Long Time, no blog...

If you ask what we've been doing, I'm not sure what I'd say. It took us a while to recover from our battle with flu around Christmas. Yesterday evening we started trying the 'bare bottom' potty training approach with Max. It's going okay, but I don't think he's going to just take off and stay dry from here on out. We also tried it with Nora last night (more out of my curiosity than anything else) and though she didn't go on the potty, we only had one accident. Funny enough, she went into the bathroom and peed on the floor...right beside the toilet. After that, she carried the training potty (which we had brought into the kitchen) into the bathroom as if to say, "If that had been in the right place, I would have used it!" Oh, well. I didn't really think Nora would 'get it' now anyway, so today I left her diaper on. :)

What else have we been doing? Well, Max has turned into a big game player all of a sudden. Most of the time I tell him he can't play a game when Nora's awake because it causes much strife and she tends to carry game pieces hither and yon. So now, anytime Nora's in bed, Max says to me, "Nora take nap? I pay (play) game!" The other night, Max disappeared into me and Greg's bedroom (where the games are kept) and was quiet for 10 minutes or so. I checked on him, and found this:

He had set up his whole Johnny Tractor game and was ready to play. :)

Greg was having fun taking pictures...the funny part of this one is that Max actually said, "Cheese!" in a happy tone while he was frowning. Talented little guy.

Just our sweet Max...with poor little chapped lips. He is always licking them, which I try to tell him doesn't help!

With tax season looming (starting, really) and the baby due right after that, Greg and I took an opportunity to get away for a night in Decatur while Dad and Mom Beutel kept the kids. We left Saturday to get down there in time for a late lunch at a Chinese restaurant we'd read about. It was...interesting. Our food was good, but it was just a tiny little place and some of the decorations were funny. Since we were there late, we were the only guests for half of the time, though, so I didn't want to get the camera out.

We went shopping, then, at the mall that was right behind our hotel. Much to Greg's chagrin, I made him drive over to it even though 'we could have walked it.' I don't know exactly what the temperature was that day, but it was very cold and windy. I told him I'd drive over and he could walk if he really really wanted to. He didn't.

After shopping we headed back to Decatur to eat supper at Bizou, a restaurant Greg's dad really likes. I had called the day before to get their supper hours and asked if we would need reservations. The man on the phone told me, "No, you will probably be okay with just two people." Apparently, he's never been to his own restaurant on a Saturday night. We showed up at 6:20 and were told they were full up until 7:30. Since we'd had a late lunch and really wanted to eat at this place, we took the offer and headed back into the cold to fill up our hour of wait time. In case you haven't been there, there isn't just tons to do in Decatur on a Saturday evening. There is, however, a Starbucks! :) It was actually very relaxing and felt good to just sit after walking in the mall all afternoon. (I'm starting to feel like I'm 6 months pregnant or something...)

Eventually we went back to the restaurant and decided the food was definitely worth the wait. I will definitely make reservations next time, though. :)

On the way back to our hotel, we stopped at my dad's company's office and took a picture by the sign. This one's for you, Dad! :)

Back at the hotel, Greg had seen an outdoor firepit and was very excited to sit by the fire for a little bit. I was cold and more excited about sticking my feet in a hot tub, but we asked at the front desk how late they kept the fire going. The answer was, "Midnight," so we figured we'd sit by the fire for a few minutes and then hit the pool room. When we got outside, we found this:

Which led to this:

We went back inside and asked about it, and they got it going for us...so we came back outside and found this!

Since we finally got to sit by the fire, we took a few self-timer shots. Here is the best one:

Unfortunately, the fire wasn't as warm as it looked, and the seats of the chairs weren't warm at ALL, so after snapping our pictures we were both ready to get inside as quick as possible! We did get to swim/sit in the hot tub (Don't worry, I only put my legs in), but the experience was made a little more frustrating by four unsupervised fourteen-ish aged girls. I'm sure they weren't trying to be annoying, but pool rooms are akin to echo chambers, and they really didn't grasp the concept of lowering voices/laughs/etc. It was crazy loud! You'd have thought there were 35 people in that room! Anyway, we still had a great and relaxing time away...the last one before the baby comes!