A long night...

On Monday night Mark and I awoke to the sound of sirens wailing close by.  

With the first set of sirens I was barely awake.  

For the second set of sirens I thought to myself, "there must be an accident somewhere close by."  

Then came the third set of sirens...  I hopped out of bed and went to the window to see if I could see anything just as the fourth set of sirens went wailing by.  I looked out the window and said "Oh my gosh!".  Then Mark jumped up to see what was going on.

  

Our street is shaped like a horseshoe and we are located at the bottom middle of the horseshoe, on a high spot so we can see almost all the houses all around us.

What we saw out the window was a HUGE fireball coming from a house about 8 houses down the street on the opposite side of the street.  The house was a two story one but the flames reached up at least another story.  There was smoke billowing past our house in huge clouds.  We could hear the sound of the water from the firefighters hitting the flames with a loud hissing sound and even the sound of the firefighters calling to each other.

It took the firefighters over an hour to put out the fire and then another couple hours to clean up.  It ended up being five firetrucks there to put out the fire.  The fire burned so hot that it caught both the neighbors houses on fire as well.  The house to the north was substantially damaged but the house to the south was fine.  Everyone was able to get out safely, no one was hurt which is something to be so thankful for.

Kid Pics

These are some random pictures of the kids that I took this week.  They are not the greatest pictures but...I love to take pictures of the kids to share so here they are!

Emmaline, so serious, at least for this picture. 

 

Here, Jeremiah clowns around in typical "Jeremiahish" fashion.  He is really quite silly...

 

Josiah, fixing his airplane.  He loves to fix things!

Micah, swinging out back.  (Or being swung?  Whatever is the correct way to say that he was being pushed in the swing.  :-) )

 

Josiah on the swingset.  Look at me, Mom!

Elijah with a lego project that he built.  It is fun to see what he comes up with.  This is supposed to be a zebra, I'm not sure that I see it...!

Dollhouse Bedframe

I have spent the last week working on making a twin size bedframe for my dollhouse.  The dollhouse itself is no where near ready for furniture or decorating but I couldn't resist trying my hand at making something.  I used some scrap wood leftover from Mark's airplanes, cut down to the right sizes.  Then I sanded all the similar pieces to match.  Mark built me a right angled jig which I used to make sure all the corners were perfect.  I am really pleased with how it came out, it looks so realistic!

Answered Prayer

God does answer our prayers, even when it's for something completely superfluous and non essential, like a laptop computer!  I have been praying for a laptop for years, ever since we moved to town (2007).  I thought it would be so convenient to have a laptop in the kitchen or wherever the kids are instead of always having to go down to the family room.  My patience has been rewarded!  This past weekend my parents gave me their old laptop that they no longer wanted...Yippee!!!  Here it is in all it's glory...

First Model Car!

Mark and Elijah spent the afternoon Sunday building a wooden model car kit that Mark had picked up for a $1 on clearance.  We, of course, didn't tell Elijah where we got it or how much it cost, only that Daddy had bought it just for the two of them to do together and he was thrilled!  Elijah was so proud of himself for being old enough to work on a model with Daddy.  :-)

Short Hair

Due to some unintentional cutting when I was trimming Emmaline's hair she now has short hair instead of long.

Home Sweet Home

I follow several blogs and recently on one of them they posted pictures of their house and how it looks on an "everyday basis".  I was so encouraged to see her home that I thought I would post pictures of my home to try and encourage others like I was.  It's so important to remember that our home needs to reflect us and how we keep it up needs to be what works for us and not others.  I am at the point where I finally have a level of cleanliness that I can live with and manage and I am HAPPY with.  So, here it is, our home...

 In the mornings I always have a stack of dirty dishes on the counter from breakfast.  I do all the breakfast and lunch dishes together after lunch, with help (Emmaline unloads the dishwasher).  At dinner time, Mark loads the dishwasher and I wash the remaining dishes by hand.  There is almost always dishes drying on the right hand side of the sink, because I hate to dry dishes!

 Our "dining room", not really a dining room per se but you get the idea.  The bookcase is where we keep all our school stuff and we "do school" at the table.  The table was recently given to us by some friends and I haven't gotten around to finishing painting the chairs so they all match.  Someday...

 This is what you see when you first come into our house.  I try to keep the living room clean at all times and have a "no toy" policy in the living room.  Which works sometimes, if I keep on top of the kids.

 And here is the family room, where we actually live and where the kids can play with toys all they want.  :-)  It is actually a lot messier than this usually, I'm not sure why it was so clean for this picture, maybe because the kids had been playing outside?

 Our one bathroom, shared by 7 people, is amazingly clean.  Of course, it is a chore of one of the kids to clean it everyday...which helps a lot!
Note (added 3/9/2011) For those of you wondering how in the world I can allow my children to be exposed to those nasty chemicals from cleaning the bathroom everyday...The kids don't actually clean with cleaners, they just use a wet washcloth to wipe down all the surfaces.  I do the cleaning myself once a week.  There, now I have that off my chest... :-)

 Our bedroom.  As I look at these pictures I realize how much more decorating I need to do.  Oh well, I can add it to my someday list.

 The boys room, which stays really clean, mainly because once the boys get up in the morning they don't stop moving till night time and don't ever go back into their room!  The kids all make their own beds, as you can probably tell.

 And finally, Emmaline's room.  (And Micah's for now).  She is a packrat loves to collect stuff and pile it on her dresser.  She is also cleaning challenged so her room is one of the most difficult to keep up in the whole house!  As you can see, she also likes to peel paint and draw on furniture...

Frogs

Once a week we clean the frog cage, and while it's being cleaned the kids have fun holding the frogs and watching them jump around the living room.  They all have to take turns since we only have 2.  Here, Josiah is admiring Mrs. Jumper, who was enjoying all the attention and sitting perfectly still for my picture... 

When it was Emmaline's turn she was wearing a sweater that the frogs could climb on and they climbed right up her sweater and nestled next to her hair!  She was a good sport and held still, except for giggling...

Here Elijah gets a turn.  He had to take a break from cleaning to hold the frogs, since they are his pets it's his job to clean the cage.  The frogs have been a good pet for us so far, they are easy to care for and don't require much attention or maintenance and they are fun to have around.  :-)
 

Cake!

We were given a cake for Micah for his birthday... 

I think it's safe to say he enjoyed it!!!

Father Daughter Dinner Dance

This past weekend my Dad took me to a father daughter dinner dance for the first time ever!  We had a good time together!  We are both quiet so we didn't talk a lot but we still enjoyed each others company.  There was a guest speaker who talked about "stages of fatherhood', and since I'm married and not at home anymore it was a little dull, but that was the only part of the evening that was dull.  :-)  After the dinner Pop and I did some dancing, or at least attempted it, and had a blast!  I was home by 9:30, not late at all.  :-)