I LOVE Chick-fil-A!

So, while Danny was gone to help his parents move, I had a horrifying experience at the McDonald's Play Place with Tommy. There were a bazillion kids there, and Tommy escaped without me seeing him. A parent came into the play area and was asking if anyone knew the child he was holding, which was Tommy. I freaked out and asked him where he found him. Apparently, the man's wife saw Tommy come INTO McDonald's, without a parent, run across the restaurant and out the other door, and into the parking lot. The man took off after him and got him as he was heading around the corner. It looked like he was doing laps around McDonalds! I thanked the couple profusely, gathered up my kids, and left, vowing to never go to a play place alone with my kids. Well, I tried again yesterday, but this time I went to Chick-fil-A. Let me tell you, I LOVE this place! Here are my reasons.

1. The restaurant was INCREDIBLY clean.
2. The kids play area is not too big, so you can easily keep track of your children. I had no problem keeping tabs on Tommy.
3. There is NO FOOD or DRINK allowed in the play place! There's not a million people in there eating so it's a lot easier to see what your kids are up to, and there's no messy spills!
4. The kids play area is SUPER clean! It doesn't smell like dirty feet, urine, vomit, or stale food. It actually smells clean!
5. They have hand sanitizer wipes EVERYWHERE!
6. The food is great!
7. The manager was amazing! He went around asking everyone how their meal was, and if there was anything he could do to make it better. He even had one of his employees go around and give every child a free Chick-fil-A cow beanbag toy! There was a woman who wasn't paying attention to what she was doing, and she ended up dropping her not-eaten sandwich on the floor. The manager quickly scooped it up and ordered her a new one for free!
8. The bathrooms had 2 diaper changing stations! It was super convenient because when I went in to change Tommy's diaper, another woman walked in right after me with an infant that needed a change as well. No one had to wait!
9. They have a basket of butter mints by the exit, so I didn't have to buy anything extra to bribe my kids out of the restaurant!
10. It's located right next to Super Target! Who wouldn't love that?

After my exerience at McDonald's I don't know if I'll be going back there anytime soon, but I will DEFINITELY be going back to Chick-fil-A! It's nice to know that there's a clean, safe place indoors that I can take my children to when it's raining outside!

Anna lost her third tooth!

Anna lost her third tooth last night! This one has been wiggly for a long time, and last night, while we were watching a movie, she announced that her tooth was gone! You can see the hole in the bottom left side of her mouth. We keep hoping that those poor front teeth will start to wiggle any day, but they're taking their time!

My big boy!

My favorite part of being a mom is that I get to see my children learn and grow each day. It's so much fun! Tommy had his 3 year check-up yesterday and he has shot up several inches. He used to be in the 45% for his height, and now he's in the 75%! He's now 34 pounds and 38 inches tall. Yeah!

This first picture is of Tommy attacking Anna's dinner. She asked for cheesy broccoli for her meal, but had to leave the table for a minute. Tommy took the opportunity to hop up on her chair and eat that broccoli like there was no tomorrow! I personally don't like the stuff, but I'm so glad that my kids like it so much that they fight over it! Ahhh....fighting over vegetables. I like the sound of that!

The second picture is of Tommy sleeping in his bed! Now, to some that may not seem like a big deal, but for us, it is! For the past year he's been sleeping on the couch, and every time we'd try to move him, he would wake up and start crying! He DID NOT want to sleep on his super comfy, big boy bed! We tried everything, but since he was so young, and we had school the next morning, we didn't do anything more about it. The week after his birthday, we bit the bullet, and took him screaming to his room. He cried really hard for about 20 minutes, but when he realized that I wasn't leaving him, he calmed down and soon fell asleep. I was able to leave him without him waking, but at 3am he came to my room wanting me to come back to his room with him. I stayed with him for about 10 minutes until he fell asleep, and left again. He didn't wake up until morning! The same thing happened the next night, but the night after that, he was fine. He would actually run to his room when it was bedtime! He now prefers to sleep in his bed, and I will find him crashed on his bed in the middle of the day! It's so nice to have him sleeping in his own bed and not the couch! Now, we just need to tackle potty training!

