Lincoln, Potty Training & World Cup

We've been working on preparing Lydia's room. Jenn ordered a nice, comfortable chair that goes with her new bedding, and she found some great stickers to apply to the wall that give the room a very neat, very cute feeling.

Potty training is actually going very, very well. Beginning on Wednesday he has been going pants-less in the house, and he's been doing a very good job of running to the potty now when he needs to go. He hasn't had a Number 2 accident on the floor, and he's only having a couple of Number 1 accidents, and mostly because it catches him by surprise at times. And when this does occur, he stops himself very quickly and runs to the potty. He's loving the M&Ms!

Today Jenn put him in his big-boy underpants, and that worked well for a while. He had a small accident in them, but what can we expect from the first day in big-boy underpants?! We're very proud of his progress.

Lincoln's also loving the warmer weather and the fact that I'm watering some areas of the lawn. He's made a game of chasing the hose around, and that prompted me to hook up his water toy:Gretel's training is clicking along very well. I think she's officially house trained, which means that she did this faster than Bridget. She's got a long way to go to get to Bridget's standard overall, but she's on her way.
On a completely separate note, Jenn was making some oven fries this evening for dinner (which were fantastic, BTW) and was commenting that the recipe called for them to be in the oven for a total of 15 minutes, which was far shorter than the amount of time that they actually needed to be in the oven. She then went on to say that "just once, I'd like for a recipe to have an accurate time." Have you had this problem? It seems fairly common, though I can't figure out why cooks and publishers continue to print clearly inaccurate information.

I couldn't let this post finish without commenting on the horrendous officiating during the World Cup matches today. The referee of the Germany/Serbia match lacked common sense to the fullest extent. And the referee of the U.S./Slovenia match should be relieved of all officiating duties for the rest of his life. He ought to be required to make a public statement detailing his call while standing in front of a high-def monitor to point out he foul that he saw but that the rest of the world did not see. Sports fans have long used the phrase, "We were robbed!" But today the United States soccer team was literally robbed of a goal. They should not have put themselves in the position to need that third goal, but neither should a referee make such an egregious error on the world's biggest stage. The man is simply unfit to perform in international soccer competition.The other topic about the World Cup that amuses me is the term "Democratic People's Republic of North Korea." There is nothing Democratic nor Republican within the borders of North Korea. Their crack-pot dictator has repeatedly shown that he is not capable of particpating in modern society, and this is just in the sports arena... I haven't even mentioned his attack on a South Korean ship or the starving of his own people or the execution by firing squad of a man whose crime was making international phone calls. Finally, according to Voice of the Martyrs, "North Korea is the worst perpetrator of persecution against Christians in the world." Knowing what goes on in North Korea at first makes me angry, and then I'm prompted to pray for those who are being persecuted, and for those doing the persecution.