a sister's love...

Trista amazes me with her patience and love for Trace. They do have their fights, but more often what I hear is Trista sharing, helping, and playing with her little brother:

Do you want sissy to help you?
I need to eat a Trace-man - as she chases him around the house.
Trace, come on!

Story #1: Last night, we were picking up toys and other things in the yard as a storm was approaching. Trace got a little worked up because it was thundering and I couldn't hold him and we were running in and out of the garage trying to beat the rain, so I set him inside the house and asked Trista to go take care of her brother. I heard her open the door and say, " It's ok, Trace, come with me." I finished up and when I walked into the house, this is what I found:

Story #2: The kids had swimming today and they both woke up from their short naps with crazy hair since it was damp when they laid down, so I decided to let them spray paint their hair for fun and play outside. Let's just say it was extremely bright color and I got a little nervous it wouldn't come out for school the next day. So I decided an early bath before Ryan saw what I let them do was in my best interest - it would at least fade a little I hoped. The kids wanted to take a bath in my big tub, so I let them play for 15 minutes or so. They had a great time and thankfully, the orange hair washed out pretty easily. At the end of bath time in my tub, I let them turn on the jets to make bubbles. We used a lot of shampoo on their orange hair, so the bubbles filled the tub quickly. I told Trista to turn off the jets and she tried but said they didn't work. I said to try again while I was drying Trace. She kept trying and finally I got up to turn them off.....only it didn't turn off. I tried and tried and the bubbles grew & grew. I started to panic. I had Trista jump out of the tub and told her to take Trace out of the bathroom far from the tub and ran to the garage to find the breaker. I ran back in and found my kiddos running into the kitchen full of suds and wet foot prints across the house. She did what I asked :) The breaker switches I picked turned off everything in the bathroom except the tub and now the bubbles were about 2 feet above the tub. I really started to panic - not so much about the bubbles overflowing, but I didn't want to blow the motor. I ran to Trista and told her to take her brother upstairs with her - get on pjs and put a diaper on her brother. She didn't ask any questions or argue. After about 5 minutes, I got the screen off to access under the tub and unplugged the motor -relieved, I went to check on the kids. I found them both in Trace's room - both in pjs, and Trace had a diaper on - and it actually was on right. I couldn't believe it - I was so proud of Trista - actually of both of them. Trace stuck his pointer finger in the air and said "Good Job" and all I could say was "Yes, you both did a great job!" What wonderful kids I have.