I still don't understand how this could happen...

Mrs. BigKat was at the computer this morning. It was a little cold so she was tapping her feet up and down on the floor.

BUM-BUM-BUM-BUM-BUM-BUM-BUM-BUM...

Now what would you say in that situation? I bet you would say exactly the same thing that I said:

Her feet: BUM-BUM-BUM-BUM-BUM-BUM-BUM-BUM-BUM-BUM-BUM-BUM-BUM-BUM-BUM-BUM

Me: FLASH!!! A-aaaaaahhhh!!!

Savior of the universe!!!

And it would be funny, right? WRONG! Mrs. BigKat had NO IDEA what I was talking about! SHE HAD NEVER HEARD OF FLASH GORDON!

I still don't know what to say about this...

Here's the song in case you spent your childhood in a hole in the ground like my wife apparently did:

Underwear

The kids usually take their baths/showers in the evening. Which means that this is when LilKat2 changes his underwear. Well, it seemed as if LilKat2 was running out of clean underwear more quickly than he should. We found out that the reason for this was that he was changing his underwear right when he woke up in addition to after his shower. Mrs. BigKat told him that since he took a shower in the evening, he didn't have to change his underwear again in the morning. That way, he wouldn't run out of clean underwear so quickly in his underwear drawer.

Unfortunately, I think he took this underwear conservation concept a little to far. The other day, he says 'Mom, guess what...I think I've worn this same underwear for FOUR DAYS!'

I hope he at least turned it inside out after day 2...

Darrel

A couple of weeks ago, my cat Darrel died. He was 13 years old. We have a bunch of cats at our house and Darrel was my favorite.

Here's why:

• He was the most dog-like cat I know. When I would go out, he would wait at the front door for me to come home. Mrs. BigKat said that he really missed me when I left. When I went on business trips, it would drive him crazy.

• He was smart, but he used his brains for evil. If he was a person, I think he would've been Lex Luthor. Okay, maybe he wasn't really evil, but he did like to do funny things just to bother people.

Here's an example: A long while ago, I had a roommate, Lisa. When she left for school/work in the morning, she would close the door to her room. Sometimes, Darrel would quickly run in and hide in before she had a chance to shut the door. Then she'd have to spend the next 10 minutes searching for him. One time, she was running really late and didn't have time to catch Darrel. She asked me if I could go in there and find him for her, so I said sure. Right after she drove away, I looked over and saw Darrel slowly walking out of her room. I think he just loved getting a reaction out of her. But she left and the game was over, so he went to go find something else to do.

• He loved to get into places where he wasn't supposed to go. Okay, maybe this wasn't always good, but it made for some funny memories. Here's a picture of when Darrel got into one of the cupboards. Mrs. BigKat was cleaning out the kitchen. She left one cupboards open that was pretty high up. Darrel saw his chance so he got in (I'm not exactly sure how he did it. He must've got onto the stove and then took a superleap into the cupboard. I guess he just wanted to know what was in there). It kind of surprised her.

Here's a picture of Darrel when he got on top of the refrigerator. Again, I'm not sure how he got up there. One time, Mrs. BigKat and I were sleeping and we heard this huge CRASH downstairs. Now some people might think that maybe there's a robber, or that maybe the noise came from outside. But Mrs. BigKat and I both thought the same thing...Darrel...

It turns out we were right. He had gotten on top of the refrigerator and knocked off this huge glass bowl.

• He loved being on top of my head. When I met him at the animal shelter, the first thing he did was climb on my head. He loved being up there. I used to wear a hooded sweatshirt when I worked at home. When he was little, he would go inside the hood behind my back and lie down in there while I worked. Or sometimes, he would just go on the top of my chair. When he got larger, he couldn't really fit on the top of my head very well, so he would often just try to climb up me and sit on my neck or back.

• He had very soft fur. I mean really soft. It's much different than any of our other cats. I think one of the reasons I enjoyed petting him so much was because of how neat his fur felt.

• He would do things to drive me crazy. Here's one of my favorite Darrel stories. When he was little, I used to get into work really early. I'd get in at around 4am, which meant that I had to get up around 3am. I tried to get to sleep as early as I could, but it wasn't always easy. You see, Darrel had this thing where he wanted to stick his nose up into my nose and ears. Now, he didn't do this all the time, only when I wanted to sleep! So I had to try and sleep with my covers pulled over my head and tucked under my body. But Darrel would still try and shove himself himself under the covers so that he could get at my face. If I accidentally had the covers too close to my face, he would just try and bite my nose through the covers. Eventually, I'd have to stick my head out so that I could breathe and he would immediately go attack my face. This would go on for hours, with me pleading with him to leave me alone, and him happily purring away. One time, I got smart and brought a squirt gun with me to bed. It worked for a little while. I'd squirt him and he would run away. But then he got smart. Once, he let me squirt him and just stood there and took it. I squirted and squirted until I ran out of water. When I had no more water, he continued with trying to stick his nose in my ear.

• He was a big huge cat (I think 16 pounds at his heaviest) and acted like a tough cat. But he never hurt anyone. In fact, you could totally manhandle him and he would never fight back. Our children have grabbed him and picked him up in all sorts of undignified ways, and he never once got angry at them. Sometimes if I grabbed him for too long, he would start huffing and puffing at me (something I've never seen any other cat do), but I always thought it was cute so it would make me grab him for longer. I think he was just pretending to be angry, but was really happy with all the attention. Here's a picture of him with a baseball cap on his head. He probably wasn't very happy with the hat on his head, but he let me do stuff like that to him and wouldn't complain (too much).

