Peterism

Peter's latest Peterism. . .
We were waiting in line at Best Buy to return something when Peter spots a "Big Bang Theory" game.  He got so excited and pointed it out to me saying, "look mom it's Big Pink Fairy."  close buddy close.
Now I must quote Brennen "Big Finga" (translation, bazinga)

quick little get away

Hyrum and William battling it out

We took a quick trip down to St. George with the fam.  It was a nice little get away.  The weather was warmer than home and the sun was shining.  As always it was great hanging out with the crew.  We didn't do a whole lot, more of a just sit back and relax get away. We played games watched movies, cousins played together, walked to the park to toss the ball, and just plain enjoyed each others company. Something I did notice was that my dad was having a good time.  I felt like he was attentive and interactive.  We wore the poor man out.  When he was doing his Chemo treatments I felt like he was a walking zombie,  the lights were one but no one was home.  Now he seems to want to go places and try to do things.  I think it was a good little get away for him.  He even got to go to Vegas to pick up Scott and Jared.  

The pool to the house was still closed for winter, but as always we found someplace where we could get wet.  There was a pretty good aquatic center complete with lily pads and a twisty slide.  I think I won the most trips down the slide medal.  Between my own children and my nieces I went down about 30 times.  I really love playing with all these little ones.  I'll be so sad when they get too old to want to play with me.  I hope that never happens.

I especially love to sit back and listen to them.  I got up early Saturday morning with a few of my nephews.  They got out a few toys and were just playing and talking while looking out the huge bay windows onto the golf course.  My nephew Hyrum says, "I love St. George.  I'm going to live here some day."  After a few pensive moments my nephew Sam says, "Well. . . they speak the same language so That's good."  I love these guys.

Jenni trying out her new suit

Lizzy as always loving the water

Paul having fun

Shane being too cool

Mother hen Jenni giving Lizzy a ride around the block.
she said she was just going to go 10 miles.

sweet baby Lucy.  My Scott couldn't get enough of her.

Hoobs

Ellie is working on a project for art.  For this project she has to draw a superhero.  She chose Wonder Woman.  She was working on it at the kitchen table when Brennen came over to see what she was doing.  Fishing for a compliment Ellie asked "what do you think of my drawing Brennen?"  Brennen gives it a once over says, "Its good, I like her hoob's."
  I'm not sure if I should be mortified or entertained.  For now I am going with it was freakin' hilarious.

This almost beats the time we were in Target walking past the underwear section when Brennen grabs a bra off the rack and yells at the top of his lungs.  "HEY MOM DO YOU NEED SOME NEW ELBOWS.  HERE'S SOME NEW ELBOWS MOM."  If I was someone who got embarrassed I probably would have crumbled to the floor.  Luckily I have a great sense of humor.

Now when do I start correcting him on his terminology?

more blessings

This Sunday we went to Sweet little Lucy's blessing.  Can I tell you how much I love having all these nieces and nephews.  I truly do love them.  I get so excited for them when they tell me about new things they have accomplished or created. I love giving and getting loves from them and watching them grow. I am so blessed to have such a wonderful large family that is so close.  Sometimes I miss California, but then I think about all these guys I was missing out on and I realize I can live without my California sunshine, weather, and beaches.  (Its very hard some days but I can do it.)

Lucy is a cute little baby with inquisative eyes and a sweet smile.  Her talented mama (Amy) made her blessing dress.  I am so impressed Amy you did a fabulous job.

The Leonardo

We spent Presidents day with  my mom and dad.  Scott had the great idea of going uptown to see The Leonardo.  He has been wanting to go for some time so we finally made it happen.  I was pretty happy that my folks were willing to come.  So everyone except William who was sick got a sweet tour of the mummies exhibit.

