It was one of those days.

Earlier in the day, Katherine's new fascination with the toilet had led her to open the lid, lean in, and splash around like she was at the freaking wading pool.  This resulted in an unexpected mid-morning bath for her, and an unanticipated bathroom cleaning.

At lunch, she spotted me getting her Minnie Mouse plate out of the cabinet, and when I tried to explain to her that it would be another 3.5 minutes until her lunch was ready for consumption, she flung herself to the floor and kicked and screamed so loud that the dogs quickly fled the room.  Apparently when her plate is visible, her lunch should be promptly presented to her.  Photo proof of said incident:

Later, I decided maybe getting out of the house for a minute would be good for us.  I needed to go to Hobby Lobby to pick up a few things, so we headed out.  As we entered Hobby Lobby, Katherine quickly let me know that she wanted to walk and that riding in the cart would be out of the question on this particular day.  Because I only needed two items, I let her walk.  She was actually very good until we got in line to check out and she informed me that she wasn't ready to stop walking.  Standing still in line was not going to happen.  So I held a wiggling toddler in my arms as I paid for my two items and off we went.

Our local Hobby Lobby is next door to a Lifeway Christian Bookstore.  I had gotten a Lifeway giftcard for Christmas and found a book that I wanted to get, so we took a walk over to Lifeway, which Katherine seemed to enjoy.  She held my hand politely as we entered the store.  She held my hand politely as we moved through the sections of the bookstore.  When I couldn't find the book I was looking for on the shelf (that the website had said this particular location had in stock), she held my hand politely as we walked to the front of the store and asked the cashier if the book was in stock.  Katherine held my hand politely as we walked back through the bookstore with the cashier to find my book, which happened to not be in stock (thanks internet).  As we were rounding the corner to leave the store, Katherine spotted the toy section.  We walked over and proceeded to look at the children's books and toys.  When Katherine realized that we were not going to be taking any of the books or toys home, another tantrum ensued.  She refused to stand up and proceeded to roll around on the floor making a scene.  I finally got her to her feet and tried to walk her towards the door.  By the way Lifeway, who's idea was it to put the glass shelving displaying the breakable collectibles right beside the children's area?  Because right as we were moving through "breakable land" to get to the door, Katherine broke free my grip and flung her arms knocking over a glass knickknack, which then knocked over one of those Willow Tree figurines.

"Oh, S**t!"

It came out before I had time to process it.  I was in a Christian bookstore for crying out loud.  Luckily, the store was empty except for us and the one cashier, who had gone to the back to look for inventory for a customer on the phone.  Good.  I don't think anyone heard me.  I picked up the luckily not broken items, set them back up, scooped up my rowdy child, and we were out the door.

We hustled to the car, where an elderly woman watched judgingly as I tried to get my tantrum-throwing toddler into her carseat.

Of course Katherine was a perfect angel by the time Daddy came home later.  Luckily I had taken the photo earlier of the tantrum in the kitchen to show as proof.

Some days are easy.  Some days are hard.  Some days you cuss out loud inside a Christian bookstore.

The weather has been unseasonably mild here (thank goodness), so it was a perfect weekend for the St. Louis Cardinals Care Winter Warm-Up.  My brother and his girlfriend got us passes for Christmas, so we were excited to go since we have never been.  Katherine was pumped because she thought seeing "the Cardinals would be fun" (her exact words).  This kid is making complete sentences now.  Crazy. 

So on Saturday, we headed downtown for a little Cardinals fun.
Katherine scored a St. Louis Cardinals "magic" wand that she referred to as a "candy cane."  Jason enjoyed seeing all of the Cardinals gear and memorabilia and Katherine loved seeing Fredbird.  We left Winter Warm-Up to go eat lunch at Cardinal Nation, where two tables over sat the Dewitts, the Cardinals owners.  I casually pretended to take photos of Katherine to get them in the background.  

After lunch we took our own walking tour around Busch Stadium since it was such as nice day.



It felt like early baseball season weather outside even though the season doesn't start for another several weeks.  Seeing Katherine's excitement over the Cardinals and baseball in general certainly made her father happy.

In other news, we're enjoying our newly put together playroom (more on that later).  I bought a super comfy area rug for the room that Jason thinks is a good place to nap.  Katherine thinks differently.


We're getting ready for the week ahead.  I desperately need to restock the etsy shop and reorganize the pantry, which is overflowing with Christmas candy.  I'm going to seriously focus this week.  Probably.