Last Sunday we had our usual dinner with Brady and Madison. Madison was Super Aunt and played with all the kids. Tommy crashed during dinner and Madison sat next to him to snuggle. Then she got Joey asleep too. She made the comment that babies are "so easy because if they are crying, they usually only need one of three or four things". Ha ha ha ha! Spoken like someone who has never been up all night with a crying baby. We're pretty sure she'll be singing a different tune about how easy babies are once she has one of her own.
Family Night this week was our annual trip to the campus apple orchard. We had so much fun. This year Tommy was old enough to "help" and he loved climbing the ladder and hanging on low reaching tree limbs. Annie was really brave this year and was willing to climb to the top of the ladder to pick apples. Lily didn't need the ladder, she wanted to try climbing the trees all on her own - and she did a great job. Joey was our "chief tree locater". He mostly fussed in his seat - he was probably sad he couldn't eat any of the super delicious apples. We came home with about 20 pounds of apples. Sometime next week we will can apple sauce.
Lily's cooking school continues. She had quesadillas on her list. We made chicken quesadillas for dinner one night. Everyone ate without complaint and Lily was so proud. She was scared to use a knife to cut the cheese and she was terrified of flipping the tortillas on the hot skillet, but Mommy helped her and everything turned out fine. Great job Lily. While folding clothes this week Mommy caught Tommy reading a book to Joey. Tommy loves Joey so much and tries so hard to understand how to relate to him. Once Joey is up and walking, those two are going to be such amazing friends. We feel so blessed to have two girls and two boys who love each other so much.
Annie is moving right along with gymnastics and dance. It is great to have active things for her to do. Her strength is returning. She is doing very well on the bars in gymnastics. And she loves.....Loves......LOVES....dancing!
Our raspberries are still producing like crazy. Annie and Lily helped me pick almost eight cups of berries one afternoon. Tommy wanted a snack so I put him in a chair with the carton of berries. He was happily eating, the girls were playing, and Joey was napping. I figured it was a safe time for me to run back into the house and start dinner. All I had to do was turn on the rice cooker and throw some chicken in the oven. I was inside for exactly three minutes. When I came back outside, both of the girls were yelling at Tommy and trying to take the carton away from him. Tommy ate or dropped over 1/3 of the berries and smashed the rest with his hands. He loves jam. I suppose he was just trying to help me. He had berries all over his face, hands, legs, and clothes. Such a waste of amazing berries. But in hindsight, it is a fun memory and he looks really cute with his juice stained face.
Adorable Annie was my garden helper this week. We picked all of our pumpkins and set them out to harden off in the sun. Then a few days later we moved them to the front steps. The pumpkins are small and light, so we decided to put a few of them in our flower boxes for fall. The house sure looks cute. But now I REALLY want to paint our front door. The white just doesn't fit the rest of the house. Maybe I can squeeze in some time to get it done before the weather changes.
Lily's school held its annual fundraising carnival on Thursday. Daddy stayed home with Joey so Mommy and the big kids could play. I didn't get any carnival pictures because my cell phone battery was dead, but we snapped these cuties in their face paint before they went to bed. I think Annie is the most adorable little tiger I have ever seen!
Joey is growing and growing. He is seven weeks old now. He will smile at Mommy and has been cooing a lot more. He is still not a great night sleeper, but we're hoping that will change very soon. His baby acne is clearing up and his hair is starting to come in on top. It is a very light brown color - almost blonde. We'll see how it looks once it's a little longer.
And now for our big event of the week. On Friday night Jeremy was busy
working on fixing our washing machine (again!!!!!). I put Tommy in the
bath and Joey started crying. Annie asked me to read her a story while I
fed Joey. Once I was sure Tommy was settled in the tub, I sat down
with Joey and Annie to get the baby fed and read the story. I was
sitting with them for probably half an hour. Tommy was playing quietly
in the bathroom. All of a sudden I felt like we needed to check on
Tommy. I asked Annie to go do it. She got in the bathroom and started
yelling "No Tommy! No!" over and over again. Jeremy and I rushed to the
bathroom to find an overflowing bathtub and a floor covered in an inch
of water.
We have had this happen on a smaller scale with the kids before so we knew that water was probably dripping into the utility room in the basement. While Jeremy opened the tub drain and threw towels on the floor upstairs, I ran downstairs with buckets to catch the water coming from the ceiling in the utility room. It seemed like it was pouring down from upstairs. Poor Tommy didn't know what was going on. I still can't believe he didn't panic when the water in the tub went all the way to the top. And before anyone blames him.....this was all Mommy's fault. I was too distracted by all the kids asking/crying for things at once. I remember putting Tommy in the bath but I don't remember coming back in to turn off the water.
One of my visiting teachers brought this over for me that night.
We dried up everything as best we could and asked neighbors if we could borrow fans to help dry out the soaked carpet and drywall. We thought we had a handle on things and then Jeremy went to our storage room to get another fan. There was water pouring out in a thin stream from a seam in the duct work! Great! Luckily it was just falling down on the concrete floor and a pile of construction stuff. We dragged everything up to the garage and dried up the newly discovered water as best we could. Jeremy even drilled holes in the ducts to help release the water faster. A friend of mine offered to send her husband who does disaster restoration work over to our house. We weren't sure we needed his help but we were thankful he came. Turns out the water had spread even more than we thought. We had to remove some drywall from the storage room ceiling and pull up most of the carpet in the hallway near the kids' bathroom. He brought six of his industrial strength fans to help dry everything more quickly. He also checked the utility room and storage room to be sure we had adequately removed the water. What a night. When all was said and done we spent about four hours cleaning up the mess and trying to dry everything. We had to run the fans all night, all day Saturday, and they are still running today. It feels like we live in a wind tunnel. Thank goodness our friend Sean came over to help us find more of the water. Hopefully everything will dry out just fine and we won't have any more problems.
Jeremy was a champ during all of this. He never got upset with me and he just rolled up his sleeves and got to work. He borrowed a shop vac from a neighbor to try and dry the carpet. He did everything he could to remove the water and clean up the mess. Moments like this make me so thankful for a husband like him.
The kids stayed up past 10 o'clock while we cleaned up the water and got the fans in place. The next day Tommy fell asleep watching General Conference and took a three hour nap.
On Sunday morning Lily offered to cook breakfast. She wanted to make Monkey Bread as part of her cooking school with Mommy. She did all the work herself - except put it in the oven. I even made her do the dishes and wipe the counters - which she was not happy about. Annie doesn't like fried or scrambled eggs, so we made hard boiled eggs (Annie calls them cold eggs) to eat with our treat. Lily had fun using the egg cooker Puna gave us; and it worked like a charm.
Breakfast was delicious. Conference was wonderful. We are counting our blessings that all of our kids and the house are just fine after Mommy's water fiasco of 2015. What a week. Mommy needs a nap!
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