Creative Christmas Cards - Quiz

Every year we like to send out a letter with our christmas picture letting our friends and family know how life is going for us. And every year we try to come up with a creative way to do so.

So you know how there are all those quizzes running around the internet, such as "which Disney princess are you?" etc . . . We decided to do one for our family. It went something like this:

Which (enter last name) Family Member are you? Take the quiz to find out!

What would you do on a snow day?
a) what's a snow day?
b) sleep in
c) organize your brothers into a performing group
d) play the lead role in "Harry Potter- the opera"
e) bundle up and go sledding
f) dress up as a chicken

During lunchtime you are most likely to be:
a) what's lunchtime?
b) eating food off your children's plates
c) trying to navigate the politics of the middle school lunchroom
d) sitting with the 5th grade girls
e) walking around and eating with your mouth open
f) dressed as a ninja

What do you like to do during your free time?
a) what's free time?
b) blog, read, and pretend the house is already clean
c) read and play on your iPod
d) build things
e) play games you invented in the basement
f) pretend to be a power ranger

You laugh hardest when:
a) people ask what you like to do in your free time
b) your kids say funny things like "what's for dinner?"
c) your mother dances in public
d) your unsuspecting brothers fall for your evil plans
e) you tell your own punny jokes
f) people "pass gas"


We had about 8 questions on the front, and then on the back we told them who they were most like. It read something like this:


If you answered mostly "C":
Congratulations! You are Maren - "the leader". You jut turned 12 years old and entered 6th grade. You have a strong desire to do what is right and act above your years. Some may call you bossy, while others would say you have emerging leadership skills. You are an excellent musician, excelling in your violin playing. You are also a very creative writer. Your room is always a mess but you are too busy with schoolwork and reading to clean it up.

If you answered mostly "F":
Congratulations! You are Nathan - "The Hilarious". You turned 5 in September and started preschool in the fall. You love dressing up and create your own imaginative costumes. Everything you hold magically becomes a sword. You love drumming and pretending to play the electric guitar. You are incredibly cute but since you growl at people who tell you so (which is also kind of cute) they just call you "fierce". You make your family laugh a lot.


After all the explanations, we ended with:

No matter which one of us you are most like, all of us love all of you! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

It was a good card.


Be sure to read our other Creative Christmas Card ideas.

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You may also enjoy our other Christmas posts and gift lists:

Unique Christmas Stocking stuffers

Creative Toys for Creative Kids

Valentine's Day Kindness Countdown

This Kindness Countdown is a fun way to bring a little more love into your home this Valentine's Day!

this post contains affiliate links


Even though Valentine's Day is more about romantic love, in our home we like to focus on family love during the month of February. Each year I try to find some way to motivate the kids to show extra love to their siblings, and this year I thought we'd do a Kindness Countdown.

I had so many different ideas for how to do the countdown and I couldn't decide which I liked best, so I made four. You can choose your favorite. :)

I like the envelopes and the little packages because it's a surprise what the assignment will be for the day. I tell the kids that these are like Secret Missions. Kids love secret missions. Each morning they are to choose one package, open it, and complete what is written on the heart. Once completed, they can eat the Hershey Kiss inside the package. They can then take the heart and tape it up by our "Love at Home" sign. This will be a way to show how many good things they've been doing for each other. I also have extra hearts they can tape up if they want to do extra good deeds each day.

For the secret missions, I tried to think of things I'd like to see my kids do for each other. Also, if someone is having a hard time with a sibling, I will write on the heart for them to do something specifically for that sibling, such as "Make Joshua's Bed". Just substitute a name each time I wrote "someone".  It's easier to love each other when we serve each other.

Here are some secret kindness mission ideas:

1. make a bed
2. clear someone's dishes for them
3. put away some toys
4. give someone a hug
5. let someone else have the first turn
6. hold the door open for someone
7. write a nice note for someone
8. read a book to someone
9. play a game with someone (and let them win)
10. leave one of these kisses on someone's pillow (I put 2 kisses in this package)
11. help someone get breakfast
12. draw a picture for someone
13. help someone clean their room
14. tell someone what you like about them
15. call your grandparents to tell them you love them
16. write a thank you note to daddy
17. write a thank you note to mommy
18. put away someone's laundry
19. hide notes of love in someone's room
20. clear the dishwasher unasked

(Here is the PDF of the hearts I used with my kids with some blank ones to add your own)

All of these are ones they can do in the home, but you could expand it to include kindness outside the home as well. What ideas would you add?

