a great week

I never realized how quiet our house is. LOL - after spending a week on the road I am thankful to be tucked safely away in our quiet home. We spent the early part of the week at David's mema's house. Her totally not child friendly house. You know the one, with rocks in flower pots sitting on the floor. Yeah, the one with a glass topped coffee table, pictures/frames, all sorts of knick knacks on a low shelf in the entertainment center. Let's not forget the small hard candies sitting in dishes scattered about the room, the fake fruit on the table, and the cleaning products under the kitchen sink with a cabinet door that won't even close. Matthew is usually really good about understanding what is off limits, but Scarlett is not. I was exhausted within 30 minutes of waking up our first day there. I tried to let David sleep in, but finally after an hour and a half I went and told him I could *not* supervise both of them by myself. Seriously, while it's nice to visit mema, she doesn't seem to understand that it's not good for Scarlett to put rocks in her mouth. We decided to try to hang out at David's brother & SIL's house as much as possible. It's much more toddler friendly. Matthew loves playing with his cousin, and Rhett is great about tolerating him. They were wrestling and Rhett told his mom "For him to be so little, he sure is strong." I thought that was cute.

We spend Tuesday on the road to my parents' house. We took it slow, stopped and shopped along the way. David needed new shoes so we were especially looking for those. We went to an outlet mall and he bought a pair for around $50. We thought that was a great deal but then as we were leaving we walked to let Matthew & Scarlett ride one of the rides and noticed another little store. It was a shoe store that we didn't realize was there. David went in there & they were having a huge sale. He bought the same pair of shoes for $30. They had another brand that looked nice but we'd never heard of. I went and did a quick search and found them on Nordstrom's website for $250, and Amazon for $195. David went and returned the first pair he bought and we got him 2 new pair at the second store, for $60. AMAZING deal! So amazing that we wondered if the store was legit...

We stopped off to visit my former coworkers. My old boss and his wife just had a baby so I had a gift for them, and I thought it would be fun to see everyone. Turns out there were 2 other people with newborns too. I felt a little like a putz not having gifts for them too, but oh well, they didn't let me know about the babies, how could I know?

Got to my parents' house late Tuesday night and crashed. My older sister and her girls came over to play Wednesday - Matthew & Belle were SO happy to see each other. They get along great and seem to always remember each other, no matter how long it's been between visits. Scarlett tries to keep up with them and does pretty well.

Thursday was nice & quiet - both my sisters were at their in-laws for Thanksgiving, so we had a calm day. My mom was cooking Friday, so I helped her do some prep work Thursday. Friday was wild. A house full of people, from 4 months to 83 years. Fun but wild. My older sister said she hates leaving when we are all there and maybe we should all spend the night! Not sure where we would all sleep, but it might be fun. I'm not sure the kids would ever settle in for the night though.

My parents house is pretty child-friendly, but Matthew and Belle somehow managed to get into the neosporin. They tried to wash their hair with it. Not fun. They also found a small pair of very sharp scissors, and mostly used it to cut paper. Somehow Matthew cut his finger too, but he wouldn't cry about it because he didn't want us to know he had the scissors!

Scarlett was very loving to Jonah this time. She seemed to accept me holding him more this time - in the past she has fussed and tried to push him away but this time she just loved him whenever I held him. She was pretty funny watching him nurse. I've weaned her to only nursing once a day, but I think she would nurse more if I let her. One time when he was eating she was rubbing his head and then noticed my sister's boob, and then came running to me pulling on my shirt. She was satisfied with her cup though, thank goodness. I don't want her to be unhappy so I'm glad she didn't fuss over it - I would have probably given her the boob if she had fussed much.

We left Saturday night, in the rain, to drive home. We made it in less than 14.5 hours - I think a record for us on that trip! It rained and/or snowed the whole way, so it meant quick stops with no playing. Poor David drove the whole way - the last few times I have driven the bulk of the night but somehow he wasn't sleepy at all until 6am, and by then it was almost light out and time for breakfast so he didn't want to try to sleep.

And oh yeah, GT beat UGA 45-42. Woohoo! Great win guys!