Robots and Bicycles

Every year, the first graders at our school have a project where they have to make a robot. Garrett first saw this project as a preschooler, and has been waiting for it ever since. He even started off this school year by saying "I'm so glad I'm in first grade because I get to make a robot this year!" He has been planning and thinking about it all year.

Several weeks ago, he came running in the door after school waving a paper and yelling "We got the robot letter!!" And so, construction began. He wanted to make a trash can robot, and Dave, of course, was a more than willing participant. Together they designed a robot that looked like R2-D2 and made several trips to Lowes to find all the gadgets they needed. This was the result:

RT-D2 stands for Remote Trash Droid #2. I'm not sure where number one is, but Garrett wanted it as close to the original as possible without actually stealing the name. I think they did an amazing job! His little control panel on the front even lights up. Of course, now we have to store this little droid until Garrett either decides to get rid of it or forgets about it enough that I can "hide" it away.

In the midst of the robot construction, I tried to take the kids bike riding one afternoon. I quickly realized that Paige's little bike had gotten WAY too small for her! She couldn't even pedal because her legs kept hitting the handlebars. So we made a trip to Target, and here's the big girl on her new big girl bike:

She loves it, and it is so much easier to go riding together now. Bigger wheels = less pedaling=more speed! Now we're just riding at a turtle's pace instead of a snail's pace! She'll get the hang of it soon and then I'll be yelling at her to slow down!

In other news, we also took a trip to the zoo, where we had to take a mandatory picture with the lion statue:

No matter how many hundreds of times we go, the kids insist I take a picture here! I should put together a time lapse photo show of all the pictures I have of them! They're getting so big!