Shoooooes!

Today I was trying to figure out a solution that would keep Avalyn away from the cat dishes and I thought I had found the perfect setup... For the past few weeks I've used one of those play-yard gates and had it stretched out from in front of the TV stand, around the half wall, and against the dining room wall. Yeah, the thing is huge. I love it! Well, Avalyn being the smarty-pants she is, figured out how to get past it. It was only a matter of time. *Sigh*

So I broke the play-yard down and took four sections and made a square around the cat dishes. No getting past it now!

I sound so full of myself - and I was for about 15 minutes. I bragged to Matt and told Keith how to get the gate open to give the cats fresh water and food... then I sat down to do some homework. When Avalyn toddled over to the gate, I wasn't worried! Nope! There was no way she'd get past it, I mean, I could barely take the thing apart!

Oh silly Gwen. You should know better by now.

After a minute or two of gate-slapping fun I hear Avalyn yelling, "Shooooe! Shooooes!" Over and over in her own adorably cute way. So, I asked her to bring her shoes over to mama and she responds with, "Uh-oh."

Now, if anyone knows my daughter they will know that she says "uh-oh" before she does something wrong. So, I jumped up to see what she was up to.

This is what greeted me:

Yep - this is what happens when I get cocky. Time for a new storage solution for the shoes! I might just make people take their shoes off in the garage (since we have an attached garage now!). I really like the idea of doing a modified version of this bench. We have all of those pegs and shelving in front of the garage entry door, but no seating. This could be the perfect solution. We'll see. I should probably finish unpacking and concentrate on the inside of the house before doing anything to the garage!

In the meantime I have to go dry some shoes... ;)