This weekend

Taylor Anne with Fred, her lesson horse... doesn't she look proud of herself? He's not her horse, but he's sweet, patient, and he's the one she has ridden for all of her lessons so far. Note the pretty perriwinkle blue riding helmet, and the black boots - great deals from Ebay! Today was her 4th riding lesson (almost 70 degrees too!), and after the lesson today Miss Holly, the riding instructor, came over to me and told me she was very impressed with Taylor Anne's progress, and is really surprised at her handling Fred. Taylor Anne is doing almost as well as the 7 yr old little girl who is taking lessons at the same time as her, and has had lessons for the last 6 months! I am very proud of her!

Today the other little girl, Abby, got to trot, but Taylor Anne didn't and she asked me on the way home "Mama, what's the word for when you wished you could do something someone else gets to do" I said "Jealous?", and she said, "Yeah - I was jealous of Abby getting to trot today. I really wanted to trot too, but I couldn't." I told her it was OK to feel that way, but next time she should ask Miss Holly if she wants to do something that Abby is doing, and maybe she can! She said she would ask about it next time. I think she really is enjoying the riding lessons. She says, "they're hard, but fun too." It's really amazing to watch her concentrating on the horse's back... she listens to Miss Holly, and doesn't seem to get frustrated at all. She typically gets frustrated easily when things don't go her way, but I really think the lessons are helping her learn to control her emotions, and focus on the task she's trying to complete.

I also thought I would show you a shot of Anderson loving on our sweet kitty, Merlot. Anderson is literally laying on the cat, with his arms tucked under his belly like a pillow. They layed like this for about 10 minutes during the Backyardigans Friday morning. Merlot's such a wonderful cat - especially with the kids. He's always been sweet with the kids, never scratched either of them, or bit them. They lay on him, pull his ears, tail, legs, whatever - he just purrs, louder and louder. He loves the attention, and is so tolerant of their behavior. We rescued him from a Lowe's Parking lot (I worked there at the time)- he was climbing in a car engine and one of my coworkers saw him and ran out to the man walking to the car, yelling "There's a cat in your car", and it ended up that we got a new cat!