All and all it was quite interesting.  I learned some things that I never knew before, like the oldest mummies are actually from South America.  They had been mummifying long before the Egyptians.  It was amazing to learn the stories of the mummies on exhibit.  Somethings were a little silly to me.  For instance there was a mummified baby crocodile.  Basically he looked like a tiny crocodile wrapped up like a little girl would wrap up her baby doll with his little head sticking out.
I think the most fascinating thing about the mummies was the actual preservation.  How we could see their hair in perfect braids, or the little ones curly blond hair sticking out of its wrappings.
In addition to the mummies there was the rest of the museum.  A very hands on interactive space.  I took Brennen and Peter up to the pixel play land early because they had lost interest in the mummies.  It was so funny because all the kids there were talking about Minecraft.  Everything they built was something from that video game.  I guess the good thing about that was they were recognizing what was involved   and connecting it to something they understood.
The crowd favorite was the skeleton avatar.  The same technology as the Xbox Kinnect only the avatar was a skeleton so his moves were hilarious.  Also the fact that he didn't have any connective tissue made his movements super silly.  His pelvis would get turned around, or his legs would fold up on himself, all while the actual person was moving in front of the sensor.
They also had a green screen which was pretty fun.  Ellie loved the art studio and I was happy that we got a membership so that I can come back and spend more time playing with all the fun stuff.  I love it when we learn through play.,

After a long day at the museum we finished it off with a trip to Litza's Pizza.  My dad's favorite place to eat.  I am so grateful we have this time to spend with him.

custom scooters

Scooters, scooters, everywhere. . .  If your neighborhood is like mine these little razor scooters are everywhere.  Our schools bike rack it literally cover in scooters.  While I love these things and have even been known to ride them myself they pose a small problem.  The company only makes so many colors that duplicates are inevitable.  The problem we ran into, was kids mistakenly taking our scooters which is fine if they would leave us theirs but that doesn't always happen.  The other problem we had was Brennen couldn't tell ours apart and would often walk home from school with nothing because he didn't know which was which.

I solved this dilemma by giving our scooters a custom paint job.  Originally I painted them all green, so everyone knew the Stringham's scooters were the green ones.  I did a half way paint job because these scooters had already been well loved.  This year for Christmas my boys got new scooters.  This time I told them they could pick their paint colors.  Peter who is fascinated with red wanted his whole scooter red, red, red.  William wanted a metallic blue, and Brennen said he wanted both red and blue.  My boys were so happy to have custom scooters and we no longer have "lost" scooters.  

Now to deal with the problem of how to store these blessings on wheels.  I walked around the hardware store with an open mind and found these hose hooks.  I hung them low enough that the boys could reach but still able to keep them off the floor. 

Now if I could just get the kids to hang them up every time that would be awesome.

Valentines

This year I told Scott that we were keeping Valentines VERY low key.  Maybe just go out to dinner to Cafe' Rio or its equivalent, because we are going to Hawaii soon I thought we should save everything for the trip. He agreed because he is so amazing but he did surprise me with flowers
Check out my beautiful flowers from my Sweetie and my Dad.  I love getting flowers.  If I could I would have fresh flowers every week.  So if any of you want to send me flowers you would totally make my day.  There is just something so happy about flowers.  Blame my fascination of flowers on my florist mother/ thanks mom I actually love it.  There was a time when I thought the perfect job would be a flower delivery person.  Everyone is happy to see you and everywhere you went you make people smile.  I still may do that when I grow up, IF I ever grow up.
Valentines day is one that I am a little indifferent about.  I'm not against it but I'm not totally crazy about it either.  Although I have many loves in my life, my Sweetie being number one I always find the actual holiday a little lack luster.  Don't get me wrong I am all about celebrating those loved ones but when we all do it on the same day it seems a little crowded.  Not to mention the school activities involved are a lot of work.  One thing I do like doing here is the Valentines day boxes.  I think its fun to come up with the ideas and bring them to life.  This year we did 2. One for William and one for Brennen.  Brennen's turned out super cute.  He loved it.  Williams was not so amazing but then again I am not into Minecraft (a popular video game) and his was a "Creeper" from that game.  The important thing was that HE loved it, and his friends thought it was so cool.
I was happy with the actual valentines thanks to Pinterest. We always have a stock of glow sticks at our house so all I had to do was print off the template and voila.  Of course I had to restock my glow sticks after doing 70 valentines, but it wasn't candy, and it was simple and cheap and everyone loves glow sticks.

