Service with a smile

Suzy calls me in the morning and puts the phone on speaker for family prayer. Faith was praying and the reception isn't always the best while on speaker. There was one statement in the prayer I wasn't quite sure of. I asked Suzy about it. Faith had said, "Bless Kate not to eat cause she licked her food during the prayer". Hmmm...someone still hasn't "caught the vision" that closing one's eyes during the prayer helps with concentration.

A few minutes ago I got a phone call from the fam. It was Faith again, very excitedly telling me about something. At first I couldn't understand, but after asking her how she did it (whateve it was), and she happily explained that she got out the jam and the bread and spread it (me assuming she'd made herself a sandwich), I congratulated her. At which point Suzy got on the phone and gave me "the rest of the story".

Faith had made Suzy, all by herself (while Suzy was otherwise occupied) a roll spread with butter and jam. After proudly showing Suzy the roll, she exclaimed, "That been some service!".

Everyone's favorite subject

From Suzy: "I had boiled some eggs while the kids were at preschool for lunch today. When we all walked in the house, Kate sniffed and said, "Hmmm, something smells like poo poo, but it smells kinda good."

A conversation between Suzy and Kate:
"Mommy can you come help me, I can't get a poopoo out. It's just stuck in my bum."

Sure enough, there was some kind of stringy thing (too much fiber is our theory), that was 5 inches long.

When Suzy showed it to her, she said in an exasperated tone, "I Shouda known!".

Mer

As I sit listening to the Kate and Faith playing together, I hear an interesting phenomenon. Faith seems to be the leader for most of the play (she'll tell Kate what to say, Kate will say it etc.) However that's fairly standard, although on occasion Kate has been heard to wonder aloud, "Faith, why do you always tell ME what to say?". Despite this wondering, Kate doesn't seem to protest too much as she continues to follow along.

The interesting phenomenon involves the word "Mer". I'm pretty sure that the English language doesn't have such a word. At least not one that means "I'm about to say something which you will then repeat back to me word for word".

Much of the playing will go like this:

Faith, "Mer, please hand me that dress"
Kate, "Please hand me that dress."
Faith, "Oh here you go. Mer this dress is magic."
Kate, "This dress is magic"

And so on. I'm not sure they realize what's going on, or that there's a new word in the English vernacular that I'm pretty sure wasn't there until last week.

Suzy and I just both tried it out, but it must only work when Faith is saying it. That, or Faith's new word/language is tonal.

Hijinks

So...the leprechaun got away. The kids were very sad. Apparently he "chewed" his way through the box (we know this because he wasn't in the box, and there was a hole in it).  All the coins were gone and luckily he didn't take the fairy (to the girls surprise). Kate has been telling me how she's going to use a plastic box next time so he won't escape.

He was very mischievous.  All the cupboards were open, there was fruit randomly placed around the floor.  Luckily, leprechauns leave recompense.  In this case, chocolate gold coins. The girls were much more reconciled to the situation after discovering his largess.

Music Man

Suzy took Kate to see the play "Music Man" last night. Kate thought it was an okay experience  (apparently they sang pretty quickly and it was a bit hard to follow).

I asked her about the play, she was pretty non-committal in her responses.  Suzy was helping by prompting her. In one instance she asked her, "So Kate...were there only grown-ups in the play?" 

Kate, "Oh no, there were lots of people. Mommies, Daddies, Kids, Librarians".

Good Hair Day

An email from Suzy:
I have to tell you, I was just in the bathroom blow drying my hair, a rare occurrence. Kate asked, "Are we going somewhere or something?"
me: "No, why?"
Kate: "Cuz you're doing your hair."
Then, after I finished and flipped my hair back down, Faith said, "Wow! You look like a new mommy, but the same mommy!"
hee hee :)

Me: Personally, her hair always looks good, whether she does it or goes au naturale

Tis the luck O' the Irish!

The girls had quite the eventful day today. They built a leprechaun trap. Now, as everyone knows, those leprechauns are quite shifty folks. You have to get up pretty early in the morning if you want to catch yourself a leprechaun. You can see that the girls have carefully thought this one through. As enticements they have appealed to all the leprechaun temptations. Chocolate, money and even a cute fairy just their size. As the leprechaun removes the money from the cup, BWAMO! the box will fall right down and trap him! Ingenious! I'm sure they'll have one in the morning.

