Last week I talked about our little friend, Justus, who had a “big ‘deea”… Now after some discussion I realize that the little guy with the big ideas was not Justus, but his brother Jazz.  Ooops! Just goes to show how important it is to write stuff down! 

                       That’s why I had my kids write some of their ideas down and put them in our idea basket hanging in the kitchen. And that’s one of the reasons I’m writing this blog – to remember the ideas we had, and to pass them on – and to relive those sweet times of Little people and Big ideas…

                     So again, I dump out our Idea Basket and we continue through our alphabet of ideas…

abcd…E – Easter Candy. I mentioned this idea in my Easter Traditions post. We didn’t do Easter baskets, but instead I gave the kids a few dollars and took them to the grocery store the day after Easter. They could choose their favourite kind of candy and get much more for their money.

                                                                       F – Fridge Noteboard.  “Where were you?” “I left you a note.” “I didn’t see it.”   

            Notes left on the counter were often not noticed. Notes left on the fridge were lost in the welter of pictures, magnets and cartoons… and so I was thrilled to find this little magnetic memo board at Wal Mart or somewhere.  I cleared a place on the front of the fridge to mount the memo board and cut out circle head pictures of each family member…pet…and friends who wanted to be in on it.  We glued the pictures to round magnets and had a perfect place to always look for messages to one another.

 

G – Glasses. Everyone had their own special glass (in their favourite colour) to drink from throughout the day.  A line of glasses on the window sill above the sink was much better than a dozen dirty glasses in the sink or on the counter.

 

H – Handicap in Scrabble.  I grew up playing Scrabble, and love it. So I wanted to instill Scrabble Love into my kids the minute they were able to spell three letter words. Rather than give them hints or show them places to play when they were very young, we gave them a handicap.  They started the game with 100 points.  (Later it dropped to 50 points as they got better at spelling)  And the strategy worked.  Even though the kids are all grown up and gone, the air waves are alive every day with on-line Paladini Scrabble games and Words with Friends.