Kids say the darndest things...

The more Anna talks, the funnier she gets! I swear, some of the things she comes up with sound better than if I tried to make them up! Just last night, I was drinking a Smirnoff Ice. Of course Anna asked, "What's that?" because she asks millions of questions a day. I told her it was booze. She said, "Maybe when I get bigger I can have booze!" That's been her thing too, is saying that maybe she can try something later. She has said the same thing about gum, hard candy, safety scissors, and coffee. She's so funny! I guess she's realizing that there are restrictions, and she's eager to get past them! I can't blame her there, but I wish she wouldn't try to grow up too fast! It's already happening too fast as it is.

She has also been starting to get very interested in watching birdies, playing the piano, art, and "reading" books on her own. This morning she took a little plastic "table" and had her princesses gather around it, perhaps to eat lunch. Usually she has to line them up in a parade, so it was pretty neat to see her branch out and do something different!

Potty Training

It's finally happening! I have been pushing Anna to use the toilet ever since I started summer vacation. I was met with quite a bit of stubborn resistance (where could she have gotten that??) Finally, somehow something clicked with her this week, and all of a sudden she's been keeping her pull-ups dry! It's so amazing! 3 days in a row she's been able to do it, and tonight she even did #2 for the first time! We're going for the underwear tomorrow, and we'll see how she does with that. I'm so proud of her!! If she keeps this up we are going to buy Jessie underwear over the weekend, because I promised her that in a desperate attempt to get her interested! Whatever works, right?

Visit from Unckie Eye

The last couple weeks of June Unckie Eye came to visit us from Germany. We did all sorts of fun stuff with him! First we stayed close to home and did things like shopping and Home Run Inn. Then we had some adventures like going to the Illinois Railway Museum, which was a lot of fun. They had all sorts of trains from different eras, even some you could ride! I enjoyed the streetcar immensely. There were all these different buildings with different types of train engines in them - steam ones, street cars, etc. Lots of information about each one too, which was fun. Some of them were open for us to go inside as well. The other neat thing about the place is that they have all these volunteers who work to restore the place and the trains, so they're adding and renovating all the time. It was a busy and fun day! The next day we went to the Indiana Dunes, where we started off the day with a bike ride. Unfortunately, the trail was very poorly maintained. There were huge pits of water along a lot of the path, and areas of it were quite overgrown. Plus the whole thing was under power lines and along the railroad tracks, which wasn't exactly scenic. I did think it was fun to see so many cattails, because it reminds me of growing up in Alabama. We also saw a deer in the path on our way back, so that was neat. We ended up riding 12 miles, and it is always fun to bike anyway! After that we went to the beach, where we had a picnic lunch and enjoyed hiking up the dunes. It didn't take long, but it was fun all the same. The water was too cold to actually go in, but the day was still fun overall!

Stephen, Bubby, and Bobby also had some adventures without us, like going to Six Flags and Starved Rock. We visited Chick Fil A too, which was very exciting for me. The last day of Unckie's visit was the 4th of July, where we had a nice cookout and just enjoyed each other's company one last time. It was very sad to say goodbye, but we did have some great times with him these past couple weeks!