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.

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!