I think the envelopes are my favorite method of delivery. All I used was felt, a glue gun and a button.  And they are reusable, so that's good. I cut a piece of felt into a long rectangle, glued it to make a pocket, rounded the top, cut a slit where I wanted a button, and used a little dab of hot glue to adhere the button. No sewing involved.

For the paper packages, I used double sided tape to make a loop of cute paper, flattened one end and sealed with double sided tape, filled it with the kiss and heart and sealed the other side with double sided tape. They'll have to tear it to open it, so . . . not reusable.

For the roses, I took two kisses, wrapped them in red cellophane, stuck in a small skewer and wrapped it with floral tape. Then I tied on some curly ribbon and slid the heart up onto the ribbon. The kids who don't get this one will protest since each of these has two kisses and the other packages only have one. I'll just have to eat the second kiss each day to make things fair.

I had an old broken picture frame I used for the last countdown calendar. I tied/hot glued 3 pieces of twine across the frame and used little clothespins to attach the hearts and kisses. It's cute, but the kids might think it disappointing that the secret missions aren't very secret. I guess I could've folded the hearts so they couldn't see what was inside. Next time . . .

Which is your favorite?



Here are some more ideas for focusing on family love during February:

"Love at Home" sign and activity

Filling our Home with Love

The Love Bug

Special Valentine's Day Breakfast

And be sure to check out my Valentine's Day board on Pinterest for more great ideas!

Follow Chicken Babies's board Valentines on Pinterest.


This post is part of 100 Acts of Kindness Challenge from Toddler Approved and Coffee Cups and Crayons! Head over to check out more great ideas for spreading kindness!

Labor Day Apple Picking

One day in August 2004, Jason and I were walking through a farmer's market downtown and noticed a flyer on one of the vendor's tents for a "buy one get one free" special on labor day for picking apples up at their orchard.  It sounded like a lot of fun to us, so we got a few friends together and took Maren up to the orchard for some apple picking fun.  We loved it so much we have gone back every year since (except maybe 2007 which I can't find any pictures from).  Each year more and more people came with us, and so now when we go up we run in to a bunch of people we know and it's lots of fun.  I look through these pictures and I can't believe how quickly time has gone by.  It doesn't seem like that long ago.  This probably won't be interesting to most people, but this is for me and our family history.

First year, in 2004:

Maren and her friend Sydnee

Daddy helping Maren

In 2005:

Maren and her friends Emma and Sydnee, and her new friends
Garrett and Amanda.  How we miss you guys! Also, this was Joshua's first
apple picking adventure.  Grandma is holding him in the background.  

In 2006:

helpful big sister

Apple picking with friends is more fun.  Unfortunately, her friends
Emma and Sydnee had moved out of town by this time, but we were
lucky to have Garrett and Amanda still around.  

In 2007:

Okay, so I don't know for sure if we went in 2007.  Christopher had been born in February of this year, and Jason had to be up in Cincinnati for all of July, August, and September. I don't remember  if he had labor day off and if we went apple picking or if we spent the day up in Cincinnati with him.  So, if anyone (perhaps Grandma? or Aunt Angela?) has pictures from this year that we are in, please pass them on. It may have been we just missed this year.  

In 2008:

One of my favorite apple picking family pictures

In 2009:

This is the favorite apple picking year to talk about.  Nathan had been born 3 days before labor day, and so Jason took the 3 older kids on our traditional apple picking adventure by himself.  It looked a bit stormy, but he was hoping it would hold off until they were done.  No such luck.  It started pouring and thundering.  They had to run back to the porch in front of the store and wait out the storm, along with all the other people who were picking that day.  The kids did not think this was fun at the time, and were screaming their heads off as it lightninged and thundered overhead.  A friend snapped this picture.  Jason thought the whole situation was pretty funny.  The kids can laugh about it now, but it was a sensitive subject for a year or two, with Maren yelling "It was NOT FUNNY!" every time Jason told the story.  

In 2010:

We didn't get a good family picture this year, but there are some cute ones of the kids. It also happened to be Nathan's first birthday, so we had a birthday party for him afterward.  

 In 2011:
Apparently it was a bit chilly this year.

