Pics from Grant's Farm

On the Road Again...

seeing things that I may never see again

I was on the road again....

And saw this guy going down the road in the St. Louis area in his vintage Corvette. On his way to a costume party in July? A REALLY big Vikings fan? Looking for someone named Helga? As we originally came up behind him all we could see was the horns sticking up out the T-top, when we passed he was too funny so I dragged out the camera and made Hubby slow down.

In other news of the day Winnie's Litter will soon be relocating to a small town outside of St. Louis on the Illinois side of the river. Seems like a nice little area and Hubby will likely go sign a lease on a little house tomorrow. While the house isn't our dream home it will be a roof for a few months while we settle and decide our next step. We will likely start the move in the next couple of weeks. Sonny Boy is most concerned that we will only have one bathroom in the rental, I'm most worried about some UGLY wall paper border that the landlord said I could change.

The house still hasn't sold and the couple that seemed as if they were going to bite have now stepped back and are going to wait. While they say we are still on the top of their list they are holding off for a couple of months. My real estate agent is pushing them because they are eligible for the 8K first time home buyer credit but to get that you must close by Nov 30, 2009 and if you've bought more than one house sometimes things get drawn out longer than you planned and I imagine there will be a run on things this fall slowing down the process, that's what he's explaining to them. Anyhow even if they don't pull maybe things will pick up as the deadline for the tax credit draws closer and somebody a little more together will make an offer. In the meantime we are going to let the house sit and be a storage for furniture that won't fit in the rental (and keep the place from looking too barren) at least till the end of November and hunt for a renter to supplement the mortgage and hope that the market will improve in a years time and re-list or Hubby's old job will miraculously call him back - I'm not holding my breath on that one.

While in the St. Louis area I took the kids to Grant's Farm. It was a fun day and Sonny Boy enjoyed the animal shows, Igor not so much. Darn blogger won't let me arrange pictures like I want so I'll put them on a separate post.

Get you motor running...

But don't get on the highway

The traffic will kill you

and the van is in the way....

Born to be WIILLLDD!

Heading down south to look at something to rent and try and figure out the school district we will be in at the very least. That way Hubby can rental search in earnest. Honestly he's pickier than I when it come to living accomodations so If he finds something he can run with it. We have decided to move in time to get the kids in school when it starts in the fall as I don't want to uproot them and I can't take the single parenting thing any more.

Still no nibbles on the house which is either going to cause me an ulcer or to gain 30 lbs. I'm a stress and boredom eater so stress and the lack of adult company, crappy TV and a cold summer has me packing on the pounds again, lovely.

Funny I have all these witty post that pop into my brain while I'm in bed trying to fall asleep but by the time I get around to actually writing they have slipped my mind. The following was my theme the other night.

Things You Never Thought you Would say

these are a list of things I have said recently that I would have never though would cross my lips before my first born. Feel free to add yours in the comments.

Quit picking your nose and eating your boogers.

Get your hands out of your pants

Don't lick me

Don't lick the wall

Don't sit on your brother's head

Stop moving the furniture around the house

Wipe your rear end after a poop BEFORE you sit down on the bathroom rug ( I didn't actually say this one but hubby did)

Quit peeing on the bathroom wall

Make sure all the pee hits the water in the toliet

If you have a thought about somebody in the store WAIT till we get into the car to inform me of it.

My God you sure do have a lot of sand in your privates (hosing down the boys in the tub after a trip to the local beach)

Don't put that in your mouth

Things I knew I'd say but didn't realize I would say so much

Flush

Wash your hands

Put your clothes on

did you put on clean underwear?

Just how early did you get out of bed?

Geez that diaper stinks.

Pee and Poop go in the pottie not your diaper.

Do you need to go pottie?

Last but not least BECAUSE I SAID SO!

Notice how many of these things center around bodily functions.

Litter Happenings

Just thought I'd update on the kids. It's been a little while.

