Monday 8 April 2013

The Great Lego Mishap

On Sunday morning, the boys woke up and excitedly headed to the basement to play because we did not have to go to church that morning. Twice a year, the leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints host a two day conference, which is broadcasted on the Internet for everyone to see. You can go to the chapel to watch it, but our family chooses to watch it from the comfort of our home. It was lovely! I got to spend the entire day lounging on the couch, eating lots of yummy treats while being spiritually uplifted, strengthened and nourished by the wonderful men and women of our church. I love conference weekend! You can check it out for  yourself here

Anyhoo . . . 

So, the boys headed to the basement to play with Lego. As they were going downstairs, they told me they wanted to build a gum ball machine. I was highly sceptical of this venture and told them there is probably a set we could buy to build one, but that they probably could not do it on their own.

Grrrrrrrr! Me and my adult brain really suck sometimes!

Thankfully my boys are not prone to listening to me, and they got to work in spite of my lack of encouragement.

Grrrrrrrr! Sometimes I can really be a lousy mom.

Thirty minutes later they came running up the stairs proudly carrying their newest invention:

The Jelly Bean Dispenser!
(we had no gumballs in the house)


My adult brain was blown away! I apologised to the boys and explained to them that all I could picture  with my limited imagination was the fancy gumball machines you buy in stores. I thought they were going to try and recreate one of them, which would have been very difficult; however, they did something even better.  They came up with their own design. They used their own imagination to create a jelly bean dispenser that worked! I apologised again and told them both how proud I was of them.

While they were presenting their invention, though, the jelly beans got stuck a couple of times. This would not do. So, they packed up their stuff and headed back to the basement. Eventually they came back up with an upgraded version of their jelly bean dispenser, and this time it did not jam. It also had a fancy basket on the bottom to catch the jelly beans before they rolled all over the table.

Again, I was blown away. The boys, pleased with the work they had done, left the dispenser on the coffee table and went back to the basement to play and create.


An hour later, Baby Girl woke up and joined me on the couch to watch the Young Women's conference broadcast.  These talks are directed to the young women of the church and their mothers. They are always very touching, very inspirational, and very tear-inducing. This was our favourite one!

While we were watching the broadcast, I looked over to see that Zoe was building something out of Lego. I chuckled because she always needs to be doing something with her hands. Then I gasped in horror!

Zoe, where did you get those Lego pieces?

They were here on the coffee table.

Did you take something apart to get them?

Yeah, why?

That was the boys' jelly bean dispenser. They worked on it all morning! AND it actually worked.

Oh.

Unfortunately no matter how hard she tried and even with the pictures I had taken of the invention, she was unable to fix it. Avery took the news okay. He was upset, but he quickly forgave her after she said she would work on a word search with him. Elliot, on the other hand, was devastated:

I curse you and all of your descendants, Zoe!

Where does he come up with this stuff?

Eventually he did forgive and forget, but sadly, the machine is no longer. I just hope their doubting mother and their destructible sister have not squashed their inventive genius for good.

Happy Monday!


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