One week...

Last weekend, DD#1 learned how to use the riding lawn mower. She moved at a snail's pace (the throttle was WAY down) but got most of the yard done. No running over any lawn furniture or kiddie pools for her!

Grandma and Grandpa got here from Wisconsin on Sunday night. It's the first time they've seen Angel Baby.


Hubby took off for Labor Day (even though we knew Hurricane Gustav was coming) and went with Grandma, Grandpa, Auntie, Uncle, Cousins and all the kids to the zoo in Little Rock. I stayed home with Angel Baby because of the heat- I was nervous it would be too much for her all day outside in the sun...

Looks like he's not quite tall enough...hehe

What would zoo pictures be without the flamingos? I'll spare you the 15 monkey pictures and the 7 pictures of orange fish!


And then the effects of Hurricane Gustav made it up our way. Our power went out on the 2nd for about 8 hours, it came back on for 6 hours and then it went out again for 2 full days. These pictures are of some flooding on a road near our house.


Hubby said, "We can drive through this." I said, "You're crazy, what if the road is washed out? He said, "Oh, it's just a little water." I said, "Don't you remember seeing that woman on the news who tried to drive through the water and she was barely rescued with her little girl only after getting stuck against a bridge? " He said, "Yea, I remember. But look, those trees will catch us if we drift sideways." Nice... He started to drive through the water with a big grin on his face. I'm surprised the water didn't start coming in the doors!Just to the left of Princess is Hubby taking a bath in our pool (I'll spare you that picture!). When we had no power, we used the pool water for bucket showers, dish water, water to flush our toilets, etc. Praise the Lord Hubby bought a small generator a few weeks ago for the business. We were able to run the generator and plug in our two refrigerators and freezers. We just purchased the meat from a whole cow about 4 weeks ago. I would have been just sick if we lost all our meat! The older kids had school each day so we were doing homework by candle light and making meals on our grill (even in the rain). We also used the grill to heat water for the kids to bathe in. Our power was restored on Thursday (DS#3's 6th birthday) at about 1:30pm. I raced to Walmart and bought food for dinner (we were OUT of groceries!) and a box cake. I scrambled to get everything done in time but we pulled it off. Grandma and Grandpa came over and our birthday party went off without a hitch.


Where did 6 years go? When did my baby boy get so big? We used to call him Little Man...

Here's grandpa with the 4 little kids just after their walk in the woods. The boys love to play in the woods so grandma and grandpa made many trips out there to see all the boy's favorite places.

Friday we had some doctor appointments and Saturday grandma and grandpa were here playing games with the kids. Hubby was in on the kick ball game and tried to break his leg...he ran through a hole in the yard and just about did the splits. So now he's sick with a cold (maybe from bathing in cold pool water?) and he's limping around because his hip and leg hurt from wiping out. He said to me, "Man, I'm going to have a rough time getting old." I replied, "Yea, no kidding..."