thelittlezoo.com

The Women’s Ministries group at church arranged for a group of women to attend a Self-Defense seminar at America’s Best Kids this evening. Only a few of us showed up, but we still had a good time and learned a lot. We learned some basic kicks and punches, as well as moves to free ourselves from a would-be attacker. At the end of the class, we had to demonstrate one of the kicks we learned and use it to break a board, just like you see on TV! When I kicked my board, the middle piece popped out and left the instructor holding a piece in each hand. I was kind of surprised at myself, especially when he said that in the martial arts, popping the center piece out of the board like that is considered a “perfect kick”. Wow!

I just ordered tickets to go see Terry Fator, the Million-Dollar Voice, winner of 2007’s America’s Got Talent Million Dollar Grand Prize. He’s going to be performing in Salem next month. I couldn’t afford anything other than balcony, but at least I got front row center balcony seats! It sounds like we’re going to take our babysitter with us and let her hang out in the hotel room with the girls for the couple hours we’ll be gone, watching movies and whatever, then the next morning, we’ll all go hang out and go outlet shopping or something. That’ll be more fun for the girls and the sitter than sitting here at our house, just the three of them, for nearly 24 hours while we go! Salem is about a 4 hour drive from here, so we’d either be driving until 2 or 3 a.m., or just stay over and get back around noon the next day. Might as well have some fun with our sitter!

You might have noticed a few changes when you pulled up our website today! Don’t worry, the content hasn’t changed - just the look of it all. We’re particularly pleased with our new look, especially since it the main artwork is an original graphic designed specifically for this website. Who knew, when I spent a year in computer graphic design school, that I would finally end up using those skills on our own site? And thanks to all the people who have helped me learn about web design, because without you (you all know who you are!), I wouldn’t have figured out the fun pop-ups for the site navigation! Hope you enjoy the new look and come back often.

Today is day 6 of the girls being in panties. Hannah only had one accident on Thursday, then did perfect on Friday and Saturday, and so far, today, too. Finally, I think she’s potty trained!!!

Sarah is doing just about as well - I think she had one accident on Friday, and it was while she was headed for the potty already.

We went from diapering two kids full time, to only putting them in “nighttime diapers” in less than a week!

Hannah is crazy about Hannah Montana, but she’s so tiny, it’s hard to find Hannah Montana panties in her size, so I had to order them online. They came yesterday, and she is so excited about them! When I pulled them out of the package this morning, Sarah asked if there were Diego panties in there for her. Of course, there weren’t, so we are going to town this afternoon and will get Diego underwear for her. So what if they’re boy briefs - it won’t matter to this 2 year old who looooooooves Diego!

I recently joined a fun website called Shelfari.  You can put in the books you’ve read, books you want to read, books you’re currently reading, etc.  You can compare book lists with others that have books in common with you, and it might give you some ideas of other books you want to read next.  It’s pretty fun!  Just click on my shelf below and you can check it out. Or if for some reason, the shelf isn’t showing up, click here to see my shelf.

We had a safe and wonderful trip to Utah. Sunshine the whole way there, snow on the ground for the girls to play in when we got there, and even though there was snow for 2 days before we headed home, we had sunshine all the way for our drive home, as soon as we got out of Salt Lake City on I-80 heading west through Nevada. We spent all our time playing cards and talking and staying up to the wee hours of the morning, but it still wasn’t enough time. Shakespeare was wrong when he said ‘parting is such sweet sorrow’. What’s supposed to be sweet about it? I don’t see anything particularly sweet about bawling your eyes out and getting so stuffy that you can’t breathe. Anyway. Parting stinks.

I had planned that as soon as we got home, I would start working on potty training with Sarah. She was showing signs of readiness the few days before we left, so I decided to put her in panties when we got home, hoping that seeing her in panties and using the potty would motivate Hannah. Yes, you read that correctly. I’m working on training the 2 1/2 year old before the 4 1/2 year old. It’s just the way things are going around here. Day 2 is drawing to a close soon, and it’s actually going fairly well. As I suspected, Hannah jumped on the band wagon - couldn’t have her little sister doing something she wasn’t already doing. We’ve had a few accidents, but not more than 2 or 3 a day, each. That’s better than the last time I tried putting Hannah in panties a few months ago (14 pairs of panties by the end of the day…). Both girls have already used the potty for (hmm… how do I say this delicately without grossing you out or being too technical or medical?) going poop, and we’re going on 10 hours now without any accidents of any kind. So we’re well on the way to being a diaper-less family! At least, during the day, for now.

I’ve got a ton of work to catch up on from being gone, so if I’m scarce again, you’ll know why…