Cardboard-Landia

Today is Noah's 8th birthday! According to the "golden birthday" principle, it is his golden birthday, because his birthday is on the 8th of the month, and this year he turns 8. So, he requested golden food: honeycomb cereal for breakfast, macaroni and cheese, corn, and apple juice for lunch ...you get the idea.


Sarah makes everyone a birthday poster such as above. We got this idea from our friends, the Dappens.

We enjoyed staying inside for most of the day, as we had a big winter ice/snow storm most of the day. It's still snowing outside, and the branches are really drooping on the trees. The snow is the consistency of cream cheese! I think about 6 inches. Wow!


Anyway, after our special breakfast and morning Bible time, we let him open his gifts. This includes the typical box of homemade presents and family artifacts, which are wrapped and re-wrapped for everyone's birthday. Then a few Noah-specific gifts, including a tool set.

Ben helped pick out the set, and Solomon introduced the tools to Noah.



This is not a toy set. Following Dave's theory of saturation, coupled with my theory of divesting myself of items of frequent use, we often give the kids real useful items.

First, by increasing the quantity of useful items (saturation), we have more chances to find them. Top items currently are: nail clippers, tape measures (hence, Noah's gift), Chapstick, combs, can openers, tape and shoelaces. Theoretically, at some point we will have purchased enough nailclippers so that we will be finding them evenly distributed around our house, not unlike Creation magazines.

Second, divesting myself of items of frequent use works like an invisible "This purse carries no nail clippers" sign, while teaching personal responsibility.

ANYWAY, the boys surrounded the red, plastic, impact-resistant tool box with deep respect, and listened with minimal patience as Solomon showed them what was what.

After we cleaned up a bit, we began construction of Cardboard-Landia...a town of model houses built of materials from our burn barrel box. Since we are coming out of a flu, we had lots of saltine cracker boxes, as well as lemon lime soda boxes.

Solomon selected a specially preserved box to use for his house. He was the only one to employ trusses in his construction.



Joanna helped the little boys, built her house, and then made the Welcome sign (pictured at top).


Hannah put a lot of detail into her house, including a dormer (her house is pictured at top).



Zak joined in the fun, but his project was a scale model of our front porch, which may be our next house project.


Noah's plans grew as he began building. Fortunately, we had lots of building materials!


Sarah's house included construction paper siding, which never needs painting.


Bekah went for a model of our current house.


After clearing the table, we had Noah's golden lunch, followed by his lemon yellow cake.


Here is your online tour of Cardboard-Landia!



Left to right: Susanna, Bekah and Sarah (front porch with railing).


The house that Solomon built.


Bekah's summer home, and Noah's (with attached garage and architectural shingles).