A Burned House

At the National Fire Academy, Shawn also got to see a house that the NFA procured after it experienced a fire. They moved the house to their site as it was after the fire, leaving everything intact. The fire was actually apparently contained to the kitchen, so the rest of the damage you see in the following pictures was primarily from heat and smoke that radiated outward. I guess I didn't realize that fires could do so much damage, even in areas they did not actually burn.

The first picture shows several placards on the wall that shows what the different temperatures were for those levels during the fire. They can tell by the type of damage that was done to the walls and furniture in that area.

A burned cabinet in the house.

The kitchen area where the fire actually occurred.

A TV in a bedroom that completely melted during the fire.

More Safety for the Kids

This is a large dollhouse they use to teach children about how smoke moves within a house when it is on fire. The side of it is glass and they put smoke into the house so that people can watch how it spreads from room to room.

After they have put smoke in the far left living room in the dollhouse. You can see it spreading to the hallways and kitchen.

They even had a little "Safety Town" with a garage full of go-carts and tiny gas stations (pictured below).

Safety for the Kids

Last week, Shawn went to a community education conference for firefighters and other fire department employees at the National Fire Academy in Maryland. He got a lot of really great ideas while he was there and I wanted to post some pictures from what he did and saw. This first batch of pictures is from an area they had set aside to teach kids safety in fires and other situations. They had various learning stations set up for the kids to walk through and experiment with.

This shows the kids the different damage that was done to this door based on the temperatures it reached while there was a nearby fire.

They have a little tunnel for kids to practice crawling through smoke in the event that a fire happens.

A bicycle safety course they have.

The Girls

Shawn holding Claire at dinner so mommy could eat!

Quinn after eating....I can't even remember what we had that night, but it was messy.

Claire after falling asleep nuzzling Shawn's fingers.

A picture Kai took of Quinn. I thought it was pretty good, so I had to post it.

Growing Up

Kai has started playschool, a program the Harrisonville School District does for three year olds. He is going twice a week for just a couple hours in the afternoon. He has been pretty excited about it for about 6 weeks and seemed to really enjoy it. He loves being around other kids, so he had a blast! Here's him posing outside of his classroom on his first day of school!

Kai arriving at school on his first day. He's so excited he can hardly contain himself.

Scoping out his classroom.

Making new friends at school. He jumped right into working on a puzzle with one of his classmates within the first three minutes or so of arrival.

It's amazing to think that only 3 and 1/2 years ago he was just a little baby like Claire. He couldn't do anything but poop, cry and eat. But now he is talking, running, playing, learning the ins and outs of social interaction. The time really does fly. I know everybody says that, but it really is so true.

All Wrapped Up

Here's me trying out the new wrap my dear sister sent me. I didn't get it quite right the first time, though, and Claire's excitement for the wrap ended pretty quickly. I think it was cutting off circulation to her legs. I re-did it after Shawn took these photos and carried her around for a while. That trial went much better and she enjoyed being carried around everywhere.

I know my eyes are awesomely closed in this photo, but this is the best one of Claire with her eyes open.

Starting to lose patience.....

Now completely sad and miserable. You can see Quinn in the background nuzzling her blankie.

Bumbo Sitting

Claire looking up at Shawn while sitting in the Bumbo.

In the kitchen, sitting in the Bumbo while I cook dinner.

She likes being able to be up and to see everybody. Her neck isn't quite strong enough to sit in it for very long, but she still seems to enjoy it.

Our Recent Activities

Claire has started smiling a lot. Sometimes it takes some coaxing, but she will give us big smiles. Right before this picture was taken, she was smiling broadly, but it ended up being just this little smirk by the time we could get the camera.

Kai waves goodbye as Shawn heads out to a call. The call was a tree stump that was full of bees that someone had set on fire. Somehow the tree stump ended up falling into the road?? Anyway, Shawn went to put out a bee-filled stump that was on fire.

Kai took this picture of me. Pretty good, huh? Too bad I have no makeup on and am wearing baggy track pants under my nightgown. Okay, so I didn't get fashion sense as one of my gifts.