We also love eating the fresh apple and peach pies with fresh pressed cider bought from the little store!

And finally in 2012:
We had a great day of apple picking with family and friends.  It was quite wet, as it had rained on and off the whole weekend, but we didn't let it dampen our spirits! (Oh man, I'm hilarious.)

My big 3 year old!!

It's hard to believe how big the kids have grown.  We love our apple picking tradition!

Summer Reading Chart 2012

It's June 1st and that means summer reading!  The kids are always excited to start their summer reading charts from the library, from Grandma, and from home.

Last year's reading incentive plan worked really well, and I would have done it again this year except that we are trying to sell our house and I can't have stuff all over the walls while people are coming through.  Instead, I came up with an incentive that will be easy to take down for showings, can move easily with us to our new house, and I think is still fun and motivating, and probably more complicated than it needs to be, because I like to do that to myself.

First, I made coupons on the computer for various prizes.  Prizes this year include money, ice cream, new books, prizes from the prize basket, movie days, and play dates.  I made 20 coupons for each child, then cut them up and put them in an envelope labeled with the child's name.  That way I can make sure each child receives all the same things by the end of summer reading.

*This post contains affiliate links

Next I pulled out my balloons, counted out 6 for each child, and assigned each child a couple of colors.  Maren's balloons are red and pink, Joshua's are yellow and green, and Christopher's are blue and orange. I then took 6 coupons out from the envelopes for each child, folded them up, stuck one inside each balloon and blew it up.  I used pretty small balloons.

I made 18 X shaped slits in a piece of poster board and stuck the end of the balloon through the holes. I put the poster board up on the wall with tape, as well as a piece of paper for each child to write the names of their books on.

When the kids have finished an approved book, they get to pop one of their balloons and see what prize they won.  I'll then replace the balloon with another one of their color using an extra coupon from their envelope.

Maren was very excited to start reading today.  I told her she needed to be all done with morning chores before she could start a book, so last night she made a schedule for herself so that she'd be able to start as soon as possible.  It went something like:

1. wake up, make bed, be dressed by 6:55 (she didn't quite make this deadline)
2. practice violin until 7:30
3. eat breakfast until 8
4. leisure time until take J to camp (this part was my favorite)
5. practice piano until 9
6. READ!!! (she had more exclamation points, but I'll spare you)

And she and Joshua are both upstairs reading right now.  Another great part about summer reading is that when the kids are reading, it is nice and quiet and there is no fighting for a while.  Hooray for summer reading!

If you liked this idea, be sure to check out my other summer reading posts!

Summer Reading Beach Scene

Summer Reading Game Boards

Summer Reading Book Worms

And follow my summer fun board on Pinterest!

Follow Chicken Babies's board Summer Fun with Kids on Pinterest.

Special Valentine's Day Breakfast

A while back, my friend Alyssa told me of a tradition her mom used to do for them growing up - she would make a really fancy breakfast for the kids to wake up to on Valentine's Day morning.  Since we homeschool and the kids miss out on Valentine's parties at school, I thought this would be a fun way to celebrate.

Last year was our first year, and I didn't tell the kids what I was planning.  After they went to bed, I decorated the table, tied balloons to the chairs, and set out their surprises.  In the morning I put the food on the table before they woke up.

We had lemon poppyseed muffins with heart sprinkles (heart sprinkles make anything valentinesy).  We also had strawberry mini-wheats cereal, grapes, strawberries, danimals drinkable yogurts, and anything else red I could find.  I had made heart cookie pops for a centerpiece.  I didn't make a hot breakfast.  I figured the red stuff was fun enough.

We put their mailboxes on the table with notes from us in them, and put some treats on the table too, like cookies, yogurt covered raisins, conversation hearts, box of animal crackers, and chocolate lollipops.

I used a mold from my mom to make the lollipops.
We used to give these to our teachers at school.

My mom always made us a big sugar cookie heart with our names on them growing up, so I wanted to do the same for our kids.

I can't believe I didn't even make one for Nathan.
Poor neglected 4th child. 

Nathan was my early riser back then, so he got to enjoy his breakfast before the other kids came down.

All the kids were surprised and excited.

It was a lot of fun, and a tradition I think we'll keep.  However, it is a little less fun when it's not a surprise.  The kids keep asking "Are you going to do the breakfast again this year mom?  Are you?"

