This Much!

This evening Duncan asked Calleigh how much she loved Mommy and Calleigh spread her arms wide and said "This much!"

Apparently my exercise routine is making an impact on Calleigh. Calleigh goes to bed at about 8:15 but it takes her forever to go to sleep (should we be removing books and stuffed animals from her crib??) and during that time, she'll yell downstairs to me every now and then (her door is kept open). I usually start my routine around nine so inevitably I'm in the midst of lifting weights or the like when she calls to me and it's difficult to answer. I'll tell her that I can't talk to her because I'm exercising. Now every night when she calls to me she usually prefaces it by saying "Are you doing exercise Mommy?" She's also seen Duncan come back from the gym a few times and sees the sweat on him. So yesterday Calleigh and I were having lunch and as she sat there in her highchair she says to me "I'm so, so tired. I was doing exercise. And I'm so, so sweaty." I'm glad that we're setting a good example for her. But yeah, the exercise is still rolling along. I'm officially half way through my 12-week program. I feel good although I've had a few more headaches than usual, particularly this past week. I'm pretty sure it's from going to bed too late. Since exercising takes up a good 1.5 hours of my evening (if I do weights and treadmill), I have less free time and so I find myself not crawling into bed until 11:45 many nights. I need to have better discipline with getting to bed earlier.

This week started with a fun Sunday of fall festivals. I posted pictures on Facebook already so I probably won't do any here. Goodness knows it's a million times faster to post them there than on here...unless that's just me. Anyway, we did go back to the one we went to on Saturday night and got a parking spot right at the front entrance. The parking Saturday night was a bear. We did subsequently learn that David and Yully had been there Saturday night as well but had parked at Charlie Cutler's house who lives right there. If only we had known! Calleigh got to go on about four or five rides including a roller coaster which she just made it with the height requirement. She was not a happy camper with having to leave let me tell you. So we went to another late in the afternoon. They actually had all free food there but of course, most of the real food had meat. I did taste a delicious pumpkin/cranberry pudding though.

The rest of the week was good if not uneventful. Ron & Elaine were up in Atlanta on business and returned early this evening so we did cat duty a few of the days. Monday we went to a nearby park and Calleigh quickly made friends with several little girls who apparently are there every Monday morning. Calleigh has been asking me every day to go back there so I'm sure that's where we will be come Monday. Actually, I have a dentist appointment on Monday so perhaps it will be Grandma taking the girls there.

Every week Calleigh seems to be growing up a little more. She now wants to sit at the table in a regular chair for supper. During breakfast and lunch she's still okay with the highchair. I've tried putting a booster on the chair but she just wants to sit in the chair - - and use a big person plate and now today, a big person fork. She seems to manage it all pretty well actually. Thankfully she hasn't started to figure out how to climb out of her crib because I'm not ready to move on to that step just yet.

This evening we had supper with Hillary Clinton. Ha! When Ron and Elaine were up in Atlanta doing some work for Ron's old company, they bought masks to wear today for Halloween. They were telling us about it so we had Elaine bring in her mask from the van (Duncan had picked them up at the airport and brought them back here). Calleigh was understandably thrown off by this masked person so she hid behind a chair. We showed her how it was it wasn't real and so I think she gets it now. In general we're trying to keep the whole Halloween thing pretty low key since we don't celebrate it. We're much more into it being fall. Besides, Halloween just doesn't give me a good feeling. Who wants to think about vampires, blood, death, ghosts, witches, etc.? Not I!

We're getting excited because Gigi will be arriving on Wednesday for a (too) short visit. She arrives on Wednesday afternoon and will be here until Monday morning. She can't stay long because the state may come into her nursing home to do their survey. Anyway, we'll enjoy here while we have her.

It would be poor form not to mention dear little Aubree. She is destined to be in her sister's shadow I suppose. She's been as easy as usual this week. It was about this age that I started putting Calleigh on my bed every night so I could fall asleep with her. Putting her to sleep in her own crib seemed to take forever. Meanwhile Aubree is practically asleep before her head even hits the proverbial pillow in her crib. Thank you Jesus! I say this phrase because it's a very popular one right now. We've been studying the lame man in Calleigh's lesson for the month of October and at the end of the story, the lame man is healed by Peter and he jumps up and says those words. So every time I read it, Calleigh, of course, jumps up and shouts "Thank you Jesus!" as loud as she can.

On that note, good evening and happy Sabbath!