First night

If rumors start leaking out that I'm having young blondes staying the night at my house on a regular basis, the bishop might want to call me in for a little chat! I'm sure that when I explain to him that it's only my daughter, he'll be ok with it. Now that Calathea is 18 months old, I get to start having her stay the night here. There's going to be some good bonding time happening now that I don't have to worry about finding something to do withing two or three hours, factoring in travel time, loading/unloading her and her stuff from the car, etc. It just doesn't leave a lot of flexibility when there's such a time constraint.

I'm sorry I don't have many exciting pictures of this weekend, but it was really fun nonetheless. Friday night we went to the Cache County fair and had a great time there. Cali loves being around people and there were plenty of them there! She couldn't get enough of all the multi-colored flashing lights and excitement. her head was always turning this way and that trying to soak it all in. We cat in the field for a bit and listened to a band playing country music. she loved it! She was clapping her hands and smiling the whole time. She probably would have gotten up and danced around if I had let her off my lap. we went in the buildings and looked at the quilts and canned foods and things. We went in the 4-H building and she liked the animals except the cows were awfully big, loud and frightening, which sent her sheiking in terror. (awwww....) We didn't do any rides, but one of the game booth guys conned me into trying to throw a ball into a big bucket to win a stuffed animal for her. 20$ later the ball bounced out on every single shot but the guy let have me have a stupid snake thing for my efforts. I swear I've seen the same toy at the dollar store before. He also tossed a little tiny tiny pink bear/dog(?) into her stroller as we were leaving. I thought that sure was generous of him for the twenty bucks I just handed over.

Saturday morning we stayed around the house and occupied ourselves. we watched some episodesof the muppets show on you tube andplayed outside a bit. We also got the apartment cleaned and Cali helped vacuum. After lunch I tried to put her down for a nap(Mostly because I needed one!) and she just stood up the whole time talking. After such a futile asttempt at relaxing, I took her to the Sprinkler Store to show her off to my coworkers. Even my manager who is a self proclaimed child resistor, said she was, 'pretty dang cute and that's forshizzle-nizzle!'. I think it was when she gave him a high five and her big smile afterward that broke down his wall. We're used to seeing him deal with rough and tough contractors so we rarely get to see his soft side. Corbin, another worker is having having a little girl in october with is wife. When he picked Cali up, she latched on to him and gave him the biggest hug ever. He then proceeded to melt into a big Corbin puddle all over the Sprinkler Store floor.

By the time we left, we barely had time get home and get everything organized for Jani to come pick her up. As soon as I got her in her seat to go home she zonked out. I got her in the house and in her crib as if she had been asleep in there the whole time.

When Jani came she asked if this whole time was harder than I thought it would be. Honestly it wasn't any harder at all.I had already done most everything I needed to do before today, it was just at another person's house. I've changed her, fed her, put her to bed, entertained her, comforted her and everything else conceivable all on previous occasions . This weekend was just the next step. I got to do it all in the same segment of time and all on my home turf. So actually , it was easier than before because I didn't have anybody watching my every single move.

Over all, I'd say it was a ssuccessful first weekend. Here's a picture of the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed wonder on Saturday morning.