Gone Fishin'

Have I mentioned that we're flooded? ;) We also have new Dollar General. I spent the best $2.50 today...on a fishing pole! Jacob wasn't as interested in it as I thought he would be. Anna was so excited about it. She spent over an hour outside this afternoon with it!

Jacob preferred to play in the water while Anna fished.

Look Mama! I caught a fish!!

She put the fish in the bucket. She doesn't like getting in the 'pond'...it's too dirty!

Jacob on the other hand...he doesn't mind getting in the dirty water. AT ALL.

Oooooo...what's this?!

Look Mama! I caught a fish too!!!

He did so good, just sitting on the curb playing. Until he walked "across the pond". Then he kept trying to go too far into the street. So he had to go inside. He was NOT HAPPY about that. I'm sure the neighbors thought he was losing a limb the way he carried on.

Anna stayed out there for at least another hour fishing. She had so much fun. I think the only reason she came inside was because she was thirsty!

So I think I know what she'll be getting for her birthday! The lake has great fishing, I hear. Although she might change her mind when she sees what real fishing entails...touching a worm and a real fish! :)

The flooding continues!

Well, Aaron got home early today and found another 14" of water in the cellar! It rained last night/early this morning but it didn't flood the streets so I didn't think our cellar would be flooded again. I had hot water for a shower today, so I figured we were fine. Especially since the little pump was still going strong. No such luck.

So he spent the afternoon using the bilge pump and it's below the water heater again. But the little pump can't keep up fast enough. Our neighbor is going to install a sump pump, but not until this weekend! So we'll see how it goes. Kim, we might be borrowing your bathtub again!!

The bilge pump is pretty loud, so I got Anna's "ear muffs" for her to wear. She had a lot of fun helping Daddy :)

Here she's telling me all about what they're doing.

That's a lot of water!

She would fill up this cup (also water being pumped out) and take it to Daddy so he could prime the pump.

She was afraid to go down there at first, but once she went down one time she liked it. She would just perch right there and watch Daddy work. I'm sure she talked his ear off, too! :)

Team Ghana

My cousin/foster son Seth is heading out in the morning for a missions trip to Ghana. Check out the team's blog for updates on their trip and keep them in your prayers for the next 2.5 weeks! Their time will be spent mainly working with children (I think!). I know Seth has been working with some other on curriculum. They will also be doing a lot of physical labor helping w/ construction/maintenance there.

Anna took this picture of him a while back. He's very silly and my kids love him! Anna calls him "Sepf" :)

The bright side of flooding...

I discovered that I don't like being without hot water...or a heater!!! The dishes pile up, the stinky towels get stinkier and so do Mom & Dad. Nice, huh? Well, the kids didn't seem to mind. Here's why...

First, they got to play in Daddy's car!

OH BOY...they found the mini pond at the end of the driveway! And that water coming out of the hose? That's being pumped from under the house! We estimate it's pumped out well over 45,000 gallons in the last 40+ hrs.!!

Whoops! Sister accidentally got Jacob in the face. He was shocked, and then...

Ooooo...I kinda think that was fun!

And this....THIS is REALLY FUN!!!

Oooooo...here comes a car!!!

He accidentally fell down in the water like this, but then decided it was kinda fun!

And then he discovered he could walk across the "pond" to where I was taking pictures!

Miss Priss, on the other hand...she hardly got wet. She preferred to sit on the curb and gingerly stick her feet in the water!

Uh oh...he knows what Mama's thinking! It's time to go inside before hypothermia sets in! The water was ice cold and it was probably only 65 degrees outside. But boy, did they have fun!

-------------------------------------

Good news...we have hot water tonight! We're going to let the furnace air out a bit more before we turn it on. We have a heater in the kids' room and Aaron is my personal furnace so we'll be fine. Our neighbor is going to install a sump pump for us this weekend b/c the water just keep coming up from the ground. We are in a flood plain, but this hasn't happened before. You can actually see a current coming out of a hole in the ground down there! Hopefully the little pump keeps up tonight (there's a chance for rain almost every day for the next 10 days!) and the rest of the weekend until the sump pump gets in.