So in honor of St. Valentine.  Happy Valentines Day everyone.  May you all be as loved and blessed as I am.

Geek of the Week

Here's our Brennen winning another spot in the Geek of the Week.  This kid is such a ham I tell ya.  Anytime a camera is present he is right there doing something to get your attention.  I'm not exactly sure what this pose is supposed to be.  Shall we say its his version of "Blue Steel"?This video can also be classified under the Geek of the Week.  

I often have music playing in my house.  It is my release, my fun, my motivation to clean, my trick to NOT have the TV on. (usually if I have music playing my children wont turn on the TV.)  It is just the stuff life is made of.  I love that my children love music almost as much as I do.  Here are two of my biggest Geeks hamming it up.  I'm pretty sure they get their dance moves from their dad but hey they ARE having fun!!!

So turn the music up people lets dance!!     (excuse the bullets and mess in the background.  Just keepin' it real people.)

guns

Every day I notice that my living room is shrouded with weaponry.  I am starting to think that we are unconsciously training our own little militia.  However boys will be boys and will turn anything into a weapon.  This morning Peter got a hold of my curling iron brandishing it about the house shouting "check out my new hot dog gun."  then proceeded to make shooting sounds as he ran through the house.  Kids are so funny.

Ah boys my life would be so boring without them.

the jump

So it has snowed and snowed just when I was ready for it to stop snowing.  It dumped 3 feet in 1 day.   I had shoveled a foot of snow in the morning then in the afternoon I shoveled another foot, and it was still snowing.  After 2 days of snow the sun finally came out and melted half of the snow so I told the kids we were going to go sledding before it all melted.

The day started off to a bad start with a meeting with the tax guy that didn't quite go as planned but I told Scott it would be better and that we should do something to get his mind off of it.  He was a little reluctant but I made it happen.  I was excited to go so I got everyone ready and we headed to the pseudo Kmart hill because its so close.

 We were all having a great time, sledding down and hiking back up. the day was so pretty and everyone was happy.  Even Peter who hated it last time was all smiles this time.  It made such a difference.

I decided that I just had to try the jump.  After 2 failed attempts( I missed the jump) Peter  climbed on wanting to go off the jump.  As i was careening down the hill right on track I had a brief thought, "should I be doing this with Peter on the sled?"  A thought that came too late.  we hit the jump perfectly with Peter woo-hooing as we caught air.  I thought I should try to save my tailbone and put my feet out and down to catch my decent.  that was the wrong thing to do. I knew it as soon as I did it.  My foot went under the sled then wrenched the wrong way.  I just laid there for about 10 minutes trying to decide if I broke my ankle again.  In the mean time other kids wanted to go off  the jump so they are all yelling at me to get out of the way.  I crawled about 10 feet away and laid down a little longer getting the strength to stand up.
Scott just stood and stared at me with a look that said "you idiot"  I know I know I'm an idiot.  I keep thinking I am younger than I am.So I tried to laugh it off.

I was pretty sure it was okay until I tried to stand up and walk to the car.  I was wondering why we parked so far away.  Once we were all loaded in the car the pain hit and I thought just maybe it was broken. We dropped the kids off at home and Scott said get in the car we are going to the urgent care.  Scott was pretty upset with me.  He said it was that "dang Wright gene" in me that makes me do stupid stuff just so I can say I did it.  I'm not confirming or denying that.  

I really was having a great time and thought the jump would be fun.
 The doctor was pretty funny.  When he went to compare my hurt ankle to my other one I told him that wont work because it was my good ankle.  To which the Dr. replies "Not anymore it isn't".  So he had me bring them together just to see.  Once he saw my other one he said, "your right that ones junk, get it away."  (I love it when I find a doctor just my style.)  After x-rays that showed it wasn't broken he told me that I should really take up something easier on my body because my ankles are 70 years old and I am not so what do I think about quilting.
Thanks doc but I don't think I could sit still long enough to quilt.