Unique Christmas Cards - Dictionary

 New Unabridged* 2011 Dictionary

Fully Revised and Updated

Al-ba-ni-a (al bã nē ə), n. 1. a republic in S. Europe. 2. a country Jason, Erin, Maren, and Joshua visited in April to see Grandma and Grandpa before they completed their 3 year mission there in June.  3. a  place where good toilets are scarce.

Chris-to-pher (kris tə fər), n. a 4 year old boy in preschool who plays soccer, has an endearing smile, loves to cuddle, loves to watch TV shows, and is learning to read. see also: snuggle puppy. 

- v.  to scream with a loud voice in the middle of the night because your foot hurts.  (ie. I hope he doesn’t Christopher tonight so we can get some sleep

 - adj. loveable, cute, and huggable. (ie. That is the most christopher puppy I’ve ever seen!)

Er-in (prin ses), n. 1. an incredibly patient woman. 2. a woman who enjoys homeschooling her children, singing in the Lexington Chamber Chorale, and posting things on her blog (see chickenbabies.blogspot.com). 3. a thing which that woman must do to help the household run smoothly (think groceries, soccer practices, music lessons, etc. . . ) and which occupies much time (ie. she needs to go run some erins).

huh (hu), interj. 1. used as an exclamation of surprise, bewilderment, or disbelief. 2. What Erin said in November when they asked her to serve at church as the Relief Society President.

Ja-son (gūf bol), n. 1. a hard working husband and father. 2. one who spent most of the year serving the youth at church in the stake young men’s presidency, and is now teaching sunday school 3. a person who is almost done with subspecialty training at age 35 (if you don’t count the Masters of Public Health he is slowly working on as he finishes up his fellowship).

 - v. 1. to cheer enthusiastically for every UK basketball game. 2.  to hate any team named after a cardinal.

Josh-u-a (josh ū ə), n. 1. a 7 year old boy in 1st grade who plays many sports and loves them all.  2.  a self-proclaimed math wiz.  3. a boy who loves gymnastics and is constantly upside down.  

- v. to  play the piano several times a day without prompting because you just love it that much.  

Le-To-Mo (lə tō mō), n. an annual bike ride from Lexington to Morehead which first took place in November of 2011 and was biked by Jason, his father, and his brother.

Mar-en (mer ən), n. - 1. a 9 year old girl in 3rd grade who enjoys reading. 2. a girl who loves acting and music, sings in a children’s choir, and plays the piano and violin. 3. a girl who got braces on her top teeth this year 4. one who thinks she knows everything

- syn.  stubborn, intelligent, creative.

Na-than (nā thən), n.  a 2 year old boy who enjoys causing chaos, singing twinkle twinkle, watching the wiggles, and eating snacks. 

- adj. word used to describe any object that can be used as a guitar, such as blocks, spoons, toothbrushes, spatulas, and books. 

- v. to play on the iPad surreptitiously (ie. “Where is that boy?” “Oh, he’s just Nathaning again.” )

o-ver-joyed (ō vər joid), adj. 1. feeling great joy or delight 2. How we feel when we think of the birth of our Savior, the blessings God has given us, of family and friends, health and opportunities,  and especially the knowledge of the gospel and the atonement.  

We-wish-you-a-Mer-ry-Christ-mas (wē wish ū ə mer rē kris məs), phrase. 1. and a Happy New Year

*Actually, extremely abridged

Creative Christmas Cards - Cancelled

In 2008, I was feeling too busy to think of anything clever to do for a Christmas letter, so I decided to cancel it.  We sent out this letter letting everyone know they weren't going to get one this year.

Notice of Cancellation

To: family and friends                 

Re:  Family Christmas Letter

Dear loved ones,

      Due to the busy holiday season and other events, and after much thought and tribulation, our family has decided to cancel our Christmas letter this year.  

       Jason has little enough time to read all the content on espn. com, let alone write a christmas letter.  And then there is work to go to, and UK games to watch, and woodworking projects to dream about, so he definitely does not have time.

  Maren, our precocious 6 year old, is busy with homeschool Kindergarten and all the work that comes with it.  She loves to read her books and can’t spare the time to sit down and write about the ballet, violin, and piano lessons she’s been taking this year, or about the 4 teeth that she has lost.  She would much rather play with her dolls, read her books, wrestle with her brothers, and do lots of crafts than write about any of that stuff.  

