A day in the life.....

Well, Jonathon told me that I should have taken pictures, but quite frankly, I was just trying to get through it all to bother with the camera. Here's the story:

To give you some pertinent background information. Diella hates it when the smoke alarms go off. We have told some of you the hilarious story that happened a week ago (actually the night we finished up the puzzle). We had been going over the fire escape plan with our children and figured out that they can pull their ladder up into their bunk bed and put it out the window beside their bunk and climb out the window safely. They have practiced it and have it down well at least while they are awake. Could be a different story if anything happened while in their sleep. Anyways, the other night Jonathon put the screen on the wood stove so we could enjoy the fire at its finest, but he forgot to open the back damper. So, needless to say, the house filled up with smoke. The alarms were all going off and poor Diella was running around the house crying and screaming with her hands over her ears saying, "May I please jump out a window, may I please jump out a window!" We laughed and laughed but felt bad that she was so scared and we couldn't calm her at all. After that she said that if the alarms every go off again, she is going out to the van until all is clear.

Well, today I was making pies to take to some friend's house tonight. The timer went off on the stove and I opened the door to check my deep dish, crumb top, apple pie (mmmmm!) to find that it had spit out juices all over the foil on the bottom of the stove causing a great smoke that poured out when I opened the door. Ahhhhh, here we go again! Alarms went off and Diella in her state of panic ran out the front door in her bare feet. I grabbed her and told her she couldn't go out with nothing on her feet in the snow. She'd freeze them. So, she slipped her dad's tennis shoes on that were right there and clomped out the door to climb in his car. Josiah shortly followed her.

Well, that's not the end of the story by any means. I got the alarms to stop after calling Jonathon to find out how to do it. He laughed at Diella running out and said if I needed anything else to call him. Ha! I needed a lot more help! I called the two children in to find that 3 minutes later the alarms went off again. This time the children were standing at the door with their dad's shoes on, with blankets wrapped around them, waiting just in case they needed to make a beline to his car. Out they went again. This happened 4 more times. My pie wasn't done when the timer went off, so I had to keep the oven on longer. Finally after 15 more minutes of this ridiculous routine of alarms going off, children running out, me standing on chairs to get the alarms to stop to no avail, keeping the windows open (good thing the woodstove is good and hot), and feeling completely hopeless of a peaceful day, the pie was done, oven turned off and I waited for everything to cool down. I called the children in just as the smoke seemed to finally be out of the house and the alarms were done with their chirping.

At that time for some unknown reason, Alegra decided that she was going to check the woodstove to see if the fire was going. The children are not allowed to mess with it unless we give them specific instruction to do so. Well, the back damper wasn't open, and she got a face full of smoke through the front damper. She was holding her eyes, children had started to come in, to only turn back around because, yes, the smoke alarms went off again. Those things sure do work well! I'm starting to feel quite hungry since I haven't even had time to get lunch around and my ears are ringing, and I'm getting cold from having every single window open along with a fan in the window trying to suck smoke out. I just wanted a good deep dish, crumb top, apple pie. I think it will taste especially good after all I had to go through to get it accomplished. I may question myself the next time I want to make one of those.

Now, all seems normal in the house. Time to clean up and then I think I might put my feet up and relax a bit before heading out the door to our friend's house...if something else unexpected doesn't happen. I can only hope! Sorry I don't have any great pictures of this chaotic moment in my day. They would have been priceless I'm sure. :)