Aaaack!!!!!

This is what the back yard looked like this morning. Quiet, serene, green..... Somehow, my ever-wise father made the distressing discovery that there was a water pipe leak in all this pristine serenity. Apparently it was quite squishy when he walked out to the garden. I'm sure I would not have thought anything of it, since it HAS been raining daily all week.

I was informed at 8am today that if I wanted a shower, it had to be now, because the water was going to be shut off for an unknown period of time. So I hurried. Then I filled the tub with water for toilet flushing. Mom had filled a few pitchers for drinking as well. We got the water shut off and a call into the plumber. Then we waited.

There is a marvelous plumber here. He rescheduled his afternoon so he could come here and fix it for us. Thank goodness!

This was the yard around 3pm today. Bruce, the marvelous man in the tractor said yep, there is a leak, and he dug a bit to find the pipe. That gray circular thing there is the well. No city water for us! Nope, nothing but Arkansas' finest well water comes into this house. The leak was in that line from the pump to the house.

Bruce is the best. Here he hopped out and grabbed a huge worm for the kids. Unfortunately, he handed it to the one who actually is a bit squeamish. Marian or Callie would have been thrilled, but Joshua was not. Anyway, we'd hoped to just patch the pipe, but Bruce said it had already been patched.... with a radiator hose. So the whole thing needed to be dug up and replaced. Fun for all but the pocket-book!

Bruce was wonderful. He maneuvered his tractor around and kept an eye out on the kids, who dashed all over, getting in the way and checking out everything. And the dug dirt line got bigger and longer and deeper.

Finally the ditch reached the house line. Whew! Then it was on to removing old pipe and replacing it. He did that really fast too.

And this is what the children did while Bruce was working. I told them to stay out of the ditch, but Bruce said it was okay, so they had a fantastic time rooting around in there.

Here we have Dad and Bruce, working on the new pipes. The kids helped dump dirt back in after the pipe was down. Then Bruce and the tractor filled in the rest.

Here is what the back yard looked like at dinnertime tonight. I think it will get a bit smoother before its all done, but the grass will still have to regrow. On the plus side, we were only without water from about 9-5 today! Whoo-hoo! And it was such an exciting adventure. It also got the kids out and having a good time for the afternoon. Yay for Bruce!

More with the Chickens!

I seem to be much busier than I expected to be this summer. I didn't mean to not blog till now, I've just been busy! I am planning a lovely series of snapshots of the progress to getting the rental house painted. Unfortunately, it has rained all week, and there has been no painting. Did I mention the thunder and lightning that comes with the rain? Yep, we've been getting the whole package, all week. I think its grumbled and rained every day this week. Wish us luck on the house painting tomorrow....

In the mean time, here is my new favorite picture of all the children!

They love the chickens. We've had to define what "chasing" constitutes because Marian claims she is not "chasing" them, while the evidence would imply otherwise. She managed to grab 2 of the poor things this day and made her siblings very happy.

The kids got a refresher course on the proper way to hold and pet the chickens. They really do a good job with them, but Callie tends to pull tail feathers while she's in hot pursuit. Not a good thing.

Delaney makes me laugh. She was so excited to pet the chicken. I wasn't sure she would, because she's so scared of most animals. These are really good chickens. Callie kept grabbing the red one's beak, and the bird didn't do a thing. They do not peck or scratch. They just suffer quietly. They'll be glad to see us go, I expect!

Thoughts and Pix

The thoughts and pictures here have nothing whatsoever to do with each other. If you are only interested in cute snapshots of the kids, you may want to scroll right past my ramblings to the pictures.

I have had a fun time enjoying the different atmosphere in laid-back Arkansas, as opposed to the nuttiness which is DC. One of the surprising things I have discovered is a neat little radio station that has some great political stuff on it. One of the things they discussed this week was Liberty vs Equality. It was an amazing light bulb moment for me. They mentioned that people tend to think one or the other of those 2 things is the most important. And while they can mutually coexist for a while, eventually Equality will infringe upon Liberty, or Liberty will infringe on Equality. So, which camp do you fit in? Is Equality more important than Liberty? Or is Liberty more important than Equality. I'm more firmly in the Liberty camp myself. I agree that we are all equal, to a certain extent. However, if I work hard, I want what i have earned. If you are a slacker, you do not deserve a part of what I worked hard for. My feelings of Equality do not extend that far. I do not believe that the government needs to enforce Equality. I think it needs to back off and let us have Liberty.

To be honest, I think this makes less sense now that I've written it and none of you have heard the talk that got me thinking about this, so I apologise if it is not clear. But that's okay. I just wanted to spew out this thought that has been rolling around my head all week. And now I am done!

And on to the pictures of some fun stuff from the week.......

The kids have had a blast playing outside. Somehow we ended up with algae and tadpoles in the fountain again. However, after last years Great Tadpole Rescue, the adults were not going to do a repeat, but the kids were quite actively attempting one on their own. unfortunately, their rescue attempts mostly included scooping water (with the occasional tadpole) and dumping it in the grass or on the driveway. That is cousin Sarah there in the life jacket. Don't ask me, I have no idea!