Craziness

You'd think I would've learned by now that I can't turn my back on this stinker for any amount of time! I was at the desk and Anna says "Mommy, what's that noise? It sounds like something is talking." I heard something faintly. Anna looked out to the living room and said "Oh Jacob is playing on the computer." I assumed she meant HIS laptop.........

Uhhh...wrong-o!

The TURKEY! He somehow got DORA to play!! Good grief.

----------------------------------------

The really crazy thing is that our basement/cellar flooded last night. We got a TON of rain yesterday. Aaron woke up this morning and took an incredibly cold shower and went down to check out the hot water heater. And he found at least a foot of water down there. So he went and got a pump and came back and started pumping. Lucky for me, Addie was still at the college (graduation was Saturday) so after helping her load up, I took a shower up there. After over 6 hours of pumping, it's down about halfway. So I took the kids over to Kim's for baths tonight (thanks Kim!!). And luckily, Seth is still at the college tonight so Aaron can get a shower up there tonight. Hopefully by morning, it will be all pumped out and when Aaron gets home tomorrow he can re-light the pilot on the hot water heater! Whew. Hopefully it doesn't get too cold tonight since we have the furnace off, too! (It won't...even with all the rain and cooler weather, it's plenty warm in here).


You can see on the bricks back there how high the water was!

And on the pole you can see it, too.

Oh the faces he can make!

Jacob can be very, very expressive. And he loves it when you copy him :)

Uh oh!

And he's got The Look down pat! Wow. I have no idea where he got it either!!

Ohhh. Hahaha!

Eeekk!

Are you kidding me?! (He even gets the one-up eyebrow sometimes!)

This one might be his favorite.

Fun Day!

Today, Kim and her kids came with us to the zoo! And then we went to Scott's ranch to ride horses!! The big kids were super excited.

So, here are a bunch of pictures from our exciting day:)

These lemurs were hilarious! At first they were just laying around but when they noticed us standing there, they sat up like this...like they were "performing" for us. The kids thought it was pretty funny.

Jacob was allowed out of the stroller INSIDE the aquarium building:) He loved seeing all the fish!

We also met my cousin's wife Amy and her little boy Daniel at the zoo. He was very enthusiastic (contrary to this picture!) :)

This is a piranha...I'd never actually seen one before. If you look really closely, you can see its teeth! One of them in the tank was missing part of it's top b/c the others had started eating on it! The worker said that if they don't get fed, they just start eating each other. They get fed little mice and the piranhas eat them whole!

The Annas :)

The tigers! They have a white tiger, too. Those are some magnificent animals! Jacob did NOT like them, but all the others did.

Anna Mae, ready to explore!

I am just in awe of God's creations!

The white tiger looked really old. A lot older than I remember from last time we were there a couple years ago.

Everything is "dada" for Daniel! He is very enthusiastic about things, though! He'll point, jump, and forcefully say "DADA!" It's so funny.

Anna watching the spider monkeys.

...............................................................................

Now the horses!! It was so much fun and Anna and Jake were SO EXCITED about it. We had our sack lunch and the kids about knocked the door out when I asked if they were ready to go ride! :) Kim and I had our hands full...Anna Mae does NOT like dogs, so she wanted to be held. And Jacob would just take off, which wasn't good b/c there were several horses in the pen when the big kids were riding! And Daniel was the same way! So we alternated between holding kids and taking pictures:)

Once we got out of the riding pen, we didn't have to keep them so close. And Jacob went right up to this horse and tried to pet him! Not the least bit afraid.

Just a little closer horsey!

Mr. Horse Rider himself! I put him up there and right away he grabbed the saddle horn and raised up one hand, as if to say "Come on Daddy! Let's get goin'!!" It was so funny.

SO CUTE! :)

Anna Mae, on the other hand, was not so impressed! Even with big brother Jake on there, she was having none of it! Jacob didn't like it either. He was up there by himself and he just screamed!

He preferred the ground and playing with the puppy Hoss. He just squealed and laughed!

Mama's girl! When she first got on, she looked like she wanted to scream but after a few steps, she really liked it.

Jake LOVED it. He was so completely excited and started talking 100mph! And he didn't stop talking the entire time he was on the horse! :)

He just pointed and jabbered:)