"I promise"

That is Sadie's newest "thing." At the end of every sentence, she adds, "I promise."

Says mom, "Sadie, please go potty before we leave to get daddy."

"Ok, mom. I promise." Or I have heard, "I need to go get sone-'tin from my room. I promise." I don't know where she got it, but it is about the cutest thing ever, and a big smile spreads across my face every time she makes a promise. I hope she always keeps them.

We have moved to a new house, and the kids couldn't be happier (well, mom either). In an effort to encourage the kids to clean up their part of the house, which is a nice finished basement that harbors all their toys, I invented "Gunny Sack." For now, Gunny is just a kitchen trash bag with a face drawn on it in permanent marker. A timer is set, and the kids have to put toys away in their proper place. If they dilly-dally, are not cooperating, or flat out not listening, when the timer rings, Gunny comes out and "eats" all the toys left out. Not gone forever, the toys stay in Gunny's tummy until Saturday, when all her collections of the week are spat out, and the kids get to try again. Someday I will make a nice sack, but for now, I used what I had.

The funniest part was Sadie's OBSESSION with "Annie." After the first experience yesterday, it was all she could talk about. She carried on and on about how Annie was going to eat all their toys and how they have to clean up. As the day went on, however, her imagination began to blow things out of proportion:

"Momma, that monster is going to eat all the stuff! It has a big mouth and it open and all the stuff go in!" Then it got worse, "It is asleep right now, waiting to eat! It do this (she closed her eyes and begins tapping the tips of her fingers together in monster-esque anticipation) and then it wake up, and EAT! OMP! OMP! OMP!" She has even suggested that the silly non-assuming trash bag would eat her. I assured her Gunny is just after toys left out after clean up. Gunny doesn't have a taste for kids left out.

We had family night last night, rented a movie, made lemon with white chocolate chip cookies, and sat down to watch a movie together. Before the movie started, we found Sadie on the ground scrambling to clean up her toys. "That monster is going to eat them!"

Well, I made an impression, anyway.