Monday -- McDonald's

Our routine for Monday is Daddy takes her to preschool and Granny picks her up, then takes her to McDonald's. I meet them there and have to be the mean Mommy when I drag her away from the play area. Granny told me that right before she leaves school, the teacher leads them in "Go Cats" while sitting in their circle to be picked up -- how cute is that! Lib is really into walking Cougar right now -- I can't wait for it to cool back down! I usually do the morning walk before we head to school. Daddy gets the evening walk, but they are learning to be a bit more careful since she ran head on into a truck (in the driveway, silly!) They have just dropped Coug off and are headed out for some more running -- she wears herself out before bedtime! I may try to get her those NB running shoes again, since she won't wear anything but tennies for her walks. This afternoon she did the sweetest thing. We are still working on poo-poo on the potty but she sneaked a nighttime diaper to do her business in. She climbed up on the changing table since I have that set up in the baby's room now at the Aria house and I cleaned her up. She went to change clothes (any excuse will do for her) and I headed back downstairs to read my book, In The Likeness of God by Philip Yancey and Dr. Paul Brand, which I highly recommend. I noticed it was quiet and when I went to check on her, she had crawled into her daybed and put herself to sleep for a nap -- what a darling! She did wake up early this morning -- 6:15. Bobby was up so she said, "If someone is up, I am up!" (oh, brother!) He is not usually up that early but had to leave for the golf course at seven. They won the scramble by the way -- can't wait to see the ugly golf shirt he got (his words not mine.) Back to our potty training issue, I read a great tip in one of my parenting magazine. To get her daughter to go potty, she told her she got to call a princess. What a great idea -- which one of you wants to be my go-to girl to call and pretend to be a princess -- hopefully she won't recognize you voice. Tonight she did a litte business in the potty and that was the first thing she said, "I get to call Belle!" Please help, we will be calling soon! TTFN, akml

First Day of Autumn

I realized I haven't posted in over a month -- please forgive. I haven't had my usual time on Saturdays but yesterday was the first time in along time that Libby has gone with her Granny for their usual Saturday playdate. Rather than fiddle with the computer, I spent the day at the Twin Pines house doing laundry, which has overtaken Libby's playroom, and catching up on Tivo since we don't have television at the Aria house. It was the absolute best day! Our friends from OH were in with their daughter so they came over to watch the UK v Arkansas game -- which was great for the Big Blue Nation! We were all into the game but took our respective turns checking on the girls but when they got ready to leave, we all made our way upstairs to find two little Indian girls -- they had marked on each other's faces and arms with Crayola markers! I tried to get a picture with Libby's digital camera but it was too dark and since I had our camera at the other house, a golden opportunity slipped by! Sorry about that. I will try to make a fresh start with this blog -- it is a new season. Here's to fresh starts! kml