Ear Infection, Cold Water, and Toilet Paper

What do these three things have in common? This is what I woke up to on Sunday morning. Sometime during the night, Saturday, I woke up with a terrible ear ache. I'm used to this, and the fact that we'd been swimming the week before, I wasn't really suprised. But I didn't get much sleep that night. So, Sunday morning, I woke up early to take a shower because our sacrament meeting starts at 8:30am. I know, it's awful! I waited and waited for the water to warm up, but it never did! I sent Danny up to the attic to check the pilot light on the water heater while I continued my cold shower, so we could get to church on time. When Danny was done, he looked out the front window and discovered that we had been toilet-papered! It was awful! They got EVERY bush, and BOTH trees! They also stole two of our solar landscape lights, and took our neighbor's lights, broke them, and tossed them all over our yard! Fortunately, we got the the TP before it started raining, so we were able to clean it up quickly. It looks like they used the huge, industrial toilet paper from our community pool bathroom. I don't know why these dorks chose us, but they did. Apparently our house looked like it needed some more decorating. Despite all of these set-backs, Danny still had a good Father's Day, and we ended up getting a good seat at church!

Our trip to the aquarium and Science Place

We went to the Aquarium at Fair Park, and then on to the Science Place (which is now called something else, but I can't remember) yesterday. We only went to the lobby of the Science Place, but they have cool stuff there to do for free. We had a lot of fun, and the kids didn't want to go home! They actually wanted to spend more time outside playing on the many cool paths through the pond, than in the aquarium itself! We really should try to go there more than once a year!

Me, Anemic?

All my life I have had great iron levels despite my family history. I always attributed it to the many years eating dirt as a child. But, I've been feeling SUPER tired and the doctor promptly ordered an iron test. Well, it came in a couple of days ago and I am anemic. Can you believe it? I can't, but I'll start on some iron pills, and hopefully, I'll have a lot more energy to enjoy the summer with my family!

My New Favorite Store

I live only about 5 minutes north of the Allen Premium Outlet mall, but I haven't spent a lot of time there, until now. I went to this store called Burke's Outlet once with Missy and Mandie, and thought that it was interesting, but didn't go back. I decided to try it again, and I am SO glad I did! On their clearance, they mark the clothes with different colored dots ranging from 30-95% off. I found an outfit for Anna with a 90% off dot, so it was only 80 cents! It was a shirt AND a skort (sp?)! I actually found 2 of them! I also got her a t-shirt for 70 cents! Can you believe it? The kid's clearance is only one rack, so I think I've picked it clean for Anna, but the adult clearance is more than 3 racks! I've only spent about $12 at the store, but so far Anna has 4 shirts, 2 skorts, and a great pair of jeans for school next year! I will be visiting the store often for more cheap clothes!

Bittersweet Sunday

I know I should be prepared for change, living in a rapidly growing city, but it's still not easy. I love my calling. I was just getting the hang of it, and I love the people who come to choir practice each Sunday, so of course, it was time to make a new ward here in the McKinney Stake. They created the Melissa ward this past Sunday and the Stake Pres. said that we had enough people to make 3 new wards, but we don't have the building space! There's a building currently under construction only about 5 minutes away, and will done early next year, and another that will be started soon up in Melissa, but until then there's nothing! All buildings are full to capacity! The new Melissa ward will meet in the East Allen building, and a ward that used to meet there will have to meet in a Plano building! For those of you who don't know, Melissa is about 15 minutes NORTH of where I live! Yikes! Along with the new ward boundaries, they did some shifting in the 5 McKinney wards. Because of where I live, and the way my previous boundaries were drawn, I had a feeling that we would change, and we did. We are now part of McKinney 2nd Ward. I know many people in that ward, so it's not a big deal, and it's better for Anna because all of her school boundaries are now included in our new ward boundaries. I'm just sad to leave the wonderful McKinney 5th Ward. I found out about the change before church started, and I cried during most of choir practice. I also cried when I told mom about the change. It's not fair to do this to a pregnant woman! Life goes on, and I'm sure the 2nd Ward will be great, it will just take some getting used to. This is now the third ward that I've been in here in McKinney in only the past 2 1/2 years since we bought our house!