My love of matching has no bounds.

The drive back from Arizona gets harder each time. Theo loves being with his grandparents and cousins so much.

I'm a little proud to say she crawled out of here all by herself.

Our last Arizona trip was short, but great. My niece got baptized, and got my hair done. I finally dyed it to the shade of blonde I imagine I am, even though a lot of time has passed since I was actually that shade. It's fun to feel different, even though Theo and Margot are going to be the ones seeing it most of the time. I'm feeling this sort of Madonna-esque shift in my life happening--for the first time in a while most of my clothes in my closet are being ignored, plastic kitchenware discarded, and I've been searching for things that, you know, real adults would use and wear. I still get giddy every time I use some of my new, not-crappy kitchen tools. Especially my measuring cups and my fine mesh sieve. Which makes me the most un-Madonna like person in the world.

Theo is progressing pretty well in the potty training world. This past week there was a day that I screamed into a pillow and cried, but then today he was doing a lot himself and did a particular something in his potty that might have earned him a new Percy train. Lesson learned--don't skimp on the rewards. I just thought of the Percy thing after he was following me around with a brochure asking me for him over and over. Next thing you know, 20 minutes later I have a turd sitting in the potty, all done while I was feeding Margot some sweet potato (her favorite, and I fear she won't eat anything else). Thus, a miracle born from a little green train with low self esteem and a dependence on his best friend Thomas. Just my opinion. I lost my respect for Percy after reading "Day of the Diesels," where he gets jealous that Thomas gets a new friend and ignores him, to the point where he joins with the diesels and causes a coup d'etat where the diesels take over the Steamworks and make Thomas their prisoner. Not that this interests you, but I felt like my political science degree became slightly relevant for a second. That and being obsessive over apostles speaking in passive voice during conference. Why? Why?!