Band Sampler RR is home :) and Christmas pondering

My Any Designer Band Sampler came home in today's mail. :) I chose a Peaches and Cream theme for it and I'm really pleased with how it came out. Everyone stitched really beautiful bands. The last bit was done by Rose - but she was in an accident that hurt her wrist and wasn't able to sign it. I'll put in her name for her, plus an ending band or two and finish it off. :) Now to figure out where to hang it. I'm going to finish it into a bellpull, but not sure what to do with it after that.

With Christmas approaching I'm trying to get all my ducks in row for all my shopping. I hate the crowds, but love trying to find the elusive perfect gift for each person. I've already purchased some stuff for Alex, and I'm hoping to score a Wii for him before the big day - but we'll see. I'm not going to any extreme measures to get one. If I can aquire one by going to the store and walking up to buy it - he'll get it - if not he'll have to wait until the demand subsides. I hope it works out though - cause he will be so surprised! He talks about how much he'd like to have one, but has expressed (without me having to say anything) that he knows its a lot of money and that he'll probably have to wait a while for the price to go down or to save up his money. He's such a good kid and never gives us any trouble really - I'd love to give him a great Christmas. Especially when you consider that the last two years were kinda skimpy cause I wasn't working.

Katie's big gift this year is probably going to be a play plastic kitchen for her room. She loves to play like she is doing what mom is doing. She also loves playing with her little people castle she got for her birthday, so we might get her a few more accessories for that - or some more toys along that vein. She loves playing pretend. She'll be easy to buy for - they always are when they are little.

Sean is the hard one to buy for - he wants the Luther Vandros CD - "Dance with my Father" which will be easy to get, but other than that he doesn't really want anything. I suggest each year that we get something "big" for the family and then just get one small meaningful gift for each other. He never wants to do that though - he always wants to set a $$ limit and buy a bunch of stuff that we would have gotten anyway cause we needed it (like a new pair of dress pants), or useless junk we are just buying to fill a quota (like the neck massager I desparately bought him one year-ugh). ARGH!

Alhambra Garden progress!

New hat and Halloween pics

A friend at work was kind enough to knit this new hat for Katie. :) She really liked it and wore it around the house for the rest of the evening! Silly girl.

I meant to post this Halloween pic earlier in the week, but blogger was giving me issues. Here is a pic of Katie as Dorothy and Alex as a pirate.

Not much else going on right now. I spent last weekend really trying hard on the potty training with Katie, but I'm starting to think that is just going nowhere and despite the fact that she has been peeing on the potty since she was 16 months - she will never, ever be fully trained. She will generally cooperate and go if I can get her to sit on the potty, but she just never tells me when she has to go. I had her in underwear all weekend and we didn't have too many accidents, but it was mostly cause I was the one trained. I was taking her often enough to keep her dry, but if I slacked a bit she wouldn't tell me and then she'd wet herself. *sigh*

I guess I'm just going to keep at it, trying to encourage her to tell me when she has to go - I'm hoping that getting wet will start to be a bit unpleasant for her and motivate her to tell me when she has to go. If anyone has any tips - I'm all ears!