Neighborhood House Fire

Bruno, my favorite Pit Bull, is living with us after having been displaced by a house fire. Tuesday night our neighbor was home alone when her house caught on fire and burnt to the ground. Laura happened to be feeding the dogs, heard her screams for help, and called 911. Every engine from three communities responded. I had been deciding whether to post about it, and decided to do it for a few reasons. Maybe you'll be more fire safety-conscious after seeing this, you may check on your insurance information to be sure you're covered properly, and hopefully you'll appreciate the every day blessings of life without a big fire to interrupt it. We had been playing happily with Devin on Monday, not a care in the world, admiring his new Nikes. Now, we're all in shock at what Tuesday night's fire has done to our tranquil lives. All the humans were fine. One beloved dog was killed. Every material possession was lost. Insurance will replace the house. People have already clothed the family. It was unspeakably terrifying.

Back to School

Monday was an exciting day as UPS pulled up to the door. 14 boxes of school have arrived! Becky's a Junior, Laura's a Freshman, and Baby Katie's going into 6th grade. So far the subjects are better than ever. Soccer starts this week. Life is back in full swing.

To Trap or Not To Trap

I have mice in my kitchen. I know I must kill them so they don't make more mice, and more mice, and more mice, until we're overrun by them. But I cannot. I've bought traps. Heck, I've even opened the package of traps and read directions for securing the lethal rodent guillotine. But then I think of this happy little fellow, going about his business, which apparently consists simply of pooping in my oven and having a large family, and I think how sad it would be if his multitude of children lost their provider. Then I put the traps away. Laura took this guy way out into the woods after we used him to entertain us by scaring the cat. (No mice were harmed in the cat torturing session.) Maybe Danny will set traps and empty them when he gets home.

Teenagers, Trees, and Jello

Here are the turkey vegetable meatloaf cups and sides that my daughters made for dinner last night. They also made chocolate chip cookies, which may have been a more persuasive photo to go with this story: I saw a post on facebook the other day that said, "Raising teenagers is like nailing jello to a tree." Immediately, I defended teens by saying that these are the good years when everything parents had been teaching finally started to stick. As usual, this was followed by other moms posting fatalistic remarks about the teen years. My teens share my facebook page, and they brought up that post in conversation later. Both daughters said that when they saw what our friend posted, they quickly searched to see what I had said. (I felt proud that they suspected me of speaking up on behalf of their age group.) Then Becky said that if she'd had an account, she'd have told them that their low expectations and statements like this were one of the reasons they weren't getting the results they wanted. It was rewarding to hear from the horse's mouth that our high expectations and trust in our teens do help them thrive. But the most rewarding aspect of our parenting is the turkey vegetable meatloaf cups and delicious homemade cookies!

Road Kill Tuesday

Tonight I learned exactly what is meant by the saying, "I jumped out of my skin!" I hadn't understood the full unpleasantness of this phrase until I experienced it first hand. Apparently the girls and neighbor boy found a dead racer snake on their jog today and laid it on my kitchen counter, all the better to google it. Since I'm not the type of homeschool mom who can truthfully participate in "Menu Mondays" and "Submissive to my Husband Wednesdays," I figured I'd start a new trend in Christian homeschool circles with my classy photo.

Nutty Squirrel

Here's Lottie.

Forget Chicken Tractors. Chicken Bikes!

I went outside and saw these girls biking up the driveway, coming home from having taken their chickens for a ride to the mailbox. The chickens like it! Becky went out and got on her bike, and the hens gathered around obviously begging for a bike ride. My camera battery couldn't make it to get that image for you, but trust me, it's hilarious to see chickens who want to ride bikes.