Joshua, who just turned 4, can’t hold still long enough to write about the gymnastics class he started this year.  He is too busy cartwheeling and doing headstands on the couch to tell you all about how he was on his first soccer team this fall, and now shares his father’s passion for sports, especially the Kentucky Wildcats.  No, he can’t write a Christmas letter this year.  He’s too busy playing the Wii,  scoring touchdowns in the backyard or playing “hockeybud” up in his room (one of the many sports he has invented).  

Christopher, who will be 2 in February, would probably love to write the Christmas letter, because it would mean he could pound on the keyboard, and he loves playing with anything that is not actually supposed to be a toy.  However, nobody would understand that the random numbers and letters were trying to tell you about how adorable he is, and how he has a wonderful smile that often gets him out of trouble, which he gets into pretty easily these days. 

And as for me (Erin), I am swamped with projects and activities that make it impossible for me to sit down and think of some clever way to tell you about our family’s activities this year.  I’ve got a house to clean, laundry, meals to prepare, children to take care of, Chamber Chorale to attend, homeschooling lessons to plan, and chauffering to do.  But I didn’t want all of you to be expecting a card, and so I knew I had to at least write and explain that even though we would love to tell you about our lives, and how grateful we are for all God has blessed us with,  and wish you all a Merry Christmas, we just didn’t have time this year.  Perhaps next year . . .

Love, 

Us

Unique Christmas Cards - The Candidates

Christmas 2007

Last pre-election year, when there was all the buzz about who was running for president (2007? I think) I sent out a Christmas letter outlining some lesser known candidates - us.  Here is my letter, minus a bunch of the details, because I don't want you to get too bored reading it:

As we enter an election year, we’d like to introduce you to a few candidates the media has somehow overlooked.

 

Jason – Labor Party

         Jason labors to support his family all day. He is a wonderful father who loves to pillow fight and tickle his children.  If elected, he will push for Health Care reforms, more funding for UK basketball, better pitching for the Cincinnati Reds, and more time at home with his beautiful and talented wife.  Although he is currently a member of the Labor party, in 2 1/2 more years he is hoping to join the Green party.

 

Erin – Monarchy

         Erin was briefly a member of the Labor party in February (yay baby Christopher!), but has decided that to best control things, democracy should be overthrown and a monarchy established, with her as Queen.   If elected, she will be a just and magnanimous ruler, who will see to it that all her subjects are well educated, have lots of books to read, and are musically trained.  

 

Maren- Independent

         Maren is a very independent 5 year old. She learned to read this year and has started doing her chores without help.  If elected, Maren will enjoy all the attention and demand that everyone in her presence look at her at all times.  She will also change the flag to include pictures of the Disney princesses.

 

Joshua – Opposition Party

         Although Joshua officially completed the Terrible Twos on December 6th of this year, he still hasn’t fully embraced his three-ness.  He is a very sweet boy who can be very darling and affectionate, but if he is opposed to something, he will let you know, especially at “nap” time.  We probably should call it “kick the door, climb and jump off furniture, sing songs really loud, and throw things at the wall” time.  He is very good at throwing things, singing, eating lengthy meals, writing the letter “H”, and pushing his sister’s buttons.  If elected, Joshua will push for more game playing and for changing all meal times to snack times. 

 

Christopher – Undecided

         Christopher is now 10 months old, and doesn’t say much, so we don’t really know what kind of a candidate he will be.  He is very happy and easygoing and gets really excited when people talk to him, although the exuberance of his older siblings sometimes frightens him.  Judging by his behavior, we can say that if elected he will push for more books, fewer naps and more milk.  

 

Even if you choose to vote for one of the more well known candidates in the upcoming elections, know that we still love you and wish you the best for the upcoming year!

Unique Christmas Cards - The Recipe

Merry Christmas!

I always like to write some kind of cheesy yearly update letter to send out with our family photo at this time of year.  It's my mother's fault.  She would always come up with fun ways to share our family news with others.

Back in 2006, I wrote a recipe for our family's year that was really clever, if I do say so myself.  I can't find it anywhere.  Luckily, my sister copied me and wrote a recipe for their family the next year, and for some reason I do have hers, although I apparently didn't save mine.  Weird.

I'll just share a bit of hers, so you get the idea.

At the top of the page, you have something like :

Recipe for a great 2007!