• We loved being around each other. With our other cats (and probably cats in general), it seems like they come to get petted when they feel like it, and then walk away when they're done. Darrel liked being with me pretty much all the time. He'd hang out with me all day while I worked. He would sometimes sit at my feet (recently, he had a new trick where he'd lie down behind my office chair. It was sneaky because it would trap me in my desk. I couldn't stand up without moving my chair. He knew I couldn't move it backwards because I would smash him. But when I'd try to nudge him out of the way, he'd just lie there, ignoring me). When I'd come home tired from basketball and collapse on the floor, he'd rush over and lie down with me (and try to stick his nose in my armpits, which I didn't like so much). The night he died, was was sleeping in my work chair. He never did that. I'm guessing that he knew he was going to die and laid down in a place where I sit most of the time. Maybe he went there because he knew I would find him. Or maybe he just wanted to be in a place that he associated with me. It makes me happy to think that he was thinking about me during his last moments.

I miss Darrel. I told Mrs. BigKat that I don't want any more pets after our cats all die. But if I saw a cat that was exactly like Darrel, I'm pretty sure I would buy him again. The other cats seem like they are trying to make things easier for me. A couple of them have suddenly turned a little Darrel-like. Alice has recently been waiting around for me when I leave the house and will often follow me around when I'm at home. Bill has been sitting at my feet while I work, and today wanted to sit on my lap just like Darrel used to do (it wasn't the same though because Bill kept wanting to bite my fingers when my hands would get near him. Plus he farted a bunch and made it stink).

I'm not sure what happens to animals when they die. There's not really anything mentioned about it in the Bible that I've read. If I had to take an honest guess, I would say that God made animals different than he made people, so there's probably not a cat heaven like some people would like to think. But who know. Either way, I feel blessed to have been able to spend 13 years with the best cat the world has ever known, my friend Darrel.

Not so green

Do you like Sun Chips? Well, PrincessKat does. She asked for a bag at the store the other day, so Mrs. BigKat bought it. However, this bag was a bit different from other bags we've purchased in the past. It was LOUD! Really LOUD! Like if-you-were-getting-some-chips-out-of-the-bag-you-couldn't-hear-the-person-next-to-you-talking loud.

One time I was trying to get some chips and LilKat2 scolded me because he said he couldn't hear the video game he was playing on the computer. Another time, Mrs. BigKat had to keep repeating what she was saying to me because I couldn't hear her over the bag crinkling (ok, fine...so maybe I was crinkling the bag on purpose to annoy her).

It turns out that there's a reason that the bag is so crinkly. It's a specially designed compostable bag. Instead of throwing away the bag, you're supposed to be able to put it in your composter. Wow! Seems so environmentally friendly!

Well, the funny part is that Mrs. BigKat couldn't stand the loud crinkling. So you no what she did? She took out the chips and put them in a big plastic ziploc bag. The company spends all this time and money designing a fancy schmancy compostable bag to reduce waste, and my wife gets rid of all that work with her non-compostable plastic bag. For some reason, I really got a kick out of this.

However, she is still planning on putting the Sun Chips bag in the composter!

Too Many Games

This morning, I was at the computer and I logged on to boardgamegeek.com. I started looking at some gaming articles, nothing with pictures or anything, just text. Anyhow, PrincessKat saw what I was doing and must have recognized the logo on the website. She immediately ran over, jumped on my lap, and, apparently imitating me, started yelling 'I WANT THAT GAME! I WANT THAT GAME!'

That killed me! Me and Mrs. BigKat were both laughing for quite a while. But the whole time, I was thinking...Do I really act that way? Maybe I do have too many boardgames...

Advent

Wow...it's been busy around here lately. I started a new basketball clinic for kids at our church. It's kind of a pilot program right now. It's a small 4 week session made up of kids from my Sunday School class and around the neighborhood. In January, I'm planning on doing a larger session that's open to everyone else. So that's one thing keeping us busy. But we've also got ADVENT!

A couple of Christmas's ago, we started doing a new thing where we give our kids almost all of their Christmas presents before Christmas. The idea is that getting the presents out of the way will make it easier for us to truly celebrate Jesus' birthday. And it's been working great for the past 2 years! I like it because less importance is placed on the presents. The kids like it because they get their presents early. (Mrs. BigKat is not as thrilled about the new system as I am, but she does see the need for it and enjoys the fact that it's working so well.)

Anyhow, at church, they asked us, as a family, to light the Advent candle this Sunday. And my job is to tell about our family traditions that help us keep Jesus as the focus of Christmas. Now everyone at church will get to hear about my crazy idea!

There's another Advent activity that LilKat1 and I are doing. It's actually something that I'm doing with my Sunday School class. We're doing an Advent Calendar, but it's a little different than your normal Advent calendar. You know the calendars where you open up the doors and eat the little chocolates (or get Legos or whatever)? Well, instead of getting things, we're giving things. Each day leading up to Christmas, we're giving a gift of service to Jesus. On our calendar, we write down something we can do to share God's love with someone else for each day of the month. Then, as we give our gifts of service, we draw hearts around whatever day it is to mark down what we did. For example, one day LilKat1 spent some time with his sister playing her favorite game. Another day, he emailed his favorite Bible verse to his grandmother. Another time, he helped make cookies, which we sold to help raise money to buy blankets for poor people in India to help them stay warm during the winter. So on Sunday, I'll be able to talk about our Advent Calendar too!

Here's a little video I made for my Sunday School class to illustrate the idea:

My Birthday

My birthday was last Sunday, so we had a nice long birthday weekend. Here are the highlights:

Saturday

• Took the whole family out for a round of frisbee golf. There's this elementary school not too far away that has its own frisbee golf course on it. It ended up being perfect because the holes weren't too far away from each other, so the kids had an easier time with it. And the whole place is fenced in, so we didn't have to worry about PrincessKat running away somewhere.


