"it was called the ship of dreams...

...and it was; it really was." (As quoted by Will on a daily basis!) Anyone who has been to our house lately, or been around any of our boys for that matter, knows that around here we eat, drink, live and breathe anything Titanic. It all started about 2 months ago at Thanksgiving break, when Ben brought home two books from the school library about the Titanic. That Thanksgiving weekend the boys couldn't get enough of reading about it, and it has just exploded from there. This was our collection of books as of last week--I think we have every Titanic book from the school library at our house!

After the books came the movie, Titanic, which we had to borrow from Charlie since we don't own it. They have seen the whole movie a time or two, or fifty...yes, the whole thing. There have been a few questions about a couple of naughty scenes, seen when I wasn't around, but we have gotten past that and they know when to hit the skip button. Will can basically quote the entire movie, English accent included, but his favorite part is when the ship hits the iceberg. "Wake up you b*^$%#@s" always followed with the question, "Mom, is that a bad word?" Then on to, "What do you see?" "Iceberg, right ahead!!" "Thank you." Jack and Rose are practically part of the family;)

Next came the drawings...oh, the amount of drawings we have seen around here!! I think we have gone through at least an entire ream or two of paper already, and we haven't slowed down at all!! This was Will's first drawing of the Titanic.

I couldn't get this to copy in color, but it's a drawing done by Daren at church. This is patterned after Will's favorite page in the Discover the Titanic book. Ask anyone who sits around us in church, and they will testify that all we do is draw page after page of the Titanic.

Ben drew this great picture that he had framed for a while, but has since been replaced by yet, another Titanic picture.

Will even painted a picture of it at school.

Somehow Santa knew that Will loved the Titanic, and brought him a toy one, which I am pretty sure was very hard to find, um build, but he pulled through.

MANY hours have been spent in the tub with it!

Thanks to Brett and Honnelore for the framed poster of the Titanic, which hangs in Will's room now. Brett got this a long time ago at the Titanic exhibit, and it was just taking up space at their home, so they gave it to the boys on Christmas day. (Our extended family is always looking out for us--even Dakon the other day texted me that a program about the Titanic was going to be on the History Channel the next day...but we already had it set up to record!:) A couple weeks ago Ben and Jake sat for an entire hour and watched a program about the iceberg the Titanic hit--it was a snoozer, but they loved it!

The boys have gotten quite clever about what they can make into a Titanic, including snow...

...playdough...

...blocks (complete with lifeboats if you look close)...

...and Mega Blocks. It's seems to be never ending!! (picture of Titanic sinking after hitting the iceberg) A while back I remembered that I had the cd to the movie, and thus it had found a permanent home in our player. They play it all the time (esp. number 7, because that is when the ship hits the iceberg, and the quotes go on from there!) and have filmed many of their own movies of the ship sinking with the music in the background.

And last, but definitely not least, are the Legos. This was Ben's first lego Titanic, and we have learned a lot since then. The challenge now is to see if you can be more creative than the last time. It's amazing what we have come up with on our own, just using the pieces we already have.

Over time more and more details have been added, and it makes it a lot of fun. The boys have discovered youtube, and they can't get enough of the lego titanic videos people have done on there. We found, through youtube, that Legos had a section on their products page called Design by Me, and Ben has designed his own Lego Titanic, which is currently on order and he is trying to wait patiently for it.

Their favorite song these days is the song I taught them that I learned when I was back in 5th grade:

"Oh they built the ship Titanic, to sail the ocean blue,

and they thought they had a ship that the water would never go through;

but the Lord he raised his hand, said the ship would never land,

it was sad when the great ship went down.

It was sad, so sad, it was sad, so sad,

it was sad when the great ship went down,

to the bottom of the sea...ea...ea...ea,

(husbands and wives, many little children lost their lives),

it was sad when the great ship went down."

A few of the neighborhood kids were over the other day, and they were all drawing Titanic pictures or building a new lego Titanic. Ben said that is going to be one of their school-day themes this coming summer when he hosts school again in our backyard, so watch out! And that's just a sampling of what we go through every day here...it's fun, and if you ask any of the boys they can tell you Titanic facts like you wouldn't believe, including the fact that she had two sister ships, the Olympic and the Britanic (as per Will--"the greatest hospital ship in the world). Stay tuned for Britanic mania!!