Stringham-ism

This is to be classified as a Stringhamism.
I was thinking of getting a job in the day.  As we drive up to the bank Scott sees a now hiring sign.  He says "hey, they are hiring tellers.  You could work at a bank."
I couldn't help but laugh.  My reply was, "A BANK! You have to stand still and be nice to people.  I can't do that."
Scott says, "you're right.  You would be a great football coach or drill sergeant."
Thanks babe.

conversation with a 4 yr old

This was a cute conversation with my 4 yr old Peter.
 He says "Hey mom, did you and dad adopt us kids?"

Me, "No, I created you."

Peter, "no you didn't Heavenly Father did."

Me, "Okay, I grew you . . . "

Peter, "wow mom that's really great! I am really proud of you.  You did such a good job."

Nothing like a little confidence boost from my little one.

idioms

William is hilarious about idioms.  He can never get them quite right.  During homework I was helping William with a math problem, when I asked him what the answer was Brennen shouted "8"  that happened to be correct and we all laughed about it.

During dinner the kids were recounting what happened to Scott and William says, "He (Brennen) gave a wild goose guess and it was right!  I bet we could put that on American Home Time Videos."

Scott Ellie and I look at each other then all start to crack up.  A wild good guess?  American Home Time Video's?  Don't you mean he gave a wild guess and we should put it on America's Funniest Video's?  

After a good laugh and a sore tummy we all did a big sigh then giggled some more.  I love this kid.

produce junkie

This kid makes me laugh.  He made himself an entire bag of ceasar salad as a snack right after he had a cup of broccoli.  This has been happening everyday for the past week.  When I run out of salad he is bugging me to get more. At Williams birthday party he opted to forgo the cupcake so he could have carrots.  What a weirdo, if only I could be just like him.

Fancy Nancy dress

While my Ellie lived in dress ups growing up she never let me make her them.  She never wore anything I made or picked out. Till this day nothing has changed.  Luckily I am blessed with nieces.  My sweet girl Jenni is having a Fancy Nancy birthday party.  I was talking to her mom about it and she mentioned to me that she would love to have an over the top dress for the event.  She was considering making one but she is currently without a sewing machine. Being without a project currently I text her to ask if I could make Jenni a dress.  She willingly agreed and I set to work.  I couldn't decide which way to go so I just made 2.  

When I showed my niece the finished product she was speechless.  This girl is never at a loss for words so I took it as a good sign.  Thank you for letting me make you these dresses Jenni.  I had fun indulging in the girliness of it all. I love being surrounded by my boys but every once in awhile I like the girly stuff.    

Explore the City

We had the day off of school for Civil Rights day and nothing planned to do.  Scott had to work so it was just me and the kids.  After getting everyone ready for the day I thought we could have an 

"Explore the City" Day

The kids wanted to start it off with a trip to our favorite store, You guessed it D.I. we met my mom there and afterward decided to go out to lunch with her to one of our favorite places Cafe Rio Yummy.  It was nice to sit and just chat with my mom while the kids scarfed down their delicious food.  She had to meat up with some people after lunch so it was back to just me and the kids.  It was a nice day and I had to make a stop at Hobby Lobby so the kids asked if we could walk there.  (On the way up to D.I. we talked about the air quality and how we could help improve it.) So we walked over to Hobby Lobby so I could get some needed material for a surprise project.

After Hobby Lobby we walked over to a new found Cupcake Wars winner.  Its our goal to try all the Cupcake winners we come across.  The store was decorated super cute but I have to say the cupcakes at Cravings were WAY better.  The kids were funny in their comments.  They mentioned that this winner must have been up against some people that were terrible.  Not I am not saying that Once Sweet Slice cupcakes were bad they were good they just didn't hold a candle to Cravings cupcakes.

Because we were up in the area we stopped off at Scheels.  This store is a sporting goods store Disneyland.  They have tons of stuff to see and do.  I went with a specific goal in mind for a birthday present for my Sweetie but it was fun to take the kids and dream of all the stuff we could do.  After quite some time here I noticed that we needed to start heading back but first we stopped at Costco for some necessities and dinner.  All in all it was a fun day.  We saw and did a lot of stuff and had a lot of giggles. The next time when we have nothing to do we might just explore another part of the city.  You never know what kind of fun you can have.  

art revisited

Ellie got some new art supplies for Christmas.  I asked if I could have some water color paper and some of her paints.  I just wanted to try it and see if I could remember how to paint with water colors.  Its been a long time (15 years) since I last tried.  This is my first attempts.  I can totally tell I am out of practice but if she will continue to share her supplies maybe I will work on it some more.

