More prep

Jeremy is in Ohio for work again this week, so I've got the kids and we're still plugging away at yard sale prep work. We have SO many baby clothes to sell. It's fun looking through the clothes and remembering the kids wearing them! It's been a long time since either of them were so tiny.

My college roommate Cindy stopped by today on her way back to Kansas City. It's so good to see her again! We don't get together often enough and when we do, it's always way too short. My mom watched the kids so Cindy and I could go to dinner together-that was really nice.

There was a little writeup about us in the paper here in Jacksonville this week. That was fun! Definitely something unique about being back in a small town.

The weather warmed up today, so we got to take the kids to the park. They're finally getting over their cold/flu thing that has lasted almost two weeks. It was great to see them running and playing outside again.

Jacksonville

We're still in Jacksonville.

We had the trailer in the shop (well, 2 shops) for almost a week. There were a few important things, like a broken equalizer on the axle that made the trailer sit a little tilted, and a few less urgent things. We wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to stay somewhere other than a hotel. This would be one major disadvantage of the RV lifestyle-when something breaks, you have to take your whole house to the shop. At any rate, the things are *mostly* fixed, so we're happy with it for now. We'll most likely take a trip back to the RV place after Jon's wedding and spend a night at their campground so we don't have to completely unload. That will also be an excellent time to get the brakes on the truck looked at. Coming down a mountain somewhere out west (Arizon? New Mexico? I don't remember.) we had a LOT of smoke coming out from under our hood when the brakes were smoking, so we think it probably would be good to have that checked out.

Jeremy got back just in time for Ian to fall out of bed in the middle of the night and split his head open. Thankfully, we know where the ER is and my mom could stay with Rinnah so we didn't have to bring her along, so that was better than it could have been. Still, it was a little awkward since we weren't sure exactly what he did (we just heard a thud and a cry), he also had a recovering black eye we couldn't explain (he said his pillow did it), and the answer to "Where do you live?" is a bit complicated. Three staples later Ian was good as new, and those have since been taken out so we're declaring him healed.

I've been plugging away at the garage sale. Our main thing will be my Walgreens freebies (toothbrushes, toothpaste, shampoo, body wash, etc) and baby clothes. It's been bittersweet going through the baby clothes and pricing them. It's hard to believe the kids were so tiny once! But we also don't miss that newborn phase much. It's so much fun to have kids who walk and talk and express their own interests and habits. Rinnah is 20 months now and can do so much. I'm not sure if we'll have any more kids or not (I do miss those newborn cuddles!) but it's been pretty easy to find deals on kids' clothes so I'm sure it will be fine. It will be nice to have the cash for our trip to Disney in May, and it will be about ten boxes less that we eventually have to move to another city.

Speaking of Disney, we are getting really excited! Before we came to Grandma's house, the kids didn't know who Mickey was. Now they do and they're getting excited about going to see Mickey. We went online and had Disney send us the free customized maps and free vacation planning DVD so I'm really looking forward to those arriving. The kids are at such a fun age for a trip like this.

Yesterday the kids actually asked to have their picture taken (woohoo!) so here are some cute shots of them together.

From Jacksonville, IL

From Jacksonville, IL

From Jacksonville, IL

Keeping busy

We certainly haven't had time to be bored yet in Jacksonville.

Jeremy is working in Ohio. We sure miss him, but this is an important project and I think he's enjoying getting to know some of the installers a little better.

Ian started preschool this week. It's just a temporary thing for a month or two while we're in town, and he normally wouldn't be allowed to attend until next year but they made an exception for the short term. He LOVES it. He's only gone twice (it's MWF mornings) but he is so proud to be going to school and seems to be having a great time, even if he did tell me the first day that he didn't learn anything new.

Rinnah is a little sad that she doesn't get to go to school. Both Monday morning and today she got to play with the toys for a few minutes while we dropped Ian off. Today when I brought her back home and unbuckled her car seat, she screamed "No! Buckle!" I put the buckle back on and asked what was wrong. "School! No Grandma. School!" Poor thing. This is the first time that Ian's gotten to do something that she hasn't, and I think she just genuinely doesn't understand why she can't stay at school and play too. I'm trying to do some special things when it's just her with me, like today we made brownies together. Overall she seems fairly unimpressed and I think she'd rather be in school.

I've made some progress toward our garage sale. Not as much as I would like, but more than I honestly expected when I'm trying to do so many things at once. I really wish we could have found a part-time daycare, but the one we had found closed, and the others would only do full-time care.

I'm looking forward to Jeremy coming back on Saturday!