Quinn's eye seemed irritated the other night and her bangs were so long they were getting in her eyes. I thought that perhaps her hair was irritating her eye, so I had Shawn cut her bangs short. It was very difficult to hold her down and cut the bangs, so this is the end result. It looks pretty bad. We feel pretty sorry for her. Turns out, it wasn't her hair irritating her eyes after all. She and Claire both have some sort of eye infection. Today we will be going to the doctor.

After the Storm

As I mentioned in my previous blog entry, Shawn was busy at work last night after a storm downed power lines and trees all over town. Here are a few pictures he took today of some of the damage.

This tree fell into the parking lot of the firehouse. In fact, that is one of the fire department's city vehicles underneath the tree. Interestingly, the guy that Shawn worked extra for had been parked in that spot earlier in the day. When he left to attend his son's school event (which is why Shawn was subbing for him), he moved his car. When he came back, he couldn't believe his narrow miss.

The back side of the tree in the firehouse lot.

Another downed tree in H'ville.

More wind damage.

On an amazing side note, our ginormous sunflowers (probably 10-12 feet tall) did not break or get damaged in the storm!

Trying to Make it Another Day

Life as a stay-at-home mom is not all that glamorous. We are expected to look after everybody in the house, to nurture, comfort, feed, clean up after and be there for several human beings. This is all in addition to our outside social commitments, extended family and such.

Yesterday was rough. Shawn was supposed to work an extra three hours after work to cover for a guy he works with. Nearing the end of three hours, a big storm rolled in, downing power lines and bringing with it lightning that struck a house in H'ville. Shawn was called out with his captain to fight a structure fire. It was a relatively small and easy to put out fire, but afterwards they had many calls due to downed power lines, lightning strikes, fallen trees and fire alarms. Shawn said in all they had 23 calls to the Emergency Management Services department last evening.

Being the ever dutiful wife (ha!), I thought I would wait up for him. Okay, so really there was a late episode of Cold Case Files I was watching. He came home at almost 1, exhausted. I, too, was exhausted as the kids had been very demanding all day. We lay down in bed and Shawn said he wasn't feeling quite well. Fast forward about 30 minutes and Shawn is majorly laid up in the bathroom with some kind of food poisoning (or perhaps the exposure to the smoke of the fire and working 16 straight hours?). He felt better after his bathroom trip, but I was wired and worried that my kids or I would get sick, too. I guess it was something he ate at work because all of us are okay. Today he is much better.

But of course since I got about 3 hours of sleep (Claire slept fretfully), today the kids are whiny and cranky. I'm still exhausted, but I know that if I lay down I will be needed by somebody again.

I have to remember over and over that God is the only reason I can do any of this. I need Him so much right now because sometimes days are a struggle to get through. I know this is only a season of my life and thankfully, there are times when it doesn't seem like so much work. There are days when I so love and enjoy being a mother and a wife; running an entire household, tending to those that need tending.

Lord, help me get through this day that doesn't feel quite so warm and fuzzy.

Our Garden--The Saga Continues

Carrots we picked from our garden last night.

Okay, so our garden has been overrun by weeds. Having been in my third trimester throughout the growing season, then post-partum, tending the garden wasn't high on my priority list. Add in Shawn working lots of overtime and you get a completely weed-infested crazy jungle of a garden. It is really not pretty right now.

Last night we pulled down our corn stalks. We have neglected watering them for a while, so they were withered and dry. We did manage to get some off of them a while back, but they are done for the season. This weekend we're thinking of pulling down the bean plants, which are also done and trimming the dead parts off of the sunflower stalks and our still (amazingly) yielding tomato and pepper plants. Once we weed the carrot patch, we should be able to get a fair amount of carrots from there, too!

In the meantime, though, I cannot post any pictures of the garden as it is much too embarassing to show to anyone. Once we get it looking a little more presentable, I will post some.

So far from our garden we have had:

Potatoes
Carrots
Lettuce
Corn

Tomatoes
Broccoli
Cauliflower
A few teeny strawberries
Green beans
Peppers

....and coming soon, we hope we should be able to have some sunflower seeds! Truly amazing. I guess all my praying over our garden paid off!

Pictures soon!!

More Pictures of the Kids

Kai "creatively" using his pliers.

Kai and Quinn check out their new sister. Kai decides a kiss is appropriate.

My three babies.

Claire contemplating the greater mysteries of life.