I do love art it is very calming to just sit with a brush and paint.  To me its like music on paper with colors. Now only to carve out that time to do this fun stuff. 

fate

This is the year for me to make things happen.  I am trying to actually act on all those things I think about doing but never set aside the time to do.

This is the newest member of my instrument family.  I have been wanting to learn how to play one of these for quite some time now but just couldn't justify the cost.  These horns are quite pricey.  I happened to be looking on KSL (our local newspaper) when I saw this little beauty for only $200.  I couldn't believe my luck.  I thought about it for a day then decided I was never going to get this lucky again so I should just go for it.  I informed Scott of my purchase becuase it was right at my $200 limit.  Now its not that I am NOT allowed to spend over $200 on anything its just that I just can't pull the trigger on that amount of money on one item or at 1 time (unless its groceries).  I was so silly about it, I first went to D.I. and told myself that if I found a french horn music book on how to play I would see it as a sign that I should get the horn.  I went to D.I. staring with my usual rounds (there is a system I follow when shopping at D.I.) I looked all over D.I. and didn't find anything worth buying then I went to the books and what was sitting right on top but a french horn music book. It was a sign a sign.  No sooner had I found the book than the owner of the horn calls me and asks if I can come in the next few minutes as apposed to later that night.
More conformation that this horn was meant to be mine.
I am so happy now lets see if I can learn how to play it.

What's in a name

During dinner we were talking about names and what they mean.
Peter wanted to know what his middle name (Joseph) meant.
I told him it means, "God will increase."
He misheard me and jumps off the bench saying, "Oh YEAH I am a GOBLIN increase.  Take that bozo's."
We were trying really hard not to laugh because he doesn't like it when we laugh but a few snickers came through. Needless to say we didn't correct him.  He even reminded us multiple times during the week that he was a Goblin.  Must be the coolest thing to be according to a 4 year old.

Pie any one?

Peter's latest "ism"

I was teasing and tickling Peter. He says to me in a teasing tone, "You better not eat me!"

"Why would I eat you?" I ask

"Because I taste like pie.  Remember my name IS Peter PIE."

What a silly boy

making a bench

My kitchen chairs have had it.  I have repaired them and repaired them again but when you have a lot of traffic in your house you move a couple of times and your chairs are made in China they just aren't going to last.  So I looked online for new chairs.  Do you know how much chairs cost? Its crazy like $150 per chair, so I decided to make myself a bench.  It works better for our space and I can put 5 kids on it where as my chairs only fit 3.  I stole the fancy legs off my 3 broken chairs for the legs of my bench.

1st step was to measure the space under my table to see how long my bench could be.  I made a very simple frame for my bench, however I realized that I had made it too wide in the beginning because I didn't take into account I wanted the top of the bench to hang over the frame.  Silly mistake but easy to fix.  All  the tools I needed for this project were a drill with drill bit and screw bit, a clamp, and I used my trust miter saw.  This made all the difference in the world.  you could use a regular saw but it would take a lot longer. I also borrowed a router for the edge of my top. This step is not necessary but made it look very nice and I didn't have that sharp edge.  Materials were 3 pieces of 1x2x8 ft pine boards they were less than 2 bucks at home depot.  I also bought a pine slab for the top.  This I bought a little higher grade because I wanted to to look nice. some wood glue and screws as well. 

The hardest part was getting the 45 degree angle piece cut that the legs bolts into.  I took me a couple of tries to get them just right.  I kept forgetting that once I drew my line I had to adjust my wood on the miter saw 1/8th of an inch because of the blade.  After more tries than I am willing to admit I got them all cut to the proper size.  

not polyurethaned yet

revised narrower bench

I first glued and screwed my frame together minus the short end pieces. THen I layed my frame on my sheet of pine (the actual seat)  I counter-sinked my holes then screwed the frame directly onto my seat. After that I set my legs in place to mark the holes for the angled piece.  After a couple of attempts to get itjust right I finally glued and clamped the piece in place then when it was dry I screwed it into the wood THEN drilled the holes for the bolts.  After everything was sanded smooth I sprayed my base black to match my table.

One of the more difficult parts was getting my bench stain to match my table.  I refinished my table some time ago and I had that stain left over but I was using different wood for my bench so it took a bit of mixing sanding and mixing again to get it close enough to match.  It's not a perfect match but close enough for me.  Once I was finally happy with the color I made sure to polyurethane it.  On pieces like this that I know are going to get a lot of use I like to seal them with a separate sealer/polyurethane so I can give it a few extra coats.  I know they make stain with this built right in but for this project I wanted it to match as well as hold up to what my boys dish out.