Kate and Suzy went to go see the Music Man this evening. I asked Kate if she was excited. Her response?
"Well, sort of, but I'm REALLY excited for my wish"
Me (sort of puzzled at this point), "What wish?"
Kate (in that exasperated tone of one who thinks you should know what they're talking about), "The wish you get when you catch a leprechaun of course!"
Kate continued on, "I can sleep in it."
Me (confused, again), "Huh?"
Suzy clarifies, "She means the wish, whatever it is, she can sleep in it."
Me, "Oh! Is it a magic castle?"
Kate, "No, just a regular castle that people can sleep in. Like me."

I'm not sure what Faith wants. She said something about a boat that hits the leprechaun in the head. I just decided to leave it at that.


[Click on the picture to make it larger]

Model This

Suzy was showing me some weird outfits on the 'puter today. That reminded me of a thought I'd had about clothing designers. It always seems to me that they mostly design really weird or ugly looking clothes. I hope I don't offend anyone who really likes "haute couture" (as Fancy Nancy would say, a fancy way of saying fancy).

Anyway, back to my somewhat original point. I was thinking that the only reason someone would purchase such an item (besides pure status symbol) is to say, "Even though this outfit is hideous, I still look okay in it, therefore, I must be absolutely beautiful in regular non-hideous clothes." That, or, "these clothes are so ugly, I'm going to look great in comparison."

I often wonder if the clothing designers get together and over a game of truth or dare come up with their outfits just to see what they can get people to wear.

Here are some Real models modeling truly cute outfits.

Faith's Boredom

Faith love's to change clothes. I don't know how many times a day she does this but I know in the evenings when I return home I'll witness 2 or 3 changes in that short amount of time.  Her latest excuse?
"My shirt/pants/whateverelse was bored"

She often attributes human feelings to inanimate objects when she wants something to occur. We were getting ready to play the "Tinkerbell" game (it's an actual game in a box, not a fanciful imagining type game as you would think from the title).  Kate and Faith were arguing over how the game should be set up (where the yellow vs. pink flowers and butterflies should be. Yes, it's my kind of game for sure). Faith's compelling argument? "Not the game want to be set up dat way".  I think she was also trying to confuse her opponent by mixing around the sentence structure.

Did it work? Unfortunately for Faith, it did not. Kate stayed resolute and pulled out the trump card of, "Well, you know, this is MY game." (read that sentence in a somewhat snotty, older sister know-it-all tone of voice and you'll about have the gist of it).

Herbie!!!

The Library is such a great resource. Not for the intellectual knowledge gained by reading good books (or those really boring books people like to call "Classics"), but because of the free movies.  Suzy recently rented two Herbie movies (if you remember, Herbie is a 1963 VW Bug who is alive somehow, that part is never explained).  The movie I got to watch with the fam was "Herbie Fully Loaded".  It's probably pretty typical Herbie (probably since I really can't remember watching any others, although I'm sure I did in my growing up years).  Herbie is about to get scrapped, is saved and given to a girl who loves to race cars but doesn't anymore (the Great Lindsay Lohan).  Of course, Herbie has other ideas and ends up beating the reigning Nascar champion. Despite the blatant impossibilities (heck, it's a car that acts like a person, what do I care if NASCAR has a bunch of strict rules about the type of car that can race in their races...), It was quite the exciting movie. Lots of race scenes with Herbie almost destroyed a few times, etc.

Why do I bring up this random movie night? Because of Kate. It is such a treat watching a movie with her. Especially one as gripping and intense as "Herbie Fully Loaded."  At one point, we had to stop the movie because she was full on crying (Herbie had been entered into a demolition derby and looked to be in dire straits).  After much reassurance that they wouldn't make a movie about Herbie just to see him destroyed, we were able to continue.

The final race scene has Herbie do his signature "drive on a wall to avoid some other cars" trick. Kate was about as wide eyed as you can get on that scene (Faith...stoically sucking her thumb). 

Afterward, Kate was asked what her fav part was. Her response? Not the exciting race scenes, not the budding romance between "Maggie" and "Kevin"...
It was the final scene where Herbie drives off side by side with a very stylish yellow VW Beetle. 

I love my girls. And they are girls through and through.