"I am NOT a gerbil!"

"I know your not a gerbil Matthew, I said you were adorable! And that means cute, which you are!" Then we discussed that boys and girls can both be adorable and cute, but I understand he would rather be called handsome and I can call Aliya beautiful. Oh the little details when your 3 turning four in five days!
Matt and I were going to meet Tracy at IKEA today to scope it out for Miss Aliya's visit, but we decided it was too far. But luckily McDonald's Playplace was practically in our face at this point of our drive. (Apparently its okay for the nanny to bring him to McDonald's Playplace, just not the restaurant part.) This picture is basically what I saw of him for the next hour, my little jailbird - stripes through bars. He played hard and left all sweaty.

Aliya had homework for the first time today, practicing writing letters and numbers. Matthew sat there gazing (and looking strategically like when we were at the library playing checkers) so I made him up some homework too. I outlined letters and he traced them. This was a huge success!! :) Then it was time for Aliya's first clean-up session, in which she would be timed and it would count towards her IKEA Adventure. She did well and I only had to re-direct a few times. Like when she said "we can put it all in one box" and "I'm not sure where this goes, so I'm just gonna put it in here" - this being a ribbon and here being in the crayon box?!?! We problem solved and the ribbon found its right place. It took less than 10 minutes so we momentarily celebrated her first clean-up session success and left the house on-time for gymnastics!