It started to rain and what did the children want to do? Play in it!! Delaney was such a hoot, running around in the rain.

And they did not let a little downpour interfere with the serious work of "saving" the tadpoles. I don't know if you can see the rain, but it was really coming down. I had to strip down 5 kids when they came in- everyone was drenched, and happy!

We went to the library program on Saturday. It was a cute sing-a-long and it was well done. The girls had a good time. Callie was so cute, getting into the movements and shaking her thing. She and Delaney were picked to come up and help out with the hula. They got to wear grass skirts and flower necklaces. Callie tried to do the movements, but Delaney just stood there- which is a lot more than I expected from either of them.

Saturday afternoon we went to the lake. The weather wasn't too cooperative, but the kids could care less. Delaney had a marvelous time, walking in up to her chin and back out. She dunked herself once, going under and floundering till I scooped her up. I thought she would cry, but she looked at me, big grin and said "I did it!"

We brought a bunch of floats and they liked that. Grandpa was the most fun, but after a while, I think they wore him out!

And here is Joshua, hamming it up for me! He had a good time and we made sure he was sprayed thoroughly with sunscreen. Last time he burned and peeled. No one got any red at all this time- yay!

Animal Crazy.... and just plain crazy!

Marian's very favorite thing about being here is all the animals. She is truly crazy about animals. she loves them... all of them. Not just the cute and cuddly ones either. She likes the reptiles and other funky things just as much. Well, almost. She told me today that kittens are her favorite animal, and lizards are her second favorite. She likes to hold the chickens because they are soft like a kitten though. Conversations with her are always interesting! Today she had the best day ever because it involved her most favorite animals!

We went to her friend Eva's house, and Eva has 2 kittens. I admit, they might be the cutest kittens I have ever seen, and Marian spent about 3 hours just holding and playing with them. She was so happy. The kittens seemed content to be mauled with love as well, so it was a mutual adoration.

Once we got home from Eva's house, Marian didn't quite make it into the house. She saw her nemesis, the lizard! She has been trying to catch this guy (or his friend) for a while now, and today she was finally successful.

But wait! It gets even better!

She found a frog as well! I love this kid. She is so great. She catches her little animals and is so careful about letting them go when she's done playing with them. So the lizard and frog were released back into the wild and Marian was thrilled with her day.

Until now, this had been her favorite moment. While they were canoeing last week, she got to see a lot of animals, but this butterfly was the only one she got a close-up of. Pretty cool, hey?!

And now we move from the animal craziness and into the general category of it......

This was the floor in my room all last week. Joshua slept on the twin bed you can see on the left. I slept on the futon bed that you can barely see in the top right corner. Delaney was ensconced in the corner you can't see, in her porta-crib, and these 3 girls sacked out on the floor. That is Callie, Marian, and cousin Katie. Most nights they went to bed pretty well, but there were one or two that made me about lose my mind (and my tempter!).

Joshua is crazy about Legos. He brought a couple here with us and has had fun with them. I never would have thought of combining Indiana Jones with SpongeBob, but Joshua seems to be having fun.

This is the "Awwww" moment for the day. My baby brother is now a Dad and this is his 5 week old baby. So cute. The kids all loved her and were very sweet and gentle. Callie was so pleased to get to hold her.

Uncle Monkey is crazy! And the kids are more than crazy for Uncle Monkey! I'm so glad I got to see almost all my siblings this past week. Everyone has left but Deborah and her 2 minions, so its not too dull yet, but the house is definitely quieter! 12 adults, 12 kids squished into the house was a lot, but it wasn't too bad. And it was a lot of fun!

Fun with Family

Nearly all my immediate family came to my parents this week. I was sad Jonathan and his clan didn't make it, but we managed to have a good time anyway. I think I'll let the pictures do the talking.

Grandpa put in this nifty tire swing and it has resulted in much fun and much fighting over.

Delaney helped make cake for our party Friday night.

I had to put this in. This is Emma, who must be the cutest doggone 1 year old ever!

We got a ton of fireworks to light up on the 4th of July and the kids had a marvelous time. I'm not big into fireworks, but Uncle Dan, Aunt Miranda, and Uncle Adam are very much into the pyrotechnics of the 4th, and they set it all up and let the kids do some stuff and they all had a great time.

See how happy Callie is?!

Marian wanted the cool stuff, no boring sparklers for her!

Dan and Adam, the fire-masters at work!

Joshua loved getting to light stuff on fire with a sparkler. There was a lit of wizz-bangs and smoke.

Okay, someone asked, and this is the only, and I do mean only, picture of me and my belly, taken just this morning!

I think I'm 28 weeks along now. Something like that. Funny how I look much fatter in the mirror.

We got nearly all the kids together after church for a picture. They were not thrilled about it.

And I admit I have been busy having too much fun with my family to blog much and I'm not planning to do any more right now! I'm off for games and chocolate!