Caleb "Painting" and my run in with the BBQ grill on a stormy night

Caleb with his new "pablo" 

Samuel covered his face in sunscreen at the zoo

Malachi's first time at the zoo

I got bored while giving the baby a bath, and wrote his name on his back with the bath toys,
while he was playing in the bath

Joseph eating a hot dog, in between two graham crackers, during our campfire cookout in the backyard

Samuel riding a Llama

It has been a crazy week, Travis' Dad, his wife, and their traveling companion, John, arrived at 5am last Sunday morning.  I think between the three of them, they eat more than my family combined.  I have had to go to the store every couple of days (with all children) to buy more groceries.  They usually sleep until noon or 1pm, and their friend who is traveling with them, is handy, and has completed a few repairs around the house for me.  On Monday they were able to paint the stairs and hallway, but unfortunately the paint was left out, and Caleb went upstairs and decided that the doors needed painted too, so when I came upstairs a few minutes later, he had painted all the door in the upstairs white.  Most of the paint came off, and the doors weren't that pretty to begin with, so it all turned out all right.  We also went to the zoo on Monday and had a great time, looking at the animals.  Samuel was pretty funny putting on his sunscreen, I put sunscreen in his hand, and told him to put it on, and he just shut his eyes, and rubbed his hands quickly all over his face, leaving his face completely white, I have a picture above of him a few minutes later, with still white on his face.  Austin has been staying in Caleb's room with him, and had brought all her stuff in there, and Caleb found her tube of toothpaste, and "painted" all over the room with it, Austin was sweet and helped clean up the mess.  The next morning I made peanut butter cake for breakfast and left it on the table, for our house-guests after the kids and I had eaten it, and I went upstairs to shower.  Caleb used the butter as paint, and painted the floor and chairs with it, then threw the remaining peanut butter cake all over it.  While cleaning that mess up, poor little Malachi kept slipping all over the buttery floor, he could not figure out how to stay up, poor little guy.  I decided that every morning we needed to start with exercise, every day we have been going on a 2 mile run dropping Joseph off at school.  I run, with Malachi in the jogger stroller, and the rest of the kids ride their scooters.  A couple of days we have also gone to Lowes, since it is across the street from the middle school, and just put the scooters in the shopping cart, buy our stuff, and then ride/jog home.  Caleb is awesome, he can go the whole two miles, and keep up and even be faster then some of the kids, on his little scooter.  One morning, when we were almost home, Betsy fell down the final hill to go home, and scraped up her arms, and knees, and hurt her wrist a little bit.  We put ice on it, and cleaned her up, and her wrist hurt her for a while, but by the end of the day, she was feeling much better.  Samuel loves these morning runs, so when friday morning I woke up and said I was too sore to go, Samuel insisted we had to go, and finally said we could ride bikes instead, so I got all the bikes out, and tires pumped, and the trailer hooked onto my bike, and we went on our first family bike ride of the summer.  Travis was off work, so I had him ride my bike, with both Malachi and Caleb in it, and the other kids all rode behind him, and I brought up the rear, so no one would get left behind.  I'm sure we were quite the sight riding down the road, but we sure had fun.    The week before we had gone to IT'Z and Caleb had brought along his "pablo" stuffed animal that Grandma gave him for his 2nd birthday.  He loves that stuffed animal, but in the excitement of IT'Z left it behind.  He realized after we had gotten home, that he left Pablo at IT'Z, so I called them, and they had found him, and said they would put a note on him, and put him in the office, for us to come and get.  I wasn't able to get back to IT'Z until this Saturday, so we stopped by, and discovered that the manager had cleaned out the office, and didn't see a note, and threw Pablo away.  Poor Caleb was so sad, he started crying, and telling the manager how his Grandma gave him that pablo, and he loved it, and so on.  The poor manager felt so bad, she told Caleb she would take him to the prize room, and he could pick out whatever stuffed animal he wanted.  So we took him in there, and at first he wanted a little car and skateboard, but when the manager asked him if he wanted a new stuffed animal, he started getting upset again about Pablo, but then he picked out a big blue dinosaur, and asked me if he could name it "pablo", and was happy (the manager also gave him the toy car and skateboard, and 4 free passes to come to IT'Z again).  Caleb is still a little sad that he lost his old "pablo", but likes his new one.  That little boy sure knows how to pull at your heartstrings.  I was about ready to use my phone, and go onto amazon and buy him a new pablo stuffed animal.  Thankfully he was satisfied with the new toys.  Friday we went and picked up our 2 new egg laying hens from our friend's farm, and the kids had fun playing with their friends, the chickens, and Samuel got to ride a Llama.  Caleb ended our visit early, when he stepped into a bucket of motor oil, and fell.  I stripped him naked, and threw his clothes and shoes in the garbage, and put him in the car, and got everyone else, and we went home, and put Caleb in the bath.  That little boy sure knows how to make a mess.  We let all our chickens play in the backyard for a while, and discovered that the adult chickens are much harder to catch then our little ones.  It took us about a half an hour to catch them, with all of us working together.  I am ready for our house-guests to leave.  I am tired of smelling smoke in the house, they do go outside to smoke, but it still brings the smell into the house.  They don't hold the baby much, but when they do, I have to go bathe and change him, because he smells like smoke, and babies should definitely not smell like smoke.  They also spilled coffee all over my bottom stair, and left it there, so scrubbed that for a while, but I need to work on it again, because I can still see the stain.  Travis has enjoyed having them hear though, and the kids enjoy the stories he tells.  They are supposed to be leaving this friday, and I will enjoy having the house to ourselves again.  Saturday night a learned a new lesson about storms and gas grills.  Apparently when there is thunder and lightening you shouldn't be lighting a gas grill.  I was trying to hurry and get the grill going before the rain hit, and did it the same way I've done many times before, and lit a match to light the grill.  As soon as my match got close, the whole thing blew up in my face.  I jumped back as quickly as I could, but it still burnt the front part of my hair, eyelashes, and eyebrows, and burnt my right hand.  I pulled out clumps of hair, and then ran to put my hand in cold water, when I realized it had been burned.  Thankfully between doterra oils and cold water, my hand was feeling a little better by bedtime, and I could sleep.  Today, it only hurts if it touches hot water.  My hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes aren't too bad, you probably wouldn't notice unless you looked at me closely.  I think I am going to invest in some really long matches for the next time I use the grill.  I dropped off Joseph this morning for a 3 day long backpacking trip with the scouts, I hope he has a good time.