Igor is just a bundle of energy lately. I expect him to break into James Brown's "I Feel Good" any minute now. I measured him today and dragged out my old notes and realized he has now grown 5 and 3/4 inches since he's been home and gained about 10 and 1/2 pounds. I can really tell he's been growing as all of a sudden he feels like he's all arms and legs when we cuddle in the rocking chair at night. While I still wouldn't call the kid chunky he no longer looks quite so skinny probably due to the fact that the eating issues are getting better. Igor now will mostly eat a reasonable amount of food at a meal without it being a huge production. Don't get me wrong, he's still REALLY slow but I'm seeing progress. His favorite food that's not junk is oatmeal so it's dosed up liberally with butter, brown sugar and half and half, probably why he likes it so much. We are also slowly walking into the pottie training thing slowly. We should really be more consistent but he has the idea down. I think it would be a simple thing to get him into big boy underwear full time, however I just don't have the energy with my stress levels right now so he's trading off between diapers and pull ups and when I'm really energetic underwear. Igor's speech is really making progress as well, we are starting to get two word combos quite frequently and will copy you pretty clearly when you make him say a sentence to get something. All other aspects are good. We get a typical temper tantrum from time to time and he certainly test his boundries but for the most part he is really easy but energetic. Right now he prefers me to Hubby. Last week when Hubby went in to wake him from his nap he was very confused and upset that it wasn't me. Easy to see since Hubby is gone now so much and he's used to Mom being the one that does everything.

Sonny Boy is his typical self. Right now he's doing swim lessons daily at the pool right behind our house. He is making good progress but the kid sinks like a stone - takes after his dad who cannot float either. Sonny Boy's crawl is looking almost like a swimmer's and he can actually move when he does it, he's not far from saying he can swim. Of course Sonny Boy is still growing just not at the astonishing rate that Igor is. It is hard to believe he will be six in a couple of weeks.

I guess that's the update folks.

Someone suggested I clone myself...

this might come in handy.

I pulled a good one I scheduled Sonny Boy two weeks worth of swimming lessons that run from 9:10 am to 9:45. No problem except on Wed which is Igor's speech therapy/play group that runs from 9:15-10:15 and is at least a 10 minute drive away. It appears that tomorrow I will drop Sonny Boy off at swim lessons a few minutes early and ask a girl I've sat with at numerous lessons around town our kids have shared to watch him, drive like a crazy person to Igor's therapy, drop him off at therapy, turn right around drive back pick up Sonny Boy and then drive back to pick up Igor. Whew talk about spinning wheels and shuttling kids. I knew SAHM do alot of driving but I didn't think it took all the logistics of an aircraft carrier.

My only hope is that I told Sonny Boy we would skip swim lessons if it was cold again tomorrow. Today it was downright chilly and I wasn't the one wet, actually wore a jacket. The pool is heated so the kids in the water aren't so bad but it's brisk when you get out!

I'm waiting with baited breath, we may have an offer soon on the house, the people have narrowed it down to our house and another and my realtor says our house is much nicer (though it's a little more expensive) we'll see I guess. We've been down to the final two before.

Just a Swinging....

Maybe not the worst camping trip ever....

but it is one that will live our memories for a long time.

Things started off pretty well. Wed and Thurs of last week I spent packing, planning, shopping and cleaning the house. Thursday evening I packed the van minus last minute stuff and got to bed fairly early. Friday I woke up early, dressed, finished packing the van and got the kids up dressed and gave them a bum rush out the door before they could destroy the house as I had left word with the realtor it was free to show at will.

The drive down to the St. Louis area was long but really uneventful, though I was wondering just where the heck the park was as I got close, because it took forever for signs to show on the road. We arrived, scoped things out and picked out a camping spot and I started setting up the tent. This is where things started going downhill quick. We didn't bring our trusty old cabin tent we've been using for the last 10+ years, we brought along a new one that was borrowed from a friend. He had insisted we borrow it when we were telling tales of our last stay in the tent with it's leaks and busted door zipper. Since it was there we used it. Now let me tell you this tent was very nice and new, if it had ever actually been used you couldn't tell it because it was just spotless. I opened the bag and the instructions were so vague they might as well I have been written in Russian ( I might would have some hope then) so Sonny Boy and I start trying to assemble this tent. This wasn't a one woman, one six year old operation I soon discovered. However with much cussing, sweating (the heat is another paragraph) and re-doing we soon had this MASSIVE tent erected. I sat down to drink a soda and admire my hard work and soon we could hear thunder in the distance. OH NO is all I could think because even though I had the tent up I did not have the rain fly on and the top of the tent was solid mesh. I start running around stretching out the rain fly and reading and re-reading the terrible instructions that kept telling me to put a pole through the sleeve on the rain fly except I could find no sleeve! Thunder still rumbling in the distance I decide to just pull the rain fly over the tent and hope that it shed the approaching thunderstorm, however I couldn't do this as one person and Sonny Boy no matter how hard he tried (and he tried) needed six more inches of height to be useful. I then re stretched out the fly, re-read the directions for the 101st time and finally found the sleeve to put the pole through. With the pole in the correct place it helped me stretch the fly over the tent and I could then secure it. About the time I finally got things rain proof the thunder started fading and the storm went around us.

