Summer just keeps ticking along here in East Texas.
It’s
hard to believe that we will celebrate our nation’s independence from
France
next week. The Winns have been super busy doing all manner of summery
things.
Let’s recap. Several weeks ago Bo’s hair was starting to get long enough
that
it wasn’t really for boys anymore. Lix decided that instead of paying
someone to give him a trim she would just have Jarom shave his head with
the clippers. This was the worst idea since the Knicks decided to give
$60 million to Eddy Curry. It turns out that Bo has a mortal fear of
hair clippers, and he started screaming/crying as hard as he could the
moment the clippers touched his head. Sadly, at that point there is
already a large swath of hair that has been cut, so you have to try and
finish it. He didn't exactly hold still, so there were a bunch of spots
that got missed, but they did eventually get through it. And it was
agreed that next time Lix would pay a few dollars and spare everyone the
terror of going through that again. There was an interesting side
effect of the haircut - Bo doesn't look like his cousin Ethan anymore.
Now he looks like his cousin Luke. I guess this family shares a lot of
characteristics among the boys and the length of your hair will bring
out different ones.
How to spend a hot Dallas summer? In the pool
Drinking cold shakes
Riding the Carrotsell at the mall
And hanging out at the indoor safari park, riding elephants and jumping on trampolines
And it wouldn't be
summer without the 10 month long baseball season. The Texas Rangers have
a AA team that is located right in Frisco, and Lix organized a field
trip to see them play with about 5 other families in the ward. We got
tickets to sit in the grass beyond the outfield wall, which was great
because we just spread out a bunch of blankets and the kids could run
around and play with each other throughout the entire game. The tickets
were free, the parking was free, and Lix avoided the temptation of
buying a $6 hotdog, so it ended up costing nothing. And it was fireworks
night, so at the end of the game they cleared the grass and sent
everyone over to the seats to watch the show, which was the best
firework show that Jarom has ever seen. Jenna and Bo were completely in
awe. And the team won the game, sending them to the playoffs. So a good
evening all around. We didn't get home and in bed until about 10:30 so
there were some sleepy bears in the backseat on the way home, but they
got to sleep in the next morning. And now Jenna keeps asking when she
gets to go to a baseball game again.
Enjoying the baseball game
Sometimes Bo tries out new ways to eat his food. Look Ma, no hands!
This is also Jenna's
birthday month, which is about how long we've stretched out the
celebration. Lix has spent many of her evening over at Brooke's house
making a playhouse for Jenna, which is now complete but still needs a
frame over which to put it. Jarom has been taking a lot of heat for this
the past few days, and it has been the source of great stress in his
marriage. But in the meantime she has about a thousand other new toys to
play with. She had her birthday party on Saturday, a few days before
her actual birthday, and there were about 10 kids that came to play in
the water in the backyard and have cookies and open presents. Jenna
seemed to enjoy the fact that her friends were coming over, even though
she spent most of the party digging in the dirt by herself or playing
with Kenna. The parents of the more troublesome children stuck around,
and the adults sat in the air-conditioned kitchen chatting and watched
the kids play in the backyard through the windows. Everyone seemed to
have fun and Jenna got some new dolls and coloring books and we didn't
lose any of the children.
On her actual birthday
she got to open up her presents from Mimi and Opa. It was a box with
some typical three-year old stuff highlighted with an adorable tea set
that is probably a little too nice for Jenna at the moment. It will have
to be a supervision only toy until she's a year or two older or it
might get broken. We were also going to do a video chat with Grandma and
Grandpa and Kenna and have them open up their presents together, since
they got the same thing. But our modem broke and Time Warner couldn't
get someone out for 5 days so there was no internet at the Winn home. It
was like we had hopped in the DeLorean and gone back to the stone ages.
Jarom was talking on the phone one day with Annie and she asked him for
a good movie quote from Rambo. He didn't know any off the top of his
head and he couldn't even look it up on the internet. You know you don't
really appreciate the internet until it is taken away from you and you
can't instantly look up Rambo quotes. How did he even live before
college? But the Comcast guy did come and fix the modem, and Jenna was
finally able to open her present with Grandma on the computer. She got a
little power wheel ATV, and has spent a great deal of effort trying to
figure out how to turn the handlebars so that she doesn't smash into
every wall in the house. One of the kids favorite pastimes now is to
have Jenna drive the ATV in a circle around the dining room table
(always left, NASCAR style) while Bo is hanging on to the back, half
pushing half hanging on for dear life.
Jenna had a little accident in Nate's backyard, so Lix stripped her down and hosed her off
As far as
developmental updates: Jenna had her three year checkup and passed with
flying colors, although the doctor mentioned she might be drinking too
much milk. Lix has taught her how to play cards, and legitimately lost
to her daughter in Go Fish only a few minutes after teaching her how to
play. She has joined the chore-doing demographic and is now responsible
for putting away the silverware from the dishwasher. Her favorite thing
to do lately is build block towers, and she seems to have a future as an
engineer because she is able to get them to be pretty tall. A few weeks
ago her thumb got smashed in a door and the nail finally fell off last
week, so she only has one thumbnail at the moment. She is a great big
sister and loves to play with Bo. Bo is as cute as he can be. He follows
Jenna around like a puppy and loves to wrestle with her. He has also
begun pushing her toy stroller around the house, picking up whatever
stray toys he finds and putting them carefully in the seat, like little
treasures. He has become very communicative and will respond well to
instructions. He has also started nodding yes and no, which is
hilarious. It takes a lot of concentration for him to do it, so there is
a lot of eyebrow and mouth movement along with the fat, bobbing cheeks.
So Jarom and Lix ask him a lot of questions just to see it and giggle.
