasonic's web site when I get back to work.



In the evening I took Elliott and Evan over to Nana's house and Graeden and I went to a "Sleeping Beauty" play where my niece Breanna played a fairie and my other niece Arriah played a troll. It was neat to watch them perform...even Graeden liked it, though he did ask if we could go home about half way through the play.

As Graeden and I walked back to our car we ran into Bridget's brother Brett who was in the middle of making a movie for a 48 hour movie contest with some of his friends. Graeden really wanted to watch so we hung out for about an hour or so. Graeden ended up coloring on the street with chalk most of the time and I ended up holding a filter thing over one of the lights so that the shadows from the light were dampened. I've always wanted to work on the set of a movie so for me it was a great experience. Graeden even got to keep the chalk which he was very excited about.

Runaway Child

Every night after we put the kids in their room for bed they play with each other for an hour or two before falling asleep. Usually, during that time, I am in the room next to them on the computer. Last night, at about 9:15 p.m., Elliott knocks on the office door and when I answer it he says, "Graeden went outside."



So I get my shoes on and go outside to find him. I walk around the entire house and he's not there so I assume Elliott just thought he went out but he was really hiding or something. So I go back in the house and do a thorough search for him with no success. Now I start to worry a bit. I get my jacket on and go to the front of the house to look down the street both ways. Not there.

I walk a block down the street and look down the crossing street. There he is about three blocks away! He has crossed one of the busiest streets in the town of Snohomish and is about two blocks from getting to his good friends house (his destination). So I ran to him and picked him up and started carrying him back to the house. I wasn't really sure how to react but I'm glad I wasn't screaming like a crazy man because, as I got close to home, a cop showed up and said that somebody saw him walking across the street by himself and called the police.



After he asked a few questions; relationship to child, name, address, etc. he let us go. So Graeden is grounded today. He didn't get to go out while we pressure washed the house. And he doesn't get to go out with Elliott, Jett, and me later tonight. If this was the first time he'd ever run away I would think that was sufficient punishment, but it's the third time and the second time a police officer was called. Any tips for helping him understand the danger of running away and crossing busy streets on his own would be appreciated. By the way...he's only four.

September 20, 2007

Graeden is a funny kid. Why you ask? Well I can think of two things he did yesterday that qualify him as funny.
1. Instead of saying "forgot" he always says "got for"
2. He cried yesterday when Bridget was leaving for work because he wanted to go to work. I told him he didn't have a job and he said, "yes I do." "What is it?" I asked. "To hug mommy."