Then you write out a separate recipe for each person in your family, such as:

Peter:
1 cup employment
1 cup playtime with kiddos
3 family camping trips
2 dozen Candy Cane JoJo's

Andrew:

4 cups kindness
3 cups silliness
sprinkle of cayenne pepper
1 lb. each reading, sports, art, wii, piano, preschool
set aside for 50 minutes quiet time each day to reduce volatility

Then after you've written a recipe for everyone, you write something like:

Take 1 each of (all the names in your family), stir together and let simmer for (however long you've been a family).  Sprinkle with music and laughter and garnish with a cheesy Christmas letter.  Enjoy!

See?  Different, yet informative.  There you go.

Thanksgiving Windows

(Window from a couple of years ago)

It's that time of year again!  Time to help the kids focus on gratitude (and maybe that will help their christmas lists be a little shorter :)).  We started our Thankful Windows again on Tuesday.  Every day during a meal we say 1 or 2 things we are each grateful for and write them on our windows with a window crayon.  We used to do a thankful tree, but it was a lot of work and hard for me to be consistent. The windows work well for us.  They are right by our kitchen table and the kids can easily ready what we've written and be reminded of all the blessings we have.

I love hearing what the kids are grateful for.  This year, the first thing out of Christopher's mouth was "TV shows".  The next day he said "TV".  I said "Christopher, we already wrote that up yesterday." He replied "No mom.  That is for TV shows.  Today I'm grateful for the TV".  Okay, fine. Today he was grateful for Wii games.  Tomorrow I'm expecting iPad.  I think he might need a little less media in his life.

Uses for Halloween Candy

I'm one of those mean moms who doesn't let her kids have all their halloween candy.  I just can't.  It is too too much sugar for those little bodies.  But I don't snatch it away from them while they're kicking and screaming either.  We've talked about health and why it's not good for us to eat 200 pieces of candy in a week and they're good with it.  So this is what we do.

The kids get to eat some halloween night when we get home, and then the next morning they sort through their candy, putting it in piles and trading if they like.  This year I let them choose 30 pieces they can be in charge of (last year I only did 15, so they should be pretty happy with that) and eat whenever they like.  The full size candy bars count as 3.  The rest goes to mommy.  In exchange they get to choose out whatever book they like at the book store.  They like this exchange.  My kids are kind of book nerds, and I love it.

What do I do with all that candy?  I put it in bags for later use. The bag full of lollipops goes into our emergency kits in the garage.  I keep the m&ms and hershey chocolate bars in the pantry to use next time we want m&m cookies or to make s'mores.  I have a bag up in a closet hidden full of fun size chocolate bars to put in Christmas stockings.  We make gingerbread (or graham cracker) houses every December so I put aside the skittles, Dots, smarties, hard candies, kit kats (for fences and such), nerds, airheads, licorice, laffy taffy and other things aside for that purpose.  It makes for an interesting looking house, but it's cheap!  We use some for math activites, and I also keep some put away for school manipulatives.  Then there's a bag to eat, which is still probably too big to be healthy for us. I just have a hard time throwing it away.

First Day of School 2011

The kids were very excited to start school last thursday.  Here are the traditional first day of school photos in front of the door.  I don't know why we always do them in front of the door, especially because the lighting is pretty bad on that side of the house early in the morning.

Maren, 3rd grade

Joshua, 1st grade

Christopher, Pre-K

Nathan, obedience school
seriously, this kid is everywhere

ah, I love these kiddos

In keeping with tradition (that we started last year), I wrapped the kids school supplies and stuffed them in their backpacks.  The kids loved opening up new math books and science things.  This year I bought a set of Magnatiles for our homeschool.  The kids love them!  I've been wanting them ever since I saw them at my sister's house a couple of years ago.  They are fun to build with and the kids have been playing with them constantly.

Christopher might just be a builder
(and yes, all the kids insisted on wearing name tags.  goofballs)

I also bought each child one non-school related present.  Maren got a charm bracelet, and Christopher and Joshua got angry bird "plush toys".  Joshua keeps referring to it as his "plush toy" and it just makes me laugh every time he says it.  I think he noticed because he said "that's what they're called, right?"

pleasantly surprised
I love surprises

What's really fun is when you combine the magnatiles and the angry bird plush toys.  That piggy is not safe in those towers I tell you.

direct hit!