What we did on our summer vacation

It's been bitter cold in Boise these past few weeks.  There was a brief spat of warm weather (somewhere around 32° or so).  So we decided to pull the Icicles of the side of the house, hopefully without impaling anyone. Or poking out an eye.  We found a nice pile of snow and decided to make a beeee-utiful Ice Castle.    This is about the extent of my outdoorsness.  yes, that's a new word just added to the English vernacular. 

Yes, in this picture Faith is sucking the snow off her glove. Luckily it was still mostly white (the snow). 

Also, we had a snowball fight. I won.

Boys and Barbies

Jace is an enigma. So cute, yet so mischievous.  So loving and kind one moment, hitting and pushing the next (okay, so mostly loving and kind luckily).  The same holds true for his play. He sees his sisters using glitter chapstick, so he uses glitter chapstick (to cover his entire face usually).  A friend of ours was over with her son (he's not yet walking, still in the crawling stage).  They had set him up with the Mr. Potato head toys, when a minute later they looked over and saw Jace trying to apply glitter chapstick to the poor boy.

A while later, Suzy heard a noise upstairs and went up to investigate.  She found Jace playing with a barbie. The barbie was naked and Jace was holding it by it's head banging it against the slide repeatedly.  Yes, our little enigma, or as Churchill put it (of course, he was speaking of Russia):

‘A Riddle Wrapped in a Mystery Inside an Enigma’

What I want to be

So, Kate is starting basketball. I'm pretty excited as you can imagine. I'm tempering my expectations, and  I just hope she likes it at this point in her life.  The WNBA will have to wait until she's at least 9. Maybe 9 and 1/2.  I was watching some NBA highlights tonight, and called Kate over to watch with me.  After about halfway through, she asked, "Well, do girls play as well?" I said of course, and for the first time in my adult life (okay, entire life) I was proud that we had the WNBA.

Kate let me know that she wanted to be a basketball star when she grows up. She also asked why guys and girls don't play on the same teams, which I explained.

Faith on the other hand has slightly different ambitions.  For the past while she's really wanted to be a cowgirl. I think ever since we went to the mall and there were some rodeo queens signing autographs and letting the kids do fun cowgirl related stuff (like get your face painted and roping a stationary object).
She recently added to this ambition. She now wants to be a cowgirl AND a construction worker.  Suzy asked if she wanted to be the person who helps to design the home or do the building. She wanted to be the builder.  Look out world, here come the Garretts.

Age of Aquarious

So, we were reading the story of Abraham and Sarah from the Old Testament Stories https://www.lds.org/library/display/0,4945,8187-1-4473-5,00.html.  Afterward, Kate was asking what happens if you try to have a child and you're too old. Suzy let her know that at Sarah's age, she was flat out too old to have a kid, but sometimes as you get older there is an increased risk of the child having problems. At that point, Kate asked, "oh, does Brighton have problems then?"

Suzy calmly informed her that she was NOT to old to be having children. And also, that she is not that old, despite having such an old husband (okay, I threw that part in).

Videographer

Faith got a digital camera for Christmas.  It's what she asked Santa for, and she loves it.  It's a kids camera which allows some simple editing of the pictures/video (as you'll see in the video she took of Kate below). We think she has a definite future in film. 

Dimples and water

Water:
So, Jace found a nice full glass of water on the kitchen counter. As he is often seen to do, he pushed a chair up to the counter. Then got the large glass of water.  Then walked over to Kate who was sitting at her table as she was coloring. Then he dumped the full glass of water over her head. And body. And she was wet. Suzy described it to me as if she'd stepped fully clothed into the shower.  Jace of course had no explanations for his actions, but then again, we've come to expect no explanations at times such as these.  Below is a reenactment of the scene (no actual water was used in the taking of this picture).

Dimples:
Faith was admiring her younger sister Brighton in Suzy's arms. Brighton has gotten to be fairly smiley, and she was giving Faith some of her precious smiles. At which point, Faith exclaimed, "Awwwww, she has such cute nipples!"

Spicy. And fashion shows

Jace is loving any time he can get away from those meddlesome parental eyes.  Suzy was giving him a bath this morning, went to go get a towel (took maybe 10 seconds), came back in to see him pulling a "this is gross" face saying "Spicy" as he held the girls new "Hello Kitty" shampoo.  You'd think he'd realize that all of these shenanigans end result is to his detriment, but he must find some kind of perverse joy in the act since he continues. 

Also, last night was Faith's Birthday date with her parents.  We took her to Cheesecake factory and then to Pojos (a local arcade). She had a tough decision, Red Robin or Cheesecake factory. The fact that Cheesecake factory delivers a candle on their Ice Cream Sunday decided it.  As we were driving home, she busted out with "That was Awesome! that was more fun than flies in a fashion show".  We think that's a new phrase that will catch on like wildfire and probably replace the cat's meow and the bee's knees.