• Mrs. BigKat took LilKat1 shopping, so I was able to have some time with LilKat2 playing boardgames. I showed him a couple that he'd never played before: DVONN and Carcassonne: The Castle. I thought he might be a little young for them, but he caught on to the rules for both of them quite easily. He actually thumped me pretty good on Carcassonne. I think the final score was 101-38. Sure, I helped him a bit on his turns, but he really did quite well for himself.

Sunday

• I taught Sunday School. It was my last regular class of the year! Next week, we're having an in-class celebration. And the following week, we're having awards and games. After that, it's summer. I'm a little sad to see all of my 2nd graders 'graduating' out of my class!
  


• After lunch, I got to open my presents. I got a bunch of cool stuff! First, I got a whole bunch of boardgames:

Yspahan - I've been wanting this for a long time. A fairly quick, family oriented boardgame that uses dice in an interesting way. The rules are pretty simple, but there are a few different ways to score points, which I like.

Powerboats - A fast paced boat racing game with a modular board. Mrs. BigKat and I tried it out right away. It's quite fun. The interesting blue 3 sided dice that it comes with are quite cool. I'm looking forward to showing it to the boys.

Jamaica - Another racing game, but this time it's pirate ships. I still have to read the rules, but it looks like something that will be fun for grownups and kids to play together.

Stratego - Did you know that there's a revised version of Stratego? I showed LilKat1 how to play the original version a while ago, and we had fun with it. He bought me the revised version. In this one, all of the pieces have their own special abilities. Can't wait to try it out!

• I also got a big pile of candy. Did you know that they made chewy lemonheads? They're really good! And they come with apple, grape, orange, and cherry too. They're called something like Sour Chewy Lemonheads AND FRIENDS. The only problem was the PrincessKat got ahold of them, put a whole bunch in her mouth, decided they were too sour, and spit them on the carpet, leaving a kind of rainbow colored shotgun blast of candy stains on the carpet.

• In the afternoon, I got to cook. I made paella! I was going to make it with chicken and linguica. But I don't know how to get the chicken to be done at the same time as the rice. So I cheated and made the chicken separately on the grill (using my new favorite chicken grilling technique that I saw in last month's Cook's Illustrated). The paella turned out pretty good, but not perfect. The flavor was great, but some of the rice was undercooked. But I still got to spend the whole afternoon cooking and grilling, which is fun for me.
  


• I did take one break from cooking. The ice cream man came by and LilKat1 bought himself a missile pop with is own money. LilKat2 felt left out, so I grabbed my wallet and chased the ice cream man down the street. Just like when I was a kid!

• That evening my mom and My-Friend-Who-Lies (MFWL) and his wife (MFWLW) came over. After the kids went to bed, we all played a couple of games of Cash 'n Guns. It's an absolutely silly game where you're a bunch of gangsters trying to split up the money that you got from robbing a bank by threatening each other with orange foam pistols. I lost pretty bad at this game. And it's quite possible that I will never win at this game. It turns out that everyone likes to shoot me with orange foam pistols. I don't know why. But even though I lost, it was still a lot of fun.
  


• I think the best part, though was when Mrs. BigKat said that she would never let the kids see this game. After all it uses real foam pistols!

REAL...FOAM...PISTOLS!

Ok...I should probably stop making fun of my wife now...

But REAL FOAM PISTOLS! It just makes me smile everytime I think about it.

• Oh yeah, MFWL also got me the expansion for Galaxy Trucker, bringing my birthday boardgame total up to FIVE!

The next day was good too. Got to beat MFWL in a round of 18 holes of frisbee golf (although he did lose Mrs. BigKat's frisbee by throwing it over a barbed wire fence...that wasn't so good). I also got to spend some fun time with LilKat1 shopping for Star Wars legos. And I bought myself a small game: Hula Hippos! I'm definitely going to have to make a video for that one.

Kobe

I haven't been able to watch many of the NBA playoff games this year because we don't get ESPN or TNT. But I was able to 'see' the game on the computer last night (and by 'see', I mean taking a break from cleaning the bathroom, going to the computer, and clicking refresh on the Yahoo Sports page).

After the game, I went to tell Mrs. BigKat that the Nuggets beat the Lakers. Her response?

'That's good, right?'

I wasn't sure what to say. It was a bit startling. I immediately tried to think of some other situations where something similar might have happened...

Luke: Hey C3PO! It worked! We blew up the Death Star!

C3PO: That's good, right?

or maybe...

Penny: Uncle Gadget! We finally captured Dr. Claw!

Inspector Gadget: That's good, right?

or possibly...

Aquaman: Superman! It worked! We got him to say kltpzyxm!

Superman: That's good, right?

Well, the only thing I could come up with was...

Ummm...it's KOBE!

Which apparently was good enough for her.

TracBall

I found my old TracBall set in a closet the other day. LilKat2 immediately asked me what 'that tennis thing' was. I told him that it was a game that I used to play when I was little and that we could go to the park and try it out sometime when the weather was nice.

Well, today was the first sunny day in a while, so at lunch, LilKat2 asked if I could take him to the park to play the tennis game (I couldn't remember what he was talking about at first, but Mrs. BigKat reminded me).

It was a lot of fun! Turns out TracBall is great for playing catch with small kids! It took LilKat2 a little while to figure it out (most of his first few throws went backwards. Many went straight sideways.), but once he got it, he could throw the ball quite far. He could also catch the ball pretty well too.

