Finally "Flying" Solo

I am so proud of Audrey. She learned how to ride her bike without training wheels this week. She was VERY reluctant to take them off. The neighbors have a little 12 inch bike that has no training wheels and she was riding IT, but her knees were like up to her ears and she couldn't get much speed and she couldn't balance all that great with her knees so high. We told her it would be a lot easier to rider her OWN bike without training wheels because it was the right size. She really didn't want to, but we convinced her to give it 3 tries and if she didn't like it we'd put the training wheels back on. Ben also told her he'd buy her ice cream if she got scraped up. So, a pint of ice cream later she is riding her bike like a pro! I can't believe how big she is! Along the bike lines, we ended up buying Marissa a 12 inch bike because Trent would freak out every time Marissa rode her tricycle. He thinks it's HIS. Well, NOW it is. I hope everyone will be happy for at least a year now!! lol

Reconsidering Pet Ownership

GGRRRR!!!! I am SO ticked off with one of our cats. She has REALLY done it now. Let me backtrack for a minute though to give you the full idea. We have a cat, actually we have 3 cats at the moment, but one in a loaner. The particular cat I am talking about though is a 7 year old tabby cat. All was well in our life, with the cats, until Trent became mobile about 9 months ago. When Trent began to crawl he discovered KITTY LITTER! Nasty. He'd head for it all day long and I just got to the point where I couldn't keep pulling him away from it and distracting him any more so we gated the litter off so that Trent couldn't get to it anymore. Everything went well for a while.....then we went on vacation. When we came home from our vacation it was to find that our house REAKED of cat....and NOT in a good way. The cat had decided she didn't want to jump over the fence anymore and had decided that some clean laundry downstairs was a better litter box. She had pooped all over our clean clothes! We thought it was an isolated incidence, but she kept doing it! She'd find ANYTHING soft on the floor and poop on it!! Clothes, bags, dress-up dresses, towels, blankets, We couldn't leave them on the floor for fear of the cat pooping on them. It's been an ongoing problem, so we decided we needed to kick them outdoors, but I wanted to wait for it to get warm. Well, last night it was the last straw!!! We came home from Provo yesterday to find that the cat had pooped in some dirty laundry. I was mad, but we cleaned it up and put the cats outside. THEN, when I was going to bed I knelt down to say my prayers. I kept thinking it smelled bad, but that it was probably residual. Then I put out my hand, ON MY BED, mind you to push myself back to my feet and I put my hand on CAT POOP!!! I yelped and went to wash my hands, then to take care of the mess. I then found the cat and kicked her outside! She is NOT to come back in my house, because pooping on my bed is NOT ok!!!! I would seriously take her to the pound if I wouldn't feel guilty about putting her there, but seriously, if anyone knows someone who wants a cat let me know!! She's not a BAD cat, but she IS fat and lazy and won't use the litter box anymore because she has to jump the fence to get to it. GRRRRR!!! So there's my nasty story. YUCK.