Recently in 392 Family Category

If you have children like mine -- hungry to build things and "experiment" you should check out Howtoons. It is chock full of small, fun projects to build. Some are quite simple like the safety goggles made from a 2 liter bottle. I wish I would hire the authors to create technical manuals for me at the office.

The U.S. Congress would never consider a proposal to add a “7 day love vacation” where everyone is encouraged to “devote themselves to each other “both at an erotic and emotional level”“. A member of the Finnish parliament, Tommy Tabermann, proposed this recently to the Eduskunta. The proposal was debated and sent to committee for study.

Being married to a Finn I can say I find this worthy of study as well.

Check out Matthew's first heat in his first Pine Wood Derby. His car is the white in lane two. He came in 2nd in the heat.

Guess who's here in MN ...

Elise saw her first corpse at a funeral today. When she saw the deceased in repose she asked, "Is that just a sample, so we know what she looked like." Yes, dear it kind of is.

Matthew and I went to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts to celebrate Buddha’s Party.

The number one thing I wanted to see was the Tibetan Sand Painting exhibition. I have seen pictures of sand paintings, but never saw one being painted. I was surprised by how three dimensional the piece was.

Sand paintings like this have always captured my imagination as the are traditionally swept up when complete, making them ephemeral - like life. I also like how utterly fragile the piece is, one sneeze could destroy hours of work.

This even was one of the best events at the MIA I have attended. There were lots of activities for kids of all ages and the special exhibitions were really interesting.

Matthew just turned six recently. One of the cards he got from his kindergarten friend was so nice; I thought I would share it with everyone. I love how happy the sun is in this picture. When someone who is five sits down at their desk for an hour and draws something like this you know the sentiment is far more than you can buy at the Hallmark store for $2.25.

We celebrated Matthew's birthday three times; once with my parents, once with just me on his birthday while Mom was away and once more with a small party at Chuck E. Cheese.

I printed out a few baby pictures for Matthew to take to school for "show and tell" on his birthday. Seeing the baby photos made me remember that tiny dark-haired boy we brought home from the hospital. I remember how hard it was to get him to sleep, how much fun it was to make him smile and giggle, how he lost all his dark hair and how hair grew back in curly bright blonde ringlets. Some days it's very hard to connect the little baby to the kindergarten age kid sitting down and doing his homework, running around the house shrieking and chasing his sister, making jokes about words and surprising us with interesting facts about science.

Matthew, being your dad has made me want to be a better person and wish the world was a better place. Being your dad has also allowed me to see both myself and the world as better than I realized they were. Thanks for lending me your perspective

One of the great things about having kids is that you get to revisit doing all the things you enjoyed as a child. That means I get to go sledding, play on swings, go down slides and spend time with crayons.

Elise got "Ed Emberley's Drawing Book of Animals" for Christmas. After I spent hours scrubbing crayon off the walls of her room I realized that she must have a real passion for art. Wanting to encourage this passion I got her an easel and an art instruction book for Christmas. Ed Emberley's books contain fabulous step by step instructions for making a number of cartoonish animals. You can checkout samples instructions posted on his web site.

Without further ado, check out my latest materpieces.

Matthew read a book to me for the first time. He's read words here and there for some time, but this was the first book he's ever read cover to cover. I'm so proud I could burst my buttons.

Someone posted excerpts from a CIA Sabotage Manual on flickr -- "designed to destabilise the nicaraguan government and economic system."

I was really fascinated & amused by this until I slowly realized that my kids actually have a play book for their household destructiveness. Until today I had always chalked the destruction at home to lack of impulse control and youthful exuberance.  Now I realize they are a tiny but determined insurgency bent on my eventual overthrow.