It's been awhile hasn't it?

It just occurred to me that I haven't updated this blog lately. Not much has been happening frankly. We are back in the routine of school homework, church choir (Rose and David), gymnastics (Rachel) and acting lessons (Rose). The furry members of our household are doing well and growing at an alarming rate. The 4 kittens are now 7 weeks (today in fact!) and we are actively looking for homes for them. So, anyone want a cute kitten?? If it were up to the kids, we would keep them all. But I'm just not up for being a 5 cat household. It's been fun though watching the kittens grow up. We had a cat when I was growing up but I've never gotten to raise brand new kittens. It's been quite an experience! They are running everywhere and climbing on everything, as you can tell from the picture. And they are just so tolerant. The kids carry them around all over the house and they very rarely protest. I really do love them and will miss them when they are gone. Of course I won't miss them enough to keep them around forever though.

What an unusual sight!

So I had to go to the grocery to get milk yesterday. With a family of 6, we go through an average of 3 gallons of milk every week. Trips to Kroger for milk are a very common, regular occurrence. Yesterday's however was a little unusual. The Kroger nearest to us had just reopened that day (I found this out later from a friend). So I headed back to the back corner of the store to the milk section. I took my usual shortcut through the ice cream aisle and stopped. I just stood there staring with my mouth hanging open. All of the freezers were empty. The whole big long aisle was completely empty of food. It makes sense if you think about it; I mean they lost power too so naturally they'd have lost all their frozen foods. But seeing the reality of all those empty shelves was something else. All the frozen food aisles were the same way; the dairy section had milk but nothing else, no cheese, yogurt, eggs, butter, sour cream, meat, frozen veggies, pizzas, chicken. (ok, now I'm getting hungry). That was definitely something you don't see every day!

A Storm Update

Well it's been 4 days since the hurricane and life is beginning to return to normal, at least for us. I know there are many, many people still without power, including my best friend just over a mile from me, friends in Columbus and my sister-in-law in KY. Most of our storm damage is cleaned up now. My wonderful parents came down Tuesday to help out. My dad is a whiz with a chainsaw and he and Phil spent the day chopping trees, hauling debris and driving back and forth to a nearby site to dump everything. They were seriously tired at the end of the day but managed to get the job mostly done. We still have some small branches and debris in the backyard that needs cleaned up but at least we can walk out there safely now.

Most stores are open now, although a few still aren't. It's very random-a house or store will have power and the home or business right next door won't. Very strange if you ask me. There are still gas stations closed and the ones that are open are charging $3.99/gallon, which is ridiculous. I filled up our minivan yesterday and paid $75. That is just too darn expensive! But I digress. . .

This week I've noticed that whenever I call anyone (friends or businesses), my first question is "Do you have power?" We were without power for just one day and that was enough for me. My friends that are still without power are starting to go slightly nuts, having to live like the pioneers this week. Personally I have more sympathy and compassion for the victims of Hurricane Katrina, Ike and all the others that blow through the south. I can't imagine living without power and water for weeks or months on end. It makes me want to help them more; I'm just not sure what I could do. It certainly makes me think about how lucky I am!!

Phew, what a storm!!

Well we survived the storm. The remnants of Hurricane Ike that hit Texas last week hit us yesterday. This was easily the nastiest storm I've seen in my lifetime; winds were around 85 mph. Yesterday we were at McDonalds for lunch after church with some friends. The sky started getting dark so we all headed home, but we took a couple of their kids home for a playdate and they took a couple of ours. Traffic lights were already out then and this was only around 1:30 Sunday afternoon. We got home to find no power, but the power went on about 15 minutes later. The power blinked on and off all afternoon. So while the kids played and freaked out, I spent the time finding candles, matches, flashlights, batteries, etc. This just never happens to us so we were totally unprepared. The power went off around 3 p.m. and stayed off. The kids were scared for awhile and disappointed not to have access to tv or the computer. Meanwhile, I'm trying to keep the kids calm and call my friend to arrange switching our kids back. Phil of course is completely calm and playing games on his computer (and running the battery down). The winds were fierce - I have never seen anything like it. In the midst of all this, Ron ventured out to switch our children back; it was nice to have all 4 kids at home. Things calmed down around 7 p.m. so we ventured outside to assess the damage. Our front yard had (still has) lots of branches and leaves strewn around. Some of our toys had blown across the street. We played outside until it got dark and the kids started getting hungry. So we lit candles and fed the kids canned fruit and doritos for dinner. We had to duct tape the fridge and freezer shut because the kids kept wanting to open it and I had too much to do to spend time guarding our fridge.

The kids did remarkably well with the power out. They played together nicely, read books and looked out at what was left of our backyard. Our backyard is fenced in and surrounded by trees, which gives us some privacy from the neighbors. Now however our backyard is covered almost completely by trees. 4 of the trees in our backyard fell; 3 of them had the top half cut completely off and dumped in our yard and 1 was yanked completely out, roots and all, and landed on our neighbor's garage. I'm very thankful that there was no damage to our house though.

Around 8:00 we started putting the kids to bed. I had saved some battery power in my computer so we were all set to watch a DVD, but alas the DVD we picked was bad and by the time we figured it out, the computer had died. *sigh* But just then Brett came home (a good friend of Phil's who is living with us) carrying a pizza box. "Where did you get that pizza?" It turns out that the pizza place up on the corner had a gas generator and was still up and running. So I grabbed some cash and headed down there. They were running low on supplies, but had enough to make us 2 pizzas; we were their last order before they shut down and went home. Praise God!! So we ate, read stories and were all in bed by 9:30. Nothing else to do in the dark. We woke up when the power came back on close to midnight. Yahoo!!

