Thursday...

The tea party was a big hit. I didn't get any good pictures, though (I know!). They all ran off before I could get the icing off of my fingers and locate the camera. Oh well, we'll have another.

Today we had lunch with Daddy and Grandpa Ben. We went to the new Irish restaurant, which was quite fun. I had Irish pizza - corned beef and green and purple onions and stinky cheese and this odd horseradish sauce that was really good. Strange, but good. And easy to eat with one hand, which is a major criteria for eating out, these days.

Speaking of eating out, the last few times we have eaten in restaurants, Mary Grace has been extremely good. I don't want to get too complacent, because as soon as I start thinking, "My kid is good in restaurants," she will decide that it's a good idea to scream any time we're within 50 feet of a place where people might dine, but I will say that we have a very good trend going. I'm not sure what we did to deserve it, but I like it! We went to the Italian place for Father's Day, and she sat there and ate and was quiet and played. We went to the Irish place today, and she danced (right between her Dad and I, on the floor right next to our table, NOT in anyone's way - I'm too much a former waitress for that!) to the music and played with the bottles and was generally awesome.

Also, the time outs are starting to work. That only took about a year. I've probably got about 11 minutes before they stop working, but I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts.

I may get the hang of this parenting thing, yet.

We had a little bit of extra time on our hands between home and the restaurant, so I pulled into the train yard and we looked at the trains. She thought that was pretty awesome. She wasn't as excited about Grandpa Ben's plane as I would've expected, though (he has a small plane - I think it's a Piper? A four-seater something or another, anyway. He was having it serviced here, and we took MG and C to the airport to check it out before he left). A helicopter landed and freaked MG right out. Not the big hit that I expected. What is it with noise these days?

I might be a bit absent for a couple of days, with the garage sale and all, but I'll be back after the dust clears from that! Have a great weekend!