Scooter's Fish Tank

First before I write my post I wanted to tell you all thanks for your prayers for little Lucy. You MUST go over to her blog today and see that God answered those prayers. She was able to wake up from her coma and talk and see for 15 minutes yesterday!!! They have it on video and it is the sweetest thing I have ever seen. God is SO GREAT and it is so AWESOME to see him perform a miracle!!!! Continue to keep this family in your prayers please.

For Scooter's birthday he received a lot of money. I for one, was thankful for this so we didn't have billions of toys filling their room. However, when he wanted to spend $100 + on pokemon cards, I kinda wished for toys. Now I know it is his money to spend but come on.....he has over 300 pokemon cards already and they can't keep those put away, so the thought of doubling that number was painful for me. Not to mention $100 on pointless cards..... that's A LOT of money and I can think of better things to spend it on (I might get a tiny bit annoyed by all things Pokemon, Bakugan and Yugi-O.....can you tell ?? :) )
Anyways I took both boys shopping to spend their money (Rascal still had his birthday money to spend also) and I let them buy what they wanted..... as painful as that was.
Rascal got pokemon cards, pokemon figures, a water gun and a cowboy shotgun set. Scooter bought a chemistry lab, pokemon cards and yugi-o cards. Now this is where you may think I am a tiny bit mean. The night before (a Wednesday night) the boys were arguing over pokemon cards and I had enough of it. So I grounded them both from all things pokemon and yugi-o for the rest of the week.  So this meant that even though they bought pokemon and yugi-o things on Thursday they were not allowed to open any of it until Saturday morning. I know...... that's cruel but I wasn't going back on my word. So the items they bought sat on the dining room table for them to look at only (unopened) until Saturday morning. I promise this is all important information....... It was during those few days that Scooter got on the computer and started looking at pet stores online.

Trying to make a point, I told Scooter..... "you know, you could have bought one of those if you wouldn't have spent $100+ on pokemon and yugi-o cards". This got his attention!! He looked up at me so shocked and said "you mean you would have let me buy something from the pet store with my money??"  That is when I felt so sorry for him. Since he didn't open his things yet (because he was grounded from them) I told him he could return all his pokemon and yugi-o cards and we would take that money and buy something at the pet store.

We couldn't return his chemistry lab because he had already opened it but just returning all his cards gave him enough money still.

(He LOVES the chemistry set and looks JUST LIKE my brother when he was this age!)

We checked into getting him a turtle (but they don't sell them in TN) or a frog. We quickly found out that the cages for those are not cheap.

(Rascal and Baby A loved looking at the birds and other animals. I love this picture of Rascal trying to help Baby A see the animals!!)

So then he decided on a fish tank. We bought a 10 gallon tank and took it home to set it up and then do research on some fish.

 He wanted a shark so bad and we read on the tanks at the store, that they needed a bigger tank. We searched the internet and went back the next day for the fish. A shark would have to have a bigger tank for sure but we were able to get 7 fish and a snail for his tank and he was happy with that.

We have all really enjoyed the tank. Baby A is a bit rough (imagine the girl in the dentist office on Finding Nemo) but she loves to watch the fish swim and will even sit by the tank and talk to them. It's so sweet.

We all love the snail, you have to look closely to see him. He is gold/ yellow.

We got him to help keep the algae down and it has done that but it's fun to watch him move around the tank. He moves mostly at night so when we wake up, we go see where the snail is at that morning. 

Scooter picked out all the decorations and I think the prehistoric skull is absolutely perfect for Scooter's tank.

I am so glad he decided to return all his cards and get this tank instead. It may be a bit more work but it is much more enjoyable to everyone and it hasn't created a fight like those stupid cards do :) Can you tell I am VERY ready for the pokemon/ yugi-o phase to be OVER WITH???


If you gave/sent Scooter money for his birthday..... then this is what he used that money for. He THANKS YOU so much!!!