Compare this to when we throw the football around. The TracBall rackets allow him to fling the ball much farther than he can throw a football. And because they impart a backspin, the TracBall floats a bit, making it easier for me to chase his throws down when they're off to the side. He can also catch the TracBall easier than he can catch a football. All he has to do is reach his racket out and get the ball to hit it somewhere. And since the racket is so big, he can catch balls that go over his head (something he can't do with a football).  I can even whip the ball at him with a pretty good pace. He just sticks his racket out and watches the ball slide down into the pocket (the only thing I have to worry about is keeping it away from his face. I imagine getting popped with one of those hard plastic balls would sting).

I think LilKat2 really liked that he could throw the ball far and that he could catch the ball when I threw it normally (I could zip it in there from far away, instead of having to get close and throw it soft at him). I think it made him feel a little bit bigger.

So if you're clearing out your garage and find an old set, try them out with your kids! You might be surprised at how much fun you guys have!

Mario Kart

You know how much I love my children?

I love my children so much that I spent hours becoming a Mario Kart expert so that they could play on the 'hidden' courses. HOURS!

Now, I enjoy playing games with my kids. And they love Mario Kart. We have the old version for the Game Cube (actually belongs to My-Friend-Who-Lies who was kind enough to let us borrow it. I guess that somewhat makes up for him stealing my 'Great Escape' DVD). Every now and then, me, Mrs. BigKat, and the 2 LilKats will have some great 4 player races.

But I'm talking about playing by myself after the kids have gone to bed because LilKat1 has told me 'Dad...we REEEEAAAAAAALLLLLYYYYYY want to play on the new courses.' Me, by myself, sitting in front of the TV (on a tiny wooden kid chair) when there are perfectly good boardgames upstairs just begging to be played!

Now, it wasn't all by myself. I did play a bit with LilKat2 to try and unlock the courses. We played the 150cc Star course together during my lunch break a couple of times. I remember once, I was very close to coming in first place. Then, all of a sudden, right before the finish line, I got blown up by a flying shell. I said something like 'Aaaaargh! I had it, but then someone blasted me with a flying shell!'

To which LilKat2 replied: 'Oh! That was me Dad!'

So we had to try again...

Well, over the weekend, we finally unlocked the tracks (actually Mrs. BigKat got the final piece of the puzzle with a 1st place on the 100cc Star Course with LilKat2) and the boys have been enjoying the new courses (LilKat2 woke up at 5:30 yesterday to go play them).

As for me...I think it's going to be a long time before I have one of those Mario Kart by myself sessions again.

Well, until we get a Wii and they want me to unlock those courses too...

The BigKat Deck

My wife and I just celebrated our 10 year anniversary (Yay!). I was trying to think of something creative to give her that would be fun for both of us. I had trouble thinking of anything good, and was about to give up. But then, I found out about a special deal on ArtsCow.com on custom made decks of cards. That led to...

The K-Deck!



The K-Deck allows you to play some of my favorite games, Lost Cities, Battle Line, and Tichu, all from one specially made deck of cards (actually 2 decks smashed together). It also functions as a standard deck of cards. But the best thing about the K-Deck is that all of the cards contain images of our family. For example...

This is what the 10's look like:

Here is an 8:

For Battle Line, here is one of the Tactics cards (used to be 'Fog' in the original game, I renamed it 'Mess'. The picture is from when LilKat2 dumped a whole box of Strawberry Quik on the floor and made sand castles out of it (Quik Castles?) ).

For Tichu, instead of 'The Hounds', we have 'The Cats':

And of course, the single most powerful card in Tichu...the Dragon:

I was quite pleased with how they turned out. Mrs. BigKat got a kick out of them too. On our date nights, we sometimes will go to a coffee shop or library after dinner and play a quick game of something. Now we can bring the K-Deck with us and enjoy a round of Battle Line, featuring our family!

I'm thinking of making another deck for Mystery Rummy: Jack the Ripper, an out of print game that I'd like to play. But instead of being about Jack the Ripper, I'm going to re-theme it to a game of people in our family stealing desserts.

Sonicare

I love my Sonicare toothbrush. It makes my teeth feel just-like-a-dentist-scraped-your-mouth-with-a-metal-hook clean.

But it has one fatal flaw...the colored rings.

The colored rings are these little rubber circles at the base of the detachable brushes. The rings are supposed to identify whose brush is whose, so that when someone goes to brush their teeth, they don't stick someone else's toothbrush in their mouth.

The colored rings used to work great. They had standard colors: blue, yellow, green, etc. Perfectly useful for identifying toothbrushes. But now, some genius decided that the standard colors didn't look right on the fancy-schmancy toothbrush. So they decided to make all new colors...THAT LOOK EXACTLY THE SAME! They're all grey! It's completely ridiculous!

Now when me and Mrs. BigKat go on vacations, we have ridiculous conversations like this.

'Which one is my toothbrush?'

'What color did you have?'

 

'Grey'

'Was it dark grey?'

'Ummm...I don't know...Maybe...I think it was kind of bluish grey'

'Ok, then this one is yours'

'But that one's greenish grey. Wasn't yours greenish grey?'

'No mine was light grey'

'Light greenish grey, or light bluish grey?'

'I don't know...I guess light bluish grey...'

'Then this one's probably yours. It's light bluish grey'

'But the other one's light bluish grey too. Just a little greener. Maybe greenish-light bluish grey. Are you sure yours was light bluish grey and not greenish-light bluish grey?'

(pause)

'Fine...I'm just going to use this one. I don't care if I get your cooties.'

Gotta Have God

I've been searching for a new Bible resource for LilKat1 for a LOOOOONG time.

Last year, we went through My First Message: A Bible Devotional for Kids and it was fantastic. The text that it used was from the Message. I thought this was great. It was more like reading from a regular Bible and less like a storybook. There were interesting questions and activities in each section, which LilKat1 absolutely loved. He could not get enough of this Bible. He looked forward to reading it every day.

