Blah dee blah catching up...

Why, hello there!

It's been a while, no?

How've you been?

Oh, fine, thanks. There's been so much going on! Where should I begin? You see, I went to St. Louis two weeks ago. Oh, yes, I drove 12 hours in the car with 3 boys by myself! Which was great fun except for the times we had to stop every 45 minutes because Ike Ike was potty training. Yes, It was quite humorous, I am sure, for the other travellers to see me carting a baby, a toddler, a 5 year old, and a potty seat (in case he needed to poop) into the restrooms of the gas stations and welcome centers we stopped at. Let me ask you, have you ever tried to use the bathroom holding a 13 month old, because you didn't want to put him down on the nasty floor, all the while yelling from the stall at your other children not to touch anything? Oh, yes, you should try it sometime! Ha.Ha. And then there was the fact that public toilets aren't exactly designed for toddlers so he was too short to easily stand and pee in the toilets and he wouldn't sit to pee and wouldn't let me lift him up so the germaphobe in me is squicking every time his little stuff brushes along the too tall toilet. ICK. Wipe wipe wipe with a wipe! Ick Ick Ick.

Anyhow...enough talk about the loo...we finally made it to the Lou. We spent the next day looking through my mom's storage unit and figuring out how we were gonna move her into a smaller one and move the rest of her stuff to a (very good) friend's house for a yard sale. Then, friday, we picked up the truck and met my bro and future sis in law at the storage unit and began the massive moving process! We are talking about an entire household of goods! Thankfully the new, smaller unit was only about 30 feet away so we could easily run stuff down there. So, we looked through boxes, loaded the truck, moved other boxes, furniture, etc, while Ike and Big dude played with old toys. Oh, did I mention it was 40 degrees outside!??! Yes, it was.
Then we took the truck loaded with yard sale-ables over to my mom's wonderful friend's house (she had offered her house as the yard sale location...great location!) and parked it there overnight. Saturday morning dawned cloudy, cold, and snowy. Well, sleet really, but we were determined to have a yard sale and make some moola from the stuff we had packed up! We had to! The new unit was too small for putting it back! So, we put up several large signs and we actually made a fair amount and managed to get rid of everything! We would have been able to ask more for the stuff but we were so anxious to get rid of it, and the weather was so bad that we took what we could get. And then a woman came at the end and said her church was having a sale in a few weeks and could she take the stuff we would be taking to good will anyways? HEck, yes! So that saved us a trip to good will! All in all, it was succesful, all things considered...

We spent the rest of the weekend playing with family, shopping for wedding dresses with my future SIL, checking out their wedding site, and just playing. Then we drove home and stopped at my other Bro and SILs house in Nashville for a quick over night (Thanks, guys!) and drove home the next morning. Which was much nicer, breaking it up like that. Easier on the kids too. Thank goodness we invested in dvd player for the car though, seriously!!! Oh, and we stopped for the boys to pee in the grass at one point and Ike was complaining about his nose hurting and said he needed a band-aid for it. Well, I told big dude to give him a tissue and he blew but then he said it still hurt. So I stopped and looked and sure-nuff he had shoved a spit wad (his straw paper from lunch) up his nose. I had tweezers in the suitcase, thank goodness, so I managed to get it all out in 2 pieces, holding Ike Ike's head to his car seat with one hand and picking at it with the other while he was strapped in and while Big D sat with his eyes covered, squicking as I was performing minor surgery on his brother! Great fun! It's what memories are made of!

So, we are home now, and it's so nice! We spent last weekend cleaning house and doing a few house-y things we needed to do. Nathan even took me on a date friday night to a Mexican restaurant and then a movie. 10,000 BC. Wouldn't be my first pick for a movie, but it was the only thing at the post theater! Saturday we went bowling for a friend of D's birthday and then D and I went and picked strawberries. I had taken Ike Ike a few weeks ago so D wanted to go. Very fun.

Ummm, I think that's about it. Yep. Ike Ike is potty trained now. Still has a few moments of brain loss but for the most part he is there! Yippee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Will post more if I think of it!