Collecting treasures
Bo can't pass a ball in a store or a house without playing with it [cue Jarom's sigh of relief]
Jarom is currently
training for the Hottest Half, a half marathon here in Dallas that is
run in the middle of August. Nate has been talking about running a half
for over a year so they finally signed up for one. Hopefully between the
training and running the race in 100 degree heat the experience will be
awful enough that neither of them will ever want to enter a long
distance race again. It has been interesting to see how much Jarom
sweats. On a recent hour long run he weighed himself before (209.4) and
after (202.2) just to see. That's a disgusting shirt. He has also
started his lacrosse coaching career. Some kids in the ward signed up
for a summer league and they didn't have a coach at their first game so
their mom's took advantage of their position as primary presidency
(where Jarom and Nate are both teachers) and told the Winns they had to
help out. I figure Jarom has been on the receiving end of about 9
million hours of coaching during his life, much of it voluntary, so he'd
better get started repaying it. As coaches, they are 1-0, so there's
nowhere to go but down.
Wearing the authentic German outfits that Opa got them
At the aquarium
Lix had been busy
taking care of the children and planning things like preschool for Jenna
in the fall. She continues to have social engagements regularly and
really enjoys hanging out with the good friends she has made here in
Texas. She also continues to be a gym rat and can be found at the Frisco
Athletic Club most mornings of the week, followed by afternoons at the
pool. Its a rough life, but someone has to do it!
Bo’s been walking a blue streak around here lately. He has
gotten very good, but he still isn’t quite as good as he thinks that he is.
This leads to some situations where it appears to outsiders like he is trying
to kill himself. Two weeks ago at church he was walking around the library and
got bumped by another toddler and smashed his forehead into a cabinet corner.
During the week he tried to go face first down the stairs, which quickly became
feet first, then face first again, repeated halfway down the stairs until Jarom
caught him. Then last Sunday he tripped and hit his face on a chair while
drinking from a sippy cup. The cup cut his frenulum of the upper lip and caused
profuse bleeding. Jarom was working that day, so Lix had to rely on the help of
Rob Ogden to hold Blake down while Bishop Short took a look at him. Rob is a
bit of a snappy dresser, and sadly got some blood on his nice suit. So Lix took
him some of her chocolate chip banana bread to apologize. Bo had a puffy face
for a few days, but it didn’t take long before he was back at it, jumping off
of couches and beds and slides all over the house, climbing up ladders and
generally behaving as though he were invincible. As Grandma Nancy put it, “I
don’t know how any of these children survive.”
Bo after bleeding everywhere at church.
Jazz Hands!
Jenna and Kenna are NOT pleased with this development. The top of the bed USED to be a safe haven.
Even though he is a bit suicidal, he is also super adorable,
especially when paired with Jenna. The two kids love to play hide and seek and
wrestle, which consists of grabbing a blanket and putting it over their heads
and then rolling around on top of each other and giggling. This game can be
played indefinitely. They have a great time listening to music and dancing. And
they love hanging out in the newly organized toy room (thanks Lix) reading
books, building towers, playing catch, doing puzzles, playing music, etc…
Trying to look tough.
Jenna can FINALLY get the wood chips out of her shoe by herself. She now spends at least 50% of her playground time shaking her shoe. It has really freed up some time for Lix.
He goes down the slides all by himself.
A flower for you.
He loves to steal Jenna's chair for some light reading.
During the days they can usually be found at a pool or a
beach. Lix has created a broad network of friends so she doesn’t have to visit
the same pool twice in a row. Jenna continues to be a fish and loves to swim.
Bo has been a little hesitant to embrace swimming but seems to be coming around
nicely. Lix loves hanging out with her girlfriends in the sun, but it isn’t
quite as relaxing as she might like because she has to try and keep suicidal Bo
from drowning himself.
He doesn't love the water, but he does love the food.
So bright!
The Winn’s hosted a memorial day party with a few other
couples from the ward, and it was a good time. There was a little friction when
Jarom stated that he shouldn’t have to wear nice clothes because it wasn’t a
nice party, which bothered Alixa to the point that she made some questionable
gestures and remarks in front of the guests about her inconsiderate husband.
The kids splashed around in the blow up pool in the back yard and had a great
time. And since everything else we do around here revolves around water we got
passes to the aquarium and visited for the first time. It’s a great place that
will be awesome during the dog days of summer because it is an air conditioned
environment that Lix can take the kids to and it is near Jarom’s work so they
can stop by for lunch before or after.
Lix told her to "squat". This is what she did.
On a sugar rush after our first Bahama Buck's sno cone. See the blue mouth?
Holy straight hair, Batman!
He went to the corner to hide that fact that he was drinking out of the spray bottle. So sneaky.
As for Jarom, he seems to have spent most of the past few
weeks at the dentist. A bunch of years ago Jarom cracked his front tooth
playing racquetball and the work that was done to fix it needed to be redone.
So he has visited a few times, which have all been terrible, but it is done now
and hopefully this time it will last longer. What he really doesn’t understand
is why dentists all seem to think that it is appropriate to try and carry on a
conversation with their patients while their mouths are full of dental
equipment and fingers and suction thingees. I don’t think anyone really likes
being at the dentist, so just get in, get the work done, and get out. There
just isn’t any need to make small talk about how the Rangers are doing or how
many home runs Josh Hamilton has hit in the last few days or whether or not
Miley Cyrus should be marrying that Helmsworth kid. Is Inappropriate Discussion
a required class in dental school or something?
"Bats and Balls and little league teams; courage, faith and missionary dreams. That's what little boys are made of"
Bo's new room. We still need to add some artwork, and Lix needs to find the cross stitch she spend 8 months making, but it is on its way to being really cute!
