I'm really AMAZED at how "busy" our little 5 year old quadruplet grandchildren and their big 6 year old brother want to be!  They LOVE to help and BEG to do stuff for us.  Yesterday when the quads were sleeping Jacob, the 6 year old, pestered me to death about wanting to wash dishes.  Well, I figure the younger you let kids help with things, the sooner they'll actually be able to do stuff on their own.  So I put the breakables into the dish washer and left him with the non-breakable glasses, cereal bowls, some silverware, etc.  He'll wash and wash then rinse them for the dish drainer.  He has never yet quit in the middle of doing the dishes I've set aside for him.

Another thing these kids do is IF they start something before bedtime, they want it left alone so they can "work" on it again in the morning.  They'll wake up, half stumble into the living room then head right to the place where their "work" is so they can get started again.  We have a variety of blocks for them - some cardboard brick looking blocks, other medium size blocks and some that are very tiny that they build with.  Check out this picture of what Jacob and Brandon built -- also check out the jammies they still have on - no time to change before starting to work!



These guys can get pretty creative with their building projects, so I really believe we do have some little engineers here!