The only downside was the limited number of sections. Since we were reading it each night, we blew right through it! And I've been on the search for something as good, or better, ever since.

Well, we've finally found another great resource. It's Gotta Have God: Ages 6-9 by Diane Cory. Here's what I like about this book:

1) A bunch of small sections: I think there are over 100. We're going to get over 3 months out of it!

2) A short Bible verse to look up at the beginning of each section: It's a great way to get LilKat1 used to looking up his own verses. He's still a beginning reader, so having to only read one verse is very comfortable for him.

3) Devotionals are about God: Imagine that! It takes a section from the Bible and uses it to teach about God! I really do not like books that focus on the Bible characters like Noah, Jonah, David, etc. The Bible is a book about God. That's who we should be learning about!

4) Nice pictures: The artwork is done well enough so that it makes the book attractive to my son.

5) Questions: There are a couple of questions for the child to answer at the end of each section. There's even a space to write down answers. This is great! LilKat1 loves writing down his own answers in his book. And, so far, the questions are actually good, relevant questions.

5) Activities: There's a worksheet-style activity at the end of each devotional. My son loves doing stuff like this. They have things like little crossword puzzles or secret decoder pages.

6) Nice short sections: Each section doesn't try to pack to much in. My son never gets to the point where he feels like it's taxing his attention span. 

7) Boy/Age specific: The lessons are appropriate for him. There are also similar books available for different ages (2-5 and 10-12). There is also a whole similar series for girls.

This book has been a great resource for helping LilKat1 to experience daily Bible study in a fun way. It makes me smile to see how excited he is to grab his book and do his Bible time with me.

And do you know what I found out today? There's a 2nd book in the series, Gotta Have God Vol 2 waiting for us when we finish this one. Woo hoo! 

It seemed like a good idea at the time

Mrs. Big Kat thought it would be fun to put real candy canes on our Christmas tree. When the boys wanted a treat, they could go up to the tree, pick out a candy cane, and eat it. It worked out great at first.

But then PrincessKat saw what they were doing and assumed that we had some sort of a Willy Wonka Christmas tree.

Now she's mad because Mrs. BigKat wouldn't let her eat all of the other ornaments.

It seemed like a good idea at the time...

Helping

One of the nice things about Christmas time is that it provides opportunities for us to get our kids involved with helping out others. Mrs. BigKat and I are always looking for ways that our kids can do things to get them personally involved with sharing God's love with people who need help.

Last month, we did a couple of different things. The first was Operation Christmas Child. It's a program through Samaritan's Purse that shares shoeboxes filled with gifts as well as the Good News about Jesus with kids in tough situations all around the world.

We had a great time with it. We took our kids to Target and bought up a ton of stuff to fill shoeboxes with. We had a list of the different types of items that we wanted to get (toys, candy, school supplies, clothes, toothbrushes, soap, etc.) and the kids all got a chance to pick out which things they thought the other children would like the most. The boys even got to spend some of their own money on special items that they wanted included. At home, LilKat1 and I carefully laid all of the stuff out, divided it up, and filled all of our boxes. Then we drove all of the boxes down to the dropoff location. The boys liked being able to see the hundreds of other shoeboxes that were already there. We talked about how God is using people in our community and all over the country to share His love with people all around the world. And of course we prayed for all of the kids that the shoeboxes are going to.

Another thing we got to do was box up food for a local food pantry. At LilKat1's school, there are many families who depend on the free lunches that the school gives their kids. When their kids are home for winter break, they can have problems providing enough food for their families. The food pantry provides them with boxes of food to help them get through the couple of weeks when their children are home from school. Our Bible study group decided to help out with this situation. One of the members of our group was able to get a bunch of food to donate to the food pantry. All of the families got together one night and worked assembly-line style to box everything up. All 3 of our children had a great time with this.

Me and LilKat2 were in charge of canned peppers and boxes of breadsticks. Each food box was to get 2 cans of peppers and one box of breadsticks. As a food box would get pushed in front of me, I'd yell out "Two cans!" LilKat2 would run over to his pile, grab 2 cans of peppers, hand them to me, and I'd drop them in the box. Then I'd yell "One box!" and LilKat2 would run back to his pile, grab a box of breadsticks, hurry back, and hand it off to me to put into the food box.

Mrs. BigKat, LilKat1, and PrincessKat were in charge of tempura mix and rice. LilKat1 was in charge of rice. PrincessKat was in charge of tempura, but under LilKat1's supervision. In other words, if she got distracted, it was LilKat1's job to make sure that 2 boxes of tempura still got into the food box. 

That night was a lot of fun. It was great seeing how excited the kids were to do things to help out others. They seemed to really like the idea that they were actually in charge of an important job that was going to really help some people in need.

This month, we're going to be able to go to the store and purchase any other food that the food pantry needs. And hopefully, we'll be able to help distribute the food as well.

I think it's pretty cool that our kids are now getting to the age where they can do things like this. As a Christian parent, I want to make sure that the whole idea of ministering to others and serving others is just part of their normal lifestyle. It's not always easy to find opportunities for small children to do things that they can actively participate in, which is why I think it's important to try and come up with creative ideas.

One idea that I had that I would like to start doing it going around to neighborhood garage sales on the weekend and find jackets and blankets that we can give to the people at church that minister to the homeless. I think I would also like to start making it a regular part of our weekly grocery shopping where the kids can go down the canned food aisle and pick out stuff that they'd like to donate to the food pantry.

Like I said, I like it that there are these great Christmas-time opportunities for our children participate in helping others. But at the same time, I want to make sure that they know that serving others isn't something we do just once a year, once a month, or once a week. It's part of sharing Jesus' love which is an all the time thing.

