A New Pet

I am not much of a pet person. But when Grandma and Grandpa smuggled three adorable little turtles in from their cruise to Mexico I couldn't refuse. Zack brought his to show and tell and it impressed his classmates with it's unique charm and movements. He told me that when the turtle saw Danielle it couldn't stop wiggling. After school he spent most the afternoon building it a turtle house complete with a swimming pool and fireplace. After that it has pretty much been forgotten.

Last week one of Matt's co-workers, whose daughter is in Zack's preschool, asked him about our pet turtle. They are thinking about getting a pet and his daughter Anika (the one who kissed Zack) loved Zack's turtle and wanted one just like it.
Clearly the turtle isn't alive. Even though Anika was disappointed (Zack may have lost a birthday party invitation because of it) I still think it's the perfect pet for our family.

Our own shi-taki-nah-su-nee-see or something like that

We are moderately obsessed at our house with building marble tracks (aka Japanese dominos). Zack started it but he needed Noah's skill to pull it off. After many, many failed attempts and gigantic messes they achieved success, and eventually cleaned up the mess. Here it is in all it's glory. (Not the clean up part, although I should video that too because that is probably an even greater accomplishment.) It goes pretty fast, these things are almost as hard to film as they are to build.

My Apologies to Sketchers Shoes

There are some moms who are quick to blame others because they believe that their children don't do anything wrong. That's me.

A few months ago I posted this. You may recall my frustration with a pair of shoes that I thought were prematurely falling apart. Since then, new evidence has come to light that leads me to believe that maybe it wasn't the shoes that were faulty.

Shortly after the Sketchers incident, I bought Ben some cheap Vans knock offs. By the time Christmas break was over one of the shoes had come completely unglued from the rubber sole. He was wearing snow boots for a big part of this time, mind you, but I just figured they were really cheap and we were having some bad shoe luck.

I bought these on January 16. Last week I noticed this:
No, you can't just pull the back part back up. I've tried. I continue to try. I am wondering about pliers.

Perhaps Ben is the problem. He looks innocent, but the kid is a shoe killer. I would like to follow him around for a few days because I honestly don't know what he is doing. I would expect this from Noah. But Ben was always the more mellow child. Now I am on to him. And he has been warned. The next pair of shoes we have to replace before he out grows them will be the cheapest pair in his size, even if that pair is pink, lights up and features Hannah Montana.

Rexburg again!?

Our last trip to Idaho was a great time. We had someone to party with for the Super Bowl.
The Super Bowl party gave Zack the perfect excuse to decorate a cake. Ben helped. Can you tell that the football has flames? So awesome.
Noah got to drive his own snow machine. He is cautious and it took him awhile to gain some confidence. Once he did he got up to 40 miles per hour. Which he thinks is very fast. I say that's plenty fast for a kid his age.
This is Zack ditching Matt so he can ride with Grandpa who drives faster. Ben opted to ride with Noah because I guess he must not have wanted too much of a thrill. We avoided a trip to the ER so it was all fine by me.
But the best part of our trip was being with Michelle and Jeremy when they were sealed in the Rexburg Temple. We are so happy for them.

Our trip did have a somewhat tragic ending. When we got home we discovered that the four snowmen the kids had made were attacked in our absence. We have a few suspects, but nothing concrete. Noah is ready to set up a security system so it doesn't happen again.