Bananas

A while back Suzy was peeling a banana and noticed that Jace seemed interested. She sat down on the floor and fed it to him. Ever since then, whenever Jace sees a banana being peeled, he sits down on the floor to wait for his banana. It's pretty cute.

Oh So Fun

Tonight was a bit on the interesting side. I was trying to activate a replacement Credit Card (verifying lots of minutia from my credit report. Such as where I lived when I was in college 10 years ago), when I heard Suzy yelling for me from the bathroom. Nope, she hadn't fallen in the toilet (this time) (or anytime really. I figured I better put this part in just to make sure we're clear, Suzy has never fallen into the toilet to my knowledge), in fact, she was standing over the tub holding Jace up by his arms.

Our hero of the first part of the bath (Faith) noticed that there was something floating in the tub that did not appear to be one of the usual toys. This was a problem, since Jace was just in the process of lifting one of these "non-toys" out of the water. Presumably to eat it. Just in time, Faith let us know that we had a Code Brown on our hands. Yup, sweet little Jacers had contaminated the tub. With poop.

I went ahead and washed Jace's hands and mine (since I was holding his hands while on the phone with a VERY slow and deliberate credit card agent at this point). It was only after I got off the phone that I realized the full extent of the situation. And that I had been holding onto poopy-boy hands.

Anyway, Suzy used the handy poop spoon that she keeps for just such an occasion (A tradition that started with Faith I believe). Then she sanitized the bathtub with bleach, while we all stood around and watched (and discussed the poisonous qualities of bleach, despite the fact that it looks like water).

Then it was back in the tub! I came and got Jace out after Suzy was done with him, made him a bottle and was trying to put him to bed, when Kate came upstairs and let me know that Faith had started throwing up in the tub. And not just once. Kate later observed that just thinking about it made her not feel so good. I added my Amens to that. She also observed that it had been a very interesting bathing experience that evening.

At least no one peed in the tub. Well, that we know of.

Cornters

I had a companion from my mission who was from Mongolia. He learned some English before he went to the MTC. He was of course taught British English instead of American English, as is most of the world. He would get fairly annoyed with us Americans as we often pronounced our "T" sounds as if it were a "D". Think of the word "Water" for example. We usually say "wawder" Or in the word Mountain when we just sort of leave the T sound out all together.

In pre-school (Grandma's Montessori Pre-school) the girls are taught to say their T sounds properly. This does make it amusing at home, as they will often insert Ts when there don't have to be. Such as cornter instead of corner. Obviously assuming that their poor "Red Neck" parents aren't aware that the T is there.

Zombies

Faith (today) "It's so weird that Zombies have Pink Shirts"

Where does she come up with this? Look carefully at the left hand side at the 37 sec, 58 sec and 1:45sec marks and you'll see a beautiful Zombie in a pink short sleeved shirt with a green long sleeve shirt underneath. Who happens to be Suzy. This was from Halloween.

Oh So Helpful

Jace is at a really fun age. He's does lots of super cute things. He's also at that age where he loves to explore new things. Like opening a box of cereal himself. And emptying it. On the floor. And then eating the cereal. Luckily Monday is "Mopping Monday" so Suzy had just done the floors (not that dirt, or toilets would stop him from partaking).

You'll also notice that the girls are happily stuffing their faces as fast as possible. You'd think they were starving (I will admit this was just before dinner).

You will also notice how pleased Jace looks in picture #1.

Suzy and I were both in the kitchen, mere feet away. He has this special talent. Just after dinner, Suzy and I were in the Kitchen cleaning up when I looked over to see that he'd already emptied out half a box of baby wipes. Among his favorite activities is to wait for one of the girls to leave the downstairs bathroom door open so he can go splash in the toilet (luckily most of the time it's flushed), wait until he is free from direct parent intervention (say, said parent was taking a shower) and empty all the bathroom draws.

On a side note, I also tried an experiment to determine Jace's favorite things. He likes working electronics (aka, IPADs or Touch screen blackberrys) over balls. He likes knives over balls, but working electronics over knives (and other sharp objects).

He just came into the office running with Scissors, which he grabbed out of the dishwasher (Suzy was chasing him down, he barely made it).

FUN!

Keeping Secrets

This evening was somewhat indicative of how well my girls keep secrets. During dinner, (Cooked cabbage, meatballs with vegetables) Kate all of a sudden pops out with "There's apple juice in it". I'm not sure what she's referring to at this point.

Suzy filled me in. Kate had noticed that earlier Suzy was putting in some Apple Cider into the cooking cabbage to sweeten it. Kate had told her that they probably shouldn't tell "daddy" what was in it because then he might not eat it (apparently this "daddy" person is a bit on the picky side, and if he knows there are things in his food that he doesn't like, he may go into dinner with a preconceived notion). Luckily, I don't mind apple flavored cabbage. In fact, I rather liked it.

It being Monday night, apparently Kate had planned a "surprise" lesson. She couldn't help telling me that there was a surprise lesson, but she was doing a surprising good job of keeping the content secret. That is until she engaged in a game of "guess the surprise" with Faith. Who, thanks to numerous helpful hints from Kate surprised Kate by guessing the surprise.

Of course, Faith then immediately proceeded to try and tell me, but luckily I didn't hear. That is until she later kept talking about it and revealed that she would be "Eve" and Kate "Adam". (It was the story of Adam and Eve and the "fruit (symbolized by two apples) in the Garden of Eden. Kate had also drawn a picture to go with it. With a fish and an unspecified animal.)

What can I say except that I hope they're this open when they're teenagers.

Like Brother Like Sister

Jace was sure having fun at dinner tonight. He loves to eat while holding utensils. Unfortunately, he can't use the utensils yet. So he holds the fork/spoon (or Knife if somehow Daddy was allowed into the equation. It was a plastic knife though, from Ikea), in one hand while trying to shove food into his mouth using his other hand.

Tonight was yellow squash lasagna. That's Lasagna that replaces noodles with slices of delicious yellow squash. As Suzy pointed out, noodles absorb liquid, while squash excretes liquid. It was quite liquidish. Jace was having a good ole time with it.

Faith was in a bit of a "mood" (having just been woken up). However, who can resist the allure of laughter upon seeing young Jace happily banging away at his tray (still covered with lasagna) with one hand and stabbing his cup with fork with the other hand all while covered in sauce. Does the trick every time.

Suzy spent the next half hour going back over her blog with the girls, starting with showing that they were just as messy at that age.