Gift money idea

I like to try to come up with fun ways to give gifts. Sometimes I can come up with what I think is a festive idea. Well, a few years ago, when my oldest niece graduated from high school, I didn't want to give her a plain card with money in it. So, I put $5 bills in a few fortune cookies, mixed them up with some regular fortune cookies and put them in a cute chinese food take-out box. Well, her sister graduated this year, so I had to do something different. I wanted to make her work for her money (as if graduating wasn't enough work ;). So, I bought some clam shells, folded up some $5's and glued two shells together with hot glue. Then I bought some play sand from Lowe's, this cute sand bucket from Michael's and hid the shells in the sand. On the card I said something like, "I hope you have fun digging for your clams" or something like that. I wasn't there to see her open it, but I heard it took her about 30 min. to find them all, and pry them open! Much more fun than a card with $! Only 12 more (for now) nieces/nephews to come up with ideas for.

The Wrestler

Our boys have always let their younger brothers wrestle them. Dylan would let Nathan, Nathan would let Michael, etc. Dylan, being the oldest, will sometimes get dog-piled by all 3 little brothers. Well, William has become quite the entertainer when he tortures his big brothers. Here he is getting Michael:


The other night, he was doing this to Dylan Jr., and he grabbed him in a choke hold, then said to him through gritted teeth, "I call you Love Muffin!" We all had tears in our eyes from laughing so hard.