I was helping the older boys with homework when Zack asked me how to spell "Greatest Marble Race in the Whole Wide World." That's a lot of letters and I didn't have a lot of time so I had him bring me some paper and I wrote it for him. A few minutes later he was asking me what some of the letters were that I had written. After about three questions I looked over and saw that he was trying to type all the letters into Google.

He was searching for something that Noah showed him called Japanese Dominoes. And while it is a pretty great marble race, you'll never find it that way. Click here to see what he was looking for. It's 9 minutes 11 seconds of good solid entertainment. My kids all have various interpretations of the ending song, which will get stuck in your head. I'd just like to know what it means.
It inspired him and except for a few trips upstairs for various items, I didn't see Zack for an hour and a half. When he did come back, he asked me to spell: "how to make Japanese Dominoes."
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That was all I planned to post, but he just sat on my lap and told me that zucchinis can be dresses. I'm not going to lie, I wasn't really paying attention, so he got more descriptive. "You know those things girls wear to go swimming?" That would be bikinis, or he says, we can call them zucchinis. I am not sure where the dress part comes in.

Another Zack comment which was told to his Primary teacher: "There are two ways to get milk. One is from cows and the other is from coconuts. But I don't know how to milk a coconut."

Cars and Drivers

Yesterday we went to the Auto Show. It was heaven for the boys and mostly fun for Matt & I. I would have liked to check out more of the other types of vehicles. But the boys had one track minds and didn't want to see anything that wasn't fast.


Noah is a Mustang guy. The best part of this auto show is that you can get up close and sit in most of the cars.

This is fast. That is all I know about it.
Here's a crazy Batman type motorcycle and a Viper.
Even though it was roped off, they each got to sit in an "Iron Man" car. Thank you nice lady standing by the ropes. No, that is not Zack's super long tongue. I gave him a Fruit by the Foot and he walked around like that. He thought he was very clever. I was glad it kept him occupied.
Zack is just plain goofy in pictures. I think that's an inherited trait that does not come from me. He's being super tough in front of the new Camaro. We were a little disappointed that it wasn't a yellow one like Bumblebee.
Yes it is kind of embarrassing to try to take your kids' pictures in front of other people and one of them drops to the floor like this:
Our first trip by the Corvettes and they were both locked up. On the way back we got lucky. Do you think Ben was excited? He's our Corvette guy.
On the way out we got to check out the exotics. If Ben was buying a car he would pick this Lotus, and not just because it matches his shirt.
Noah would be willing to take any of the Ferrari s.
I thought that this VW Bug would be something that Zack would like. So wrong! We had to force him to get in. His favorite car, a Bugatti Veyron, wasn't at the auto show.


When your boys' doors are covered with car pictures and your 4 year old can name the fastest car in the world, the Auto Show is a perfect place to spend an afternoon. I just need to get them to broaden their horizons a little bit and check out some of the more family friendly cars too. Maybe someday they will be like their dad and actually like mini-vans.

Punishment

Ben and I had a little disagreement last night about who should clean up messes. I really made him made angry. Before bed, Zack revealed Ben's big plan for revenge:

I might have to start watching my back. He's diabolical!

A Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

I am slow putting this on. We had a great time on Christmas Day. The kids actually slept in until almost 7:00. There were plenty of smiles and lots of craziness. It's really nice to just hang out in pjs and play with toys and games all day long.


We waited for a few days after Christmas before heading to Idaho. The idea was to avoid stormy weather, but we did end up hitting some drifting snow along the Malad pass. We averaged about 50 mph on the drive. A plus was that we had our best gas mileage ever--almost 26 mpg. (With clear roads and average 80 mph on the way home we only got 22 mpg). And since we would both rather get there faster, that will probably be our gas mileage record. I am off topic. Idaho was a great time. The weather was even kind of, sort of warmish.

The kids played in the snow. I stayed inside, because even though it was fairly nice outside there are stray cats and there were a few mouse sightings too. Yulk. I am way to wimpy for farm living. I am not raising tough kids either because a mouse ran right across Zack's boot which sent him inside for the rest of the day. He left in such a rush that he left the boot behind. (Technically it didn't actually run across the boot, it ran passed it or is it past it? I didn't know so I just wrote that it ran across. I suppose I could have used in front of, but I didn't and I'm not changing it now.)



We (the adults) occupied ourselves playing this game. The first night we were being so noisy it drew the attention of the kids. They surrounded us and literally pushed Michelle out of the game. The next time we were a little more savvy and played in a different room and didn't allow the kids any where near us. It's really fun. Everyone likes it even though Matt and I won every game. I'm not bragging, just stating the facts.

On New Years Eve we made up for ignoring the kids. We had a chocolate fountain, pajama party, face painting, party hat decorating, kids movie and a cousins sleep over.

They had way more fun than they are letting on:

This is a little better:



This strategically planned movie did enable us to get a little Last Word in (Matt & I won).

We were down a few kids by midnight but almost everyone

except Haylee

had fun celebrating the New Year.

Before we could leave for home we had to make sure Zack got to ride the snowmobile. Until this year he didn't know they even existed. He saw our neighbor ride by on one and was nearly beside himself with excitement: "Mom, I saw this, this thing...with, it was like a sleigh and it has a motor and a seat..." When he found out Grandpa has some all he could talk about was getting to Idaho and going for a ride. Thankfully Uncle J. was willing to take him and Ben out for a little spin. It was "awesome!" Which pretty much sums up our Christmas break.