K'nex

Have all y'all heard of K'nex?
Maybe THIS from Josh's "2:00 church" post in our blog archives will jog your memory.
K'nex fit in that lego/erector set/lincoln logs category of toys. Lots of teeny pieces that you use to build things.
Josh has been collecting bins of them during his weekly garage sale expeditions with the boys, & one of my goals this weekend while he is gone was to eradicate them completely from our house.
I hated K'nex because those teeny tiny little pieces inevitably ended up covering the floor of our playroom and were then tracked slowly through the entire house. They were showing up in showers, beds, dishwashers, Spencer's hands...they were EVERYWHERE.
And I hated them.
That is, until I saw this:

You can tell what this is, right?
A double-sided crane, of course.

I can't believe my 4-year old created this. Completely on his own. The K'nex sets and model booklet we have are designed for ages 7-12, and honestly, every time I've sat down with them, I've gotten frustrated. I couldn't even figure out how to fit the darn things together. So... once I saw how cool this crane turned out, I had McKay teach me how they work. And you know what? K'nex are a lot of fun. And I am going to go ahead & play the role of a proud parent here: my kid has a talent for building things. A future engineer, maybe?