Hide and Seek 2.0

Now that the weather's getting colder and rainier, indoor Hide and Seek has become a popular after dinner activity in the BigKat household. Even PrincessKat participates sometimes (and let me tell you, you have not seen cute until you've seen a teeny-tiny 2 year old run behind a coffee table and flop on the ground with her hands covering her face while her big brother is counting).

Well, today, me and the boys came up with a new and improved version of Hide and Seek. We called it the 'Monster Treasure Hunt'. Here's how it works...

First, the Monster (me) gathers up his treasures (3 balls, not too big. Like a kid sized soccer ball). Then he goes upstairs to hide them. The Monster puts them in places that they are fairly easy to see, but also near a potential Monster hiding spot (like in front of a closet). When he's ready, he tells the Treasure Hunters to start counting. While the Treasure Hunters count to 20, the Monster hides near one of the treasures.

When the Treasure Hunters are done counting, they head up the stairs. Their job is to find the treasures and bring them back down. So they search around until they spot one. Then they have to go get it...

Now this is the funny part because they don't know if the Monster is near that particular treasure. And if the Monster is nearby, they don't know exactly where he's hiding. This makes the Treasure Hunters quite nervous as they approach the treasure. Almost like Indiana Jones going into a booby trapped room to get a gold statue. And it is absolutely HI-LARIOUS to see a 6 year old pushing his 4 year old little brother into a room to go get the treasure while he hangs back in the hallway where its safe.

Well, you've probably figured out that the Monster's job is to scare the daylights out of them when one of them gets near the treasure. Then everyone runs screaming down the stairs and gets chased around the kitchen several times for good measure. When the Monster catches LilKat1, his job is to tickle him. LilKat2 prefers not to get tickled, so he just gets hugged and kissed.

At the end, when all the treasures are found, you repeat the whole thing all over again. And again. And again.

Anyhow, if you're finding that your games of Hide and Seek are growing a little bit stale, I highly recommend this new, exciting thrill-packed version.

Boo-ing

Last Friday, while I was in the kitchen, the doorbell rang. I took a look through the window and saw a small child running away. LilKat1 rand over and opened the door, only to find a small bag of candy one the welcome mat.

This was exciting for 2 reasons:

1) We got a bag of candy

2) It's BOO-ing TIME!

BOO-ing is one of our favorite activities. I look forward to this all year long. Have you heard of BOO-ing? No? Well, let me show you how it works...

First, you print out one coloring page for each house that you're going to 'BOO'. You also need to print out an instruction page for each house as well. Then you make a little bag of candy or treats for each place and attach the pages that you've printed out.

Then you sneak over to your target houses, leave their stuff in front of their door, ring their doorbell, and run away without being caught. The idea is that then they will do the same thing for 2 other houses, and so on and so on. You put the coloring page on your door after you've been BOO-ed so everyone knows not to BOO your house again. 

My boys love doing this. We actually break the rules a little bit and BOO several houses. This year, we did 6.

Now, in the past, you could say that we have been a little less than sneaky. For instance, a couple of years ago, we BOO-ed 4 houses and I think we got caught 4 times. The boys just weren't that fast back then. Especially on houses with steps. I ended up having to carry LilKat2 like a football to try and get away quickly without being caught. And it didn't always work.

But now the boys are starting to get bigger and faster. We BOO-ed all 6 houses and didn't get caught once! This year, LilKat1 was in charge of putting the candy on the step and ringing the bell (LilKat2 was in charge of the candy on the first house, but got too nervous after that. For the rest of the houses, his job was to stand on the sidewalk and be the lookout).

It is hard to describe how much fun this is for us. My boys love 'secret agent' type stuff and this definitely fits right in. They actually get quite nervous about not getting caught. But I think that's part of what makes it so fun for them.

I think I need to figure out a way to do this at Christmas time too. Call it Secret Agent Santa-ing?Or maybe Ho-Ho-Ho-ing? We'll see...

Birthday Presents

We celebrated Mrs. BigKat's birthday yesterday. Want to guess what I got her? I'll give you some hints...

1) Part of it came from Home Depot

2) Part of it came from PetSmart

So far, sounds like a present any wife would love, right? Did you guess what it is?

Ok, here are some more hints...

3) The thing from Home Depot is a power tool

4) The thing from PetSmart is for a dog

5) We do not have a dog and are not planning on getting a dog

Did you figure it out? Need more hints? Ok fine, I'll just tell you what I got...

6) The thing from Home Depot is a heat gun

7) The thing from PetSmart is a stainless steel dog bowl

It all makes sense now, doesn't it? Ok, so Mrs. BigKat was less than thrilled when she opened her gifts. She was actually a little bit confused. But the next part of the present cleared things up for her a bit.

9 pounds of green coffee beans!

Mrs. BigKat loves coffee. A while ago, I had planned on getting her some sort of a coffee roaster so that she could have fresh roasted coffee any time she wanted. I did a bunch of research and came across what is known as the heat gun/dog bowl (HGDB) method of roasting coffee beans. It seemed pretty easy, so I thought it would make a great birthday present. If I can roast coffee beans for her at home, she can buy green beans from places like Sweet Maria's. Green beans not only cost less, but they store longer. And she can buy all sorts of interesting beans from all over the world. And I can roast them in small batches so that she can always enjoy them freshly roasted, never stale.