Hubby showed around suppertime and after roaming around the park - the signage to the campground is not good, found us. We cooked some burgers on the fire, ate and Hubby took the boys to shower which was an adventure he would have to relate and put the kids to bed. Now mind you our little Wisconsin temperature adjusted bodies think 85 is hot and it's somewhere in the mid 80's with a high humidity. The kids are restless and after an hour or more of threatening death they finally settled and went to sleep. We sat around and watched the firewood smolder and listened to the trailer trash a couple of campsites over fight and cuss so we informed the park ranger and soon another thunderstorm started blowing up again. We hustled got things under cover and ducked into the tent and zipped it up. GEEZ it was hot in that tent. About the time I managed to doze off the storm ended and the couple in the site right next to ours came out of hiding with their child who was somewhere in the three year old range around 11:30 pm. Matthew ( I heard his name a hundred times or more over the weekend) proceeded to follow his dad around calling to him "Daddy" about every 90 seconds in the loud voice only a toddler can muster until at least 2:00 am. Not once did I hear the people tell the kid to pipe down. Eventually we got some sleep but it was bad and of course the kids woke up with birds in the am.

The next morning we rise and eat and talk Sonny Boy into taking a hike before swimming. We go on a fairly long hike and return to the campsite to eat lunch and hopefully a nap. As we are eating Matthew's mother finally arises from bed and yells at her husband from the tent "What time is it?" It was 1:30 pm. We get the kids to lie down for a while, Igor falls to sleep and we doze in the heat. Sonny Boy was as patient as an almost 6 year old can be but soon we had to get ready for the swimming hole. We greased the kids down with sunscreen, donned our swimsuits and as we are loading in the van another thunderstorm blows up. Quite a doozy this time with a lot thunder and lightening so we drove into town and bought ice cream while we waited it out. It soon blew over and we were able to take the kids to the beach.

The evening was rather uneventful with the exception of a marauding raccoon that tried to raid our campsite while we were still sitting around the fire. I chased him off and warned Mathew's parents that I had sent a raccoon their direction. We soon went to bed and remarked at how quiet Mathew's family was tonight. We soon realized though that they had left and were now returning to a campground that had been raided by raccoons. I even heard the dad exclaim " The dang things even ate my Skoal!" Hubby and were snickering so hard we couldn't stand it.

Sunday morning we awoke and managed to drag the tent across the campground road to a sunny site to allow it to dry out. Luckily it was HOT and this happened quickly. Hubby helped me pack the tent away and took the boys swimming while I finished breaking camp and packing. Hubby and the boys returned and we all hit the shower house in preparation for the long drive home. We stopped in town, ate pizza with Hubby and hit the road. I figured the first few hours of drive would be pleasant, kids were tired, clean, cooled off after being broiled for two days, and fed. Boy was I wrong. Sonny boy promptly fell asleep, but not Igor. Igor took his time strapped in the car seat to mutilate his new glasses and scream at the top of his lungs randomly for 300 miles. IT WAS A VERY LONG DRIVE HOME.

We survived the trip, however I somehow think I will either have to be drunk to get me to agree to another camping trip without another adult along for the entire ride or have some sort of brain injury that erases this from memory.

A few pictures: There was a big smudge on the camera lens we didn't discover until the end of the trip, hence the greasy spot in ALL the pictures.

Igor thinks his sand toy basket is a backpack.
Mississippi River bridge at Louisiana, Missouri - scary bridge very narrow and high.

This is what Illinois looks like, the only difference is the height of the corn as you move north to south.


Sonny Boy, one of the few times he's quiet.

Igor in between screams - It's hard to take pics directly behind you while you drive.

The view from the backseat.

I should have taken a picture of the mountain very dirty, wet, smelly laundry I did the next day too.