The Kids

Faith woke up feeling very benevolent today. Before we went down to breakfast the girls needed to clean up their room. Faith started hanging up her shirts, and then Kate's shirts too! While she was doing this, Kate approached Faith with her reindeer.


[A side note on Faith's reindeer. She is a Build a Bear reindeer and has a button that, when pushed, says: "Hi! I'm Clarisse!" Faith disregarded this and named her Rosabella. She doesn't like the name "Grease" (Clarisse). She is a bit miserly with Rosabella, which makes Kate long to play with her even more. Kate also continues to call Rosabella 'Clarisse' and it really annoys Faith.]


Kate then hopefully asked, "Faith, may I please play with Rosabella?" (she was careful to use the right name)


Faith considered aloud, "Hmmm, I don't know... Maybe..... Yes."


Kate delightedly hugged and kissed Faith, and started playing with Rosabella. Faith was obviously feeling pretty good about being generous, so after some more thought, she added:


"And you can call her Grease."


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This little guy learned how to go down the stairs today! He LOVES climbing up, but when it comes to going down, he would really rather hover or float down. This morning he embraced the law of gravity and slid down on his belly. When he got to the bottom, he game himself an enthusiastic applause.

Little Lord Fauntleroy

The kids and I started this book the other day. We got to the part where the lawyer tells young Cedric that as an Earl he will have lots of money. Cedric thinks it would be very nice to have lots of money, and proceeds to tell the lawyer how he would use it to help people. I then asked Kate what she would do if she had lots of money.

"Hmmmm, I would use it to buy lots of stuff for my family, just in case."

Me: "Like what kind of stuff?"

Kate: "Like ribbon."

It's nice to know that, if Kate ever becomes wealthy, we will all be well taken care of.

Our Best Bites

I borrowed my title from one of my favorite blogs, though this post has nothing to do with mouth-watering concoctions - far from it. I would go so far as to say that this post should be called Our Worst Bites, but you be the judge.

Bite #1

My good friend Kelsey has turned quite crafty lately. Not in the "crafty-old-witch" way, but in the "I make my own yogurt and graham crackers" way. We were out to lunch and she had brought some of the aforementioned home made graham crackers. I gave one to Jace to munch on while we ate lunch. Pretty soon, Jace had turned his cracker, which was more like a biscuit, into a gooey, slobbery ball of mush. I tried to clean him up with a wipe, then discarded the wipe and mush-ball into Kate's empty pasta bowl. (She had finished long before.)

Several wipes later, Jace started looking more like a human infant. Kate tapped me on the shoulder at this point and asked what that yummy treat was I had put in her bowl. I looked in horror at her bowl, now filled only with dirty wipes.

ME: "You ate that??? Why would you eat that?? Remember how we talked about not eating things when we don't know what they are? That was Jace's chewed up cracker."

KATE: "Oh. Well, can I have another one?"

Bite #2

The scene is Texas Roadhouse. It's Valentine's weekend, so the restaurant is extremely crowded and noisy, and there is a big ol' vein in my chicken. I discretely cut it out and place it on a napkin hidden on the side of my plate. Part way through the meal, Faith weasels her way to my side of the booth to say hi to Jace.

Now, some people may say that Mike is not a notice-er, but his eyes can be quite sharp when it counts.

MIKE (sounding slightly alarmed): Faith just put something in her mouth, do you know what it is?

Faith had swallowed the evidence as quickly as possible, but one look at my hidden napkin confirmed what I had already guessed. Mmmmmm, chicken vein...

Bite #3

Kate bites her nails. Not just the ones on her fingers. I found out recently that she also bites her toenails. When I discovered this, she received a good lecture on all the dirt and germs she is eating when she bites her toenails.

KATE: "But Mom, the dirty ones are the yummiest!"

(Sorry if you just gagged. Don't worry, I did too. And she has now stopped biting her toenails. I think.)

Bite #4

The kids and I were in the produce section of the grocery store. Faith pointed to a bunch of Crimini Mushrooms and shouted (because that's her normal tone of voice), "CAN I HAVE A DONUT!?"

I picked up a Mushroom and held it so she could see it and asked, "So you want to eat this 'donut'"?

Faith immediately leaned forward and took a big bite out of it.

And that's how I bought my first Crimini mushroom.

Jace the Wonder Boy

I can sit!!!

And I have cute boots.

Thanks Kelsey!

Being this child's mom is the best job in the world. He is 7 parts sweet smiles, 1 part manly burps, and 2 parts drool. I don't know how our family got so lucky! I love this little man!

Quotables

"Mother, sometimes I feel like you are the only person in my family when you're wearing a blue shirt."

"I been up in my room for a long time, for half of dollars, and no one came and got me."

(overheard praying)

"... an please help me clean up my toys, an help me get my toys back, and please help my mommy tell my daddy not to take away my toys, an please help get my toys back, an I will clean up all my toys..."

"My favorite colors are pink, yellow, and clear."

(Is she my daughter, or what?)

Other Summer Highlights

While I was in the hospital after Jace was born, Kate and Faith stayed with my mom and dad. When we went to go pick them up, Papa and Kate said they had a surprise for me. We went outside and Kate showed me this:

I was surprised, alright! No training wheels?? Good job, Papa and Kate! She LOVES to ride her bike now, and will have a difficult time parting with it during the winter.

We all went to the Western Idaho Fair (even 2 week old Jace - he loved it) and had a great time! Kate also won a free Taekwondo class at one of the booths. She loves Kung Fu Panda, so I thought she would really enjoy it.

The parents got to watch on a TV screen in a different room. There were lots of "Yes Ma'am!" 's and "HeeeeYAH!" 's. Only Kate said, "HeeeeYah!". She was very quiet, but was smiling most of the time. I asked her how she liked it after it was over, and she said that she didn't. "But you were smiling during the class," I countered.

Kate said, "That's because I didn't want the teacher to feel bad."

Okay, then. At least we got a cute little Tae Kwon Do uniform out of it.

Faith took swimming lessons and had a blast! Sorry, I neglected to take any pictures. But I did get some of Faith's first haircut! Yup, we chopped it off. She twirls her hair into knots while she sucks her thumb. I've had to cut them off so many times that she was developing a mullet. So here she is

Before

"Awww, poor child, don't you have any parents?"

and then

After

MUCH better.

Jace laughed for the first time just a few minutes ago.

It's enough to make me want to compose some really cheesy song.

This boy is an angel. He is the best baby, and I don't know how I got lucky enough to be his mommy! He naps anywhere, sleeps 8+ hours at night, rarely cries, smiles at anyone, and now he giggles too. It's almost too much.