Praise God that we didn't lose any food (we'd put the milk and other perishables in our deep freezer in the garage), that our house wasn't damaged and that we actually had power. My parents in Sunbury, Ohio (30 minutes north of Columbus) still didn't have power as of Monday early afternoon and they said most of Columbus didn't either. A friend of a friend in Cleveland got power back about 3 a.m. Monday morning. Both of my sisters-in-law (one in Cold Spring, KY and one Vernon, IN) didn't have power as of this afternoon and most of Cincinnati is still out. There are a handful of gas stations and grocery stores open across the city. Phil works for our school district fixing computers. He went into work this morning but came home about 20 minutes later. The main computers and servers for the district are at the middle school, which still didn't have power. So we've been at home all day, listening to the children fight (no school today of course). They don't understand why we can't go somewhere like McDonalds; besides the fact that we were just there yesterday, the few fast-food places that are open have lines around the block and are crowded with people that don't have power.

I went outside this afternoon to take pictures of our damage and noticed the mail truck down the street. Even in the midst of the chaos and damage the mail still came. I was impressed!

Remembering 9/11

Well today is the 7th anniversary of the horrible events of 9/11. It's hard to believe it's been 7 years already. Things have changed so much in our country since then. People are less trusting than they used to be - just ask anyone who looks Middle Eastern. And flying anywhere is a lot more difficult because of all the security and new rules and regulations (plus it's ridiculously expensive!) I remember that day well. I think everyone who was around then and not really young will remember what they were doing that day. Personally I was really sleep-deprived. My son David had been born on August 31 so I was a new mom for the 2nd time (Rose was almost 2 then) and not sleeping much at all. My parents were down that day because we had to take David to the doctor. His corneas were (and still are) oddly-shaped. They have little points in them. So dad was driving David and I to the eye doctor to get it checked out while mom stayed with Rose. I'd had a c-section and wasn't allowed to drive yet.

So we were on our way home when we started hearing reports on the radio of an airplane crashing into the World Trade Center in NYC. We called mom and told her what was going on and turned on the tv when we got home. I remember being so stunned at what was happening. It's like I just couldn't grasp the fact that someone had attacked our country and people were dying. I think part of that was my lack of sleep though, lol. We watched tv pretty much the rest of the day. That evening we went to church for a prayer service. My parents didn't want us to take David out since he was so little and I was still in pain from my surgery but we went anyway. Thankfully they agreed to stay with Rose while we were gone. Ok, I admit that part of me wanted to go so I could show off David to our friends from church. But part of me needed to talk to other people about what had happened and the implications for the country. We prayed and cried and talked - and then headed home to a different world.

Where does the time go?

So I just realized that I haven't updated my blog for awhile. Why? Ok, to be honest I just forgot. But I'm back now. I have some cute pictures of the kids to post here but they are upstairs in my camera and I am downstairs snuggling on the couch with Matt and Rachel, both of whom are almost asleep. So I am NOT moving!!! One of the pictures is Matt wearing a tie. He has started picking out his own outfits lately and wanted to wear this green-striped tshirt to church Sunday. And somewhere he found a yellow clip-on tie that he insisted he wanted to wear with it. Well he loved the tie so much that he wore it 3 more days and finally just took it off this morning.


Well David is 7 now. His birthday was August 31 and we had a little party for him. I was totally excited about this because I found what I was sure was the perfect present. He'd been begging for a video game system for almost forever. Of course we can't afford a wii or anything. But at our neighbor's garage sale, I found a used Game Boy Advance (with 5 games) for only$15. Yippee! So I wrapped it up for his birthday. He opened it and played it that day and most of the next day. Flash forward to now (11 days later) and he never plays with it and has, in fact, lost a couple of the games. Grrrr. He never plays with the Star Wars action figures we got him either, but still loves the light saber he got. In fact he and Matthew frequently fight over who gets to play with it. Why is it so hard to buy stuff for him. It seems like he never plays with anything for too long. *sigh*

But life is settling down finally. The kids and I are getting into a routine with school, homework, etc. Ok our morning routine usually involves me screaming at at least 1 child to hurry up or they'll miss the bus, 1 kid who still isn't out of bed at 8:20 a.m. (the bus comes at 8:45), 1 kid who wants me to pack a lunch for them at 8:40 a.m. and 1 kid who refuses to eat breakfast. But once we get 3 kids onto the bus successfully, life really settles down and Matthew and I set off to run errands, goto the YMCA to exercise or just stay home and play. Today, for instance, I got some housework done then Matt and I spent some quality time building towers out of blocks and knocking them down. Yahoo!

Well I'd better stop. It's 4 p.m. and the older kids will be getting off the bus soon wanting snacks. And Rachel and Matt are awake and hungry. So the peace and quiet ends and the chaos resumes.

Did you know that Bob and Larry live with us?

Last Wednesday while the big kids were in school, Matthew and I went to the store to get a couple things. I was looking at produce and Matt was exploring a little. I was putting some tomatoes in a bag when I notice a small hand reaching for a single tomato. I look around to discover Matt with a cucumber in one hand and a tomato in another hand. Someone commented that it looked like he was playing bat and ball with them. I leaned in closer to listen to his conversation with himself and try to discover what he was doing. He was playing pretend with them; the cucumber was Larry the Cucumber and the tomato was (of course) Bob the Tomato (from Veggie Tales, a Christian show about animated vegetables that tell Bible stories and teach lessons-for those of you without small children around). Of course we had to bring them home. And he walked around the house for several days with his Bob and Larry. Sadly, though Bob "died" after Larry tossed him in the air one too many times. We had a replacement Bob in the fridge, but he didn't last long either. I just love Matthew's creativity!!