Deer Hunt 09

I must say that this year is one for the record books. In the past Tom will go hunting for a week or so and I stay home with the children and life is pretty normal. This year there must be something in the air, because it seemed that whatever could go wrong did.
Tom left on a Tuesday afternoon. I swear that his last words to the kids were "make moms life unbearable while I am gone." At least I like to tease him about that. Because, even though I stay home with them all day long, they decided that the first couple of days would be the perfect time to cause havoc.
Wednesday cute, sweet, innocent, Jaycie decided it would be great fun to color on her closet doors with dark blue and purple markers. Yeah for me! Something new to clean up!
Thursday morning Chesney decided it would be great fun to lock and shut all the doors upstairs that lock. This included the room that kept the keys to unlock said doors, mine. Of course she had to do this first thing in the morning before I had the opportunity to get dressed. Frantically I was running around the house hoping to all who is mighty that there was a key somewhere so I wouldn't be running to the store, in my bath robe, to buy something to unlock the doors. Luckily, I found one downstairs.
Things quited down until Friday night. At 4:30 in the morning the smoke detectors decided it would be great fun to beep. Just once mind you. But enough to scare the tar out of me! Frantically I am running all over the house checking for anything that would have set them off. My mind was racing, how was I going to evacuate 2 children and 9 dogs. 8 of which can't walk and 1 that would run away if given the opportunity. I didn't find anything so I chalked it up to a fluke. It still took me the next two hours to calm down enough to get back to sleep.
Saturday I needed to pick up some more fabric for the girls Halloween costumes. I ran into the craft store thinking that it should be a quick in and out trip. WRONG. The moment we step through the door my lovely Jaycie started screaming over everything. Over the usual stuff. She wants to be where Chesney is. Must sit where Chesney is, must have what Chesney has. So on and so forth. Well, my quick in and out turned into over an hour. We had to wait in line at the cut table for 45 minutes. It sucked. I was really wishing I could discipline my child in public without worrying about the consequences. She of course stopped once we got going down the road and mom yelled at her for over 10 minutes. Can I just say I HATE the terrible 2s!
Sunday, thank goodness, was quiet. WHEW.
Then Monday reared it's ugly head with a vengeance! I was working on a Halloween costume when my sewing machine started to act up on me. NO NO NO! I looked up to see that our 50 inch tv is now tilted at a 45 degree angle on its stand. AAAAHHHH! All that kept going through my mind was, save the tv, save the tv. So I called my brother in law to come help me lift the tv and set it down on the stand. Once he got there we proceeded to take the tv down. Neither one of us thinking that it would probably be a good idea to see if we need to disconnect any wiring in the back. We ended up saving the tv, but two of the nice expensive wires that run the tv now need to be replaced. So now in order to watch tv and keep the kids entertained, I rob one cable from the upstairs unit and plug it in downstairs. Then, when I need it back upstairs I unplug it from the downstairs and take it back up. Yeah for musical cables! Oh yeah, the sewing machine malfuntion was my own fault. I just kept forgetting to put the pressure foot down. So at least that isn't broken on top of everything.
This afternoon Tom is coming home. I quite honestly don't know what is up with this week. I have been on my own before and nothing like this has ever happened.
Oh, and as of this morning, no deer. I guess we can call that the icing on the cake.

Puppies, Puppies, Puppies

Well, we did it! We successfully mated our dog, Asia. The first time we tried it, it was a flop. But this time worked wonders. We have 8 happy, healthy puppies running around now. The sad thing is that she delivered 12 pups total but 4 didn't make it. I have to say it will be fun and sad to watch them grow up and leave us so soon. But we will enjoy them while we have them.

Family Fun at the Water Park

Usually every year we try to take the kids swimming. For the last few years we have been going with my sisters and their families to the Roy swimming pool around the 4th of July. This year was different. That family trip to the pool happened spontaneously when Tom and I asked Angie to babysit while we went to Lagoon for the day. So we missed out but the kids had a blast with Aunts and Uncles and Grandma.

With that in mind, we decided to take the kids to a big water park instead. We picked Raging Waters to host this years family get together. It was a great day! The weather was a little iffy in the morning and when we got there at 11:30am the pools were really cold. But in about an hour or so they started warming up. This was the first time ever I have gone to a park this size and it was not wall to wall people. We could go down the river without bumping into people right and left. No fighting for space in the wave pool. We walked on every slide, no waiting at all. It was fabulous!

The kids enjoyed every minute of it and so did the rest of us. It was a great day!