Ikea

First, because I can't help myself, LOOK at how cute our kids are~
Mark loves this baby. He's just crazy about the baby. ...

And I couldn't help posting a good one of all four,
even if Mark is more interested in the baby than saying cheese...

That out of the way, (they are cute huh?!)

Today was quite interesting. Three adult women took five... five children to IKEA ummm for quite a long time. Two three-year olds, one two-year old, one one-year old, one 3-month old. Friends Leigh and Jess went off to the mega-store without me this morning. ...Let's just say they needed a headstart. I'm soooooo not a shopper. I couldn't think about spending 3, 4, 6, 10 hours in one store. Plus, I had to wait for Matthew since he was in school. So anyhow, I meet up with the posse and they are ready for lunch. I'm thinking... "What?! We're going to eat lunch, in the store?" (did I mention, I'd never been to IKEA before??, well I hadn't.) Do you know they have a cafeteria/restaurant IN this store. Shoot, they don't want you to leave, once you get there, you are THERE... I thought Jess was totally joking but nooooooo, she was dead serious. This was the biggest store I'd ever seen. According to Matthew, it was the "giant-est store ever on the whole world!" Let me tell you that between the three older that could talk, the second youngest who enjoyed hitting me and telling me "no" and the hungry, tired, fussy, sometimes sleeping and then content baby, there was lots of "don't." "stop." "please don't" "please stop" "REALLY, Don't." "please listen" "keep your hands in the cart" "keep all your hands in the cart" "boys!" "boys!" "no hitting" and on and on ... All in all though, ...we handled the crying, hitting, beating, banging, shouting, shrieking, screaming, whining, crying, hitting, potty-ing, crying, running, eating, crying, shouting, laughing and more crying fairly well, I thought.

I pushed the boys.

Jessica and Leigh took turns pushing the bags, the baby and the girl.

The big boys chewing on, screaming into and banging with the cups I did end up buying.

Mark with the ball we didn't buy, much to his sadness...

The crazy mommies and the baby.

Some funny shots of Matthew during "play time" after we'd "shopped."

The icecream the children got after we made it through the madhouse! I thought Leigh was mad for buying them icecream after all that screaming and shouting and whining and and and and... but hey, it calmed them down. All in all, the outing was actually sort of fun and a great distraction. Thanks Jess, for convincing me to go. *wink*