I am pretty happy with my end result although next time I will spread my base out a little wider.  I feel like its too narrow and has the possibility to tip when the boys rock on it.

 Now what to do with the left over chairs?

New Years Eve Party

This year for New Years Eve we thought about going bowling and let someone else handle the party but the truth is our group is just too big it would have cost too much money so 2 days before the day my sister and I decided to throw a party together.  This is the was to go just split the work in half. Its hard to find ideas on the Internet that don't involve alcohol so after some searching and my creative brain I had a few ideas in mind so I put them in action.  

First off was food.  You can't have a party with out food.  We talked about having it catered but again too much $$.  We let everyone know we were having a party and they all came out of the wood work asking what they could do or bring.  So we delegated.  We assigned a lot of the food out and told everyone we would handle everything else.  My sister Amy made delicious copy cat Cafe Rio chicken and was gracious enough to buy their salad dressings.  I myself made my famous salsa and guacamole and we had everyone bring 1 bottle of martinelli's.  Food handled, my sister Steph did the decorating and hosted it at her house.  As people arrived we had a photo op where they were to write their resolutions on a white board so we could take their picture.  We made this mandatory and got everyone at the party to comply.  Some a little more willingly than others but if you can get people to get involved from the beginning it opens them up for the rest of the night.

I came up with some count down games that I wrapped up in boxes and labeled like they were a clock.  I had a game complete with prize for each hour.  Since we have a large group of adults as well as kids I made 2 sets of games (one for kids and one for adults).  We started the party at 7:30-8pm.  On hind sight I probably would have moved it later because it was just too much for some kids and grownups. We didn't really play the games on the hour but with in the hour when it was convenient for us.  They had such fun they they wanted game after game.  They kept asking when the next game could be played.  In between games we ate food and had a dance party that was off the hook.  The kids were great, showing off their moves as we cranked the stereo up.  Even those who were shy eventually joined in the fun and turned out to be awesome dancers.

Our first game at 8 o'clock was a post it game.  I split people up in pairs and gave each pair a stack of sticky post it notes.  They had to pull of the notes 1 by one and stick them on their partner.  The first team to finish won. I made the rule that all the post its had to be stuck on the person.  If any fell off they had to reapply it in order for it to count.  This was a game the kids could do as well so they had their own sets just the smaller ones.  The winner for this game received an itunes gift card. Once people saw we had real prizes they got more involved.

For 9 o'clock game we had  a trivia game of what happened in 2013.  Basically a paper with questions ranging from who won the super bowl to which major disasters did mother nature do this year.  It was a total of 15 questions they had to answer.  For the kids we did a movie quote trivia.  We paired the ones that couldn't read with ones that could and they worked in pairs.  The winner to this also received and itunes gift card.

Brennen burning it up on the dance floor

For 10 o'clock we had a pop culture quiz and celebrity resolution quiz. This was sheer guessing for most of our group because we are not that into what the celebrity's do with their lives.   For the kids I had 2 boxes of recycle-ables, tape, and scissors.  I had each team make an animal out of the materials.  They had to work together and try to use as many of the things in the box as possible. The winners received an amazon gift card and a target gift card.

post it winners 

For the 11 o'clock box we had our celebration box.  we split up into teams and played reverse charades.  This is always a great party game because everyone has to participate.  There is an app for this game but basically 1 person is the guesser and the rest of the team tries to get their guesser to say the right word.  The twist is everyone has their own idea of how to get he guesser to the right answer that they have no idea who to look at so it gets crazy but its super fun. The winning group won cash money.  We made a big deal out of it even though it was only $25 so each person got $5 but they were all great sports and acted like they won the lottery.

When it was time for the actual count down we handed out the noise makers and silly string. My brother Scott brought Chinese lanterns for each family.  We wrote our resolutions on them then went outside to release them in the sky.  The great thing about this was that other people had the same idea.  It started off as just a few of our floating towards the darkened sky then all of the the sudden more and more joined them.  It was an incredible sight. We lit fireworks and sparklers making more noise than we knew what to deal with.  Then went inside for a little bubbly in special little (plastic) champagne cups.  It was a super fun night and I didn't have any trouble staying awake this year. 

reverse charades winners

Landon says this is the greatest party ever

I love this picture.  Shane vying for attention.
Scott can't believe he is related. (even though he did stuff just like this when he was younger)

winners of the recycle contest