I tried my first roast yesterday. It was pretty easy. I put about a cup of beans into the stainless steel bowl. I heated the beans up using the 'Low' setting on the heat gun for 5 minutes. Then I switched to the 'High' setting for the rest of the roast (the total roast time was about 11 minutes or so). The whole time I did this, I was constantly stirring the beans with a wooden spoon. I stopped the roast a little bit into what is apparently called the '2nd crack' stage. To cool the beans off, I tossed them into a cooling contraption I made using a cardboard box, a colindar, and my shop vac (the beans went into the colander which was sitting in a hole in the box. The shop vacwas plugged into the bottom of the box and sucked the air through the beans as I stirred them with my wooden spoon). In the end, I had with something that definitely looked like roasted coffee beans. We don't know how they taste though. Mrs. BigKat is going to give them a try later today (from what I've read, letting the beans rest after roasting for a little while is a good idea). Hopefully, they'll turn out good! The whole process was very easy and fun too. Next time I try a roast, I'll remember to take some pictures and put them up here.

Back Home

We got back home from our trip down to my dad's house yesterday. We had a good time, but it wore all of us out. Lots of good stuff always happens when we take trips like this. Here are some of the highlights:

 

1) Kid Conversations - Sometimes when we're driving, me and Mrs. BigKat will just be quiet and listen to the goofy conversations that are going on in the back seat. Here's an example of a time where LilKat1 was being a good big brother and explaining all about dinosaurs to his little brother...

LilKat2: Why is it called a Triceratops?

LilKat1: Because it tries a lot. It tries and it tries and it tries and then it...(pause)...ceratops!

2) The big bang - We had been driving for a little while. The kids were in the back quietly coloring in their brand new coloring books. We started to pass a big rig when, suddenly, on of its tires blew up right next to us. The noise was pretty loud, and I had to swerve a little to avoid the flying tire bits. It caused quite a commotion in our car. From the back I heard LilKat1 exclaim 'It almost made me...'

Now, at this point, I was very curious to find out what the big noise almost made him do. Because when a grownup starts a sentence like this, it is very likely to end with something that I might not want my kids to say. I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but was anxious to find out because I figured it was going to be good, whatever it was. And LilKat1 did not disappoint me. He said...

'It almost made me SCRIBBLE!'

I realize that this may be one of those 'you had to be there' moments, but it made me and Mrs. BigKat laugh for a couple of minutes.

3) Golf - I got to play golf with my dad on Sunday. Now, I'm not the best golfer in the world at all. I'm actually pretty bad. I play only once or twice a year, but this time I was quite happy with how I played! I was hitting my driver nice and straight, and I made a bunch of long putts (the part in the middle was not so great though...). After I had made a couple of good putts, I started to get quite confident in my putting. I was able to read the greens fairly well which is something that I don't normally do. On the scorecard, I started making little notations for places where I made a nice putt. Well, we got to this one hole and I knew that the ball was going to break to the left. But my dad said that it was going to break to the right. Now, my dad is not the best putter in the world, so I really should've known better. But I decided to listen to him and hit the ball as if it was going to break to the right.

It broke to the left.

I was so mad! I quickly picked up another ball and put it in the same spot so that I could see how I would have done if I had it it my way. Sure enough, it broke exactly like I thought it would. I took a double-bogey on that hole, but as I was writing my score down, I put LTD next to it. My dad asked me what that was for. I told him that it was so I could remember that that was when I Listened To Dad. It's now a standard piece of golf lingo in my vocabulary. As in 'I think I could've broken 100 today, if I only had a few less LTD's.'

4. The 'Breakfast' - For some reason, my dad knows very little about the appropriate way to act around kids. I am always telling my kids that 'Yes, I know Grandpa is doing that, but it's really something that we're not supposed to do.' Like walking in the middle of the street, saying potty words, taking your seat belt off while the car is moving, things like that.

Actually, it's not just around kids, it's around grown-ups too. One time, Mrs. BigKat made some lunch for me. He took a look at it and said 'That's disgusting!' right in front of her face! She did not appreciate this at all. Still gets mad about it to this day. But the point is that there is very little that he does that surprises me anymore. Until yesterday...

LilKat2 woke up early and left his bedroom to go hang out with Grandpa. I got myself ready and then went out to see what they were up to. I saw LilKat2 was at the kitchen table, so I figured that Grandpa must've gotten him some something to eat. Want to know what he had prepared LilKat2 for breakfast?

A glass of root beer!

Who gives a glass of root beer to a 4 year old for breakfast? Not cereal, not milk, not juice. Root beer! I had trouble comprehending what I was seeing because I didn't think anyone would actually think to do such a thing! At least when Bill Cosby gave his kids chocolate cake for breakfast, he served it with some grapefruit juice! I immediately took that root beer away, which of course made LilKat2 cry.

5. Boardgame withdrawals - For some goofy reason, we didn't bring any board games with us, except for a copy of Ingenious that we gave to my dad as a birthday present. So in 3 nights, I only got to play one board game. On the drive home, I having to tell Mrs. BigKat that I missed my boardgames. She was very nice and played a game of Roma with me last night after I came home from basketball, even though it was late. Isn't she great?

 

And now we're back home. Everyone got to sleep in their own beds last night, which made everyone very happy. Traveling is fun, but, with kids, it can be a lot of work!

The Week in Review

A lot happened this week, so I thought I'd give you a quick review...

1) Camping! Me and LilKat1 went on our first camping trip on Saturday. We went to a place not too far from our house. We took LilKat2 with us, and Mrs. BigKat and PrincessKat caught up with us after PrincessKat's nap. It was quite fun. We set up our campsite, did some hiking, fishing, and marshmallow toasting. At around 7pm, Mrs. BigKat took LilKat2 (who did NOT want to go. He was very sad...) and PrincessKat home. That left me and LilKat1 at the camp. We went out and did some more fishing. It started to get dark, so we went back to the campsite and got ready for bed. Unfortunately, the people next to us were really loud for a long time. The camp ranger guy even had to come out and scold them. But it didn't help. So LilKat1 had a lot of trouble falling asleep. He eventually did at around 11:30 or so, but was awakened 2 and a half hours later by BOOMING THUNDER! His first time camping and we get caught in a Big Loud Thunderstorm. He didn't like it one bit. He asked me if we could go home. At first, I was thinking that we should just stick it out and stay until morning. The tent was keeping us dry, and we wouldn't be able to pack up until it stopped raining anyways. But I knew that he would not be able to fall asleep all night and would be pretty much miserable, so I agreed to take him home. Besides, my air mattress was leaking and I was basically just sleeping on the ground. Getting a few hours of sleep in my bed sounded much nicer than where I was at the time. So at around 3am, we quickly packed everything up and headed home. And that was LilKat1's first camping experience! Mrs. BigKat asked him if he'd like to do it again sometime, and he gave her an emphatic NO!

2) Mormons! When we got home from camping, I left all of our stuff in the truck. So the next day (Sunday), I had to unload everything. Right as I was starting, 3 Mormon guys rang our doorbell. Now anyone who knows me knows that I love talking to the Mormons. It basically gives me an opportunity to share the Gospel with a group of people and they have to stand there and listen to it and not go away! And sometimes, they even come back for more! I always see it as a great opportunity and have fun with it. These boys that came were very nice. One of them had actually come by a few weeks back, and it was clear that, this time, they had a game plan. But I wouldn't let all the talk of latter day prophets deter me from sharing my faith with these fellas. We talked for about an hour and a half. Mormon theology has a lot of things that don't make a lot of sense to me, so I was able to bring these things up to give them something to think about. It was also a nice exercise for me because it gave me an opportunity to try to articulate my beliefs in a way that people with different beliefs can understand. Plus, I was able to unload all my camping stuff while we talked, so I didn't feel like I was not getting my jobs done.

3) Dinosaur VBS and the crazy pastor! LilKat1 was invited to go to a VBS program at a local church. It was a dinosaur themed program, and LilKat1 LOVES dinosaurs. He only heard about it yesterday, so today was his first day. When he came back, he was all smiles. He had a fantastic time. He handed me all of the stuff that he got, and I started looking through it. Then I noticed something strange...on his handout, there was a lot of stuff about dinosaurs, but also a lot of stuff about Noah's Ark. I didn't get the connection. Then I saw the big picture on the 3rd page and it all made sense. The picture talked about how scientists have many ideas about how the dinosaurs became extinct, but they're pretty much wrong. You see, the real reason why the dinosaurs are extinct is...THE FLOOD! As in the Noah's Ark Flood.

Needless to say, I was a bit surprised. I had never heard of anyone believing this. I quickly called LilKat1 over and asked him if they talked about how the dinosaurs became extinct. He said 'Oh yeah...The flood!' I had to have a talk with him right away and let him know that I didn't think that this was right. He was pretty disturbed by the fact that I disagreed with the VBS people, so we had to have a big talk about it to settle him down.

I wanted to make sure that we wouldn't be in for any more surprises tomorrow, so I called the church. I was able to talk to the pastor, and I expressed my concerns. Now, this guy was amazing. He fully believes that not only were dinosaurs made extinct by the flood, but there were a bunch of them on Noah's ark. Now, I personally don't believe this (like I said, this was the first time I'd even heard of it), but I'm actually ok with someone else thinking that it's true. After all, I'll be the first to admit that I don't know a whole lot about the ins-and-outs of Dinsaur-ology. But there's a good reason why I haven't studied the subject very much: Because It's Not That Important! You see, this guy acted like his view about dinosaurs was a fundamental doctrine of Christianity. Basically, he was telling me that either you believe this version of how the dinosaurs became extinct, or you didn't believe that the Bible was the Word of God and you didn't believe that there is a Creator of the universe. I tried to tell him that it was hard for me to believe that something so trivial as when the dinosaurs existed would play a role in God's Plan of Salvation, but he was having none of it. According to him, I had a decision to make, and apparently, what I believe right now is not one of the options. It took me quite a while to get him off the topic of the Importance of Dinosaurs and on to the topic of Is There Anything in Friday's Lesson That I Need To Be Worried About, but finally, he filled me in. I'm a little apprehensive about it, but LilKat1 is still going to the VBS program at the crazy church tomorrow. I would rather he not go, but he just loved it so much that I can't not let him go. And I figure that if they teach him anything wrong, I can always set him straight like I did today.

One big problem that I had was that the pastor did not seem to care about the emotional impact of telling a kid something that contradicts what their parents and teachers might be teaching them. I mean, this is an outreach ministry, but he didn't seem to care at all about looking at things from the perspective of the kids that they're supposed to be ministering to. If you're going to teach the kids something as controversial as this, you'd think that you'd want to put a little preemptive effort into alleviating any confusion that the kids might have. His thing was that he wanted to be able to get to the parents with his message about the dinosaurs through the kids. I don't know, just seems kind of rotten to me. Hopefully, things will go smoothly tomorrow.

4) Soccer! Soccer's still going on and I found out something about LilKat2 today. That kid has WHEELS! Oh my goodness! He's 4 years old, but he's on a Kindergarten team. Today, we played a game of Sharks and Minnows. In this game, the minnows have to get from one side of the field to the other side without being tagged by a shark. If they are tagged, then they become a shark in the next round. Well, at one point today, everyone was a shark except for LilKat2. He was the lone minnow. I said 'Go!' and he took off. He headed towards the sideline with the whole rest of the team chasing him. Then he turned the corner and flew past everyone, and made it to the other side untouched. Now, I understand more than anyone that 5 year olds are not known for their knowledge of pursuit angles. But still, none of the kids on the team came close to catching him from behind. LilKat2 is a Fast Little Boy.

5) Road Trip! We leave tomorrow to go to my dad's house. Should be a fun trip. We actually enjoy the travel part of it, and I'm looking forward to the drive.