Today was one of those " running - off - my - feet " days . Mike went to work in the morning and did not return until after 3 p . m . ( Shorter than normal , but he is not officially back at work yet so it feels long to me . ) Then he left immediately for town to go grocery shopping . That was fine , but it just happened to be one of those crazy days . Micah is in this phase where he won 't nap , so I 've been putting him down anyway and letting him stay in his crib in hopes that he will sleep . Maybe that sounds mean , but he talks happily in there , so I figure at the very least he can benefit from the time alone . Yes , I know what you 're thinking . I also benefit from a break from him . Very much . There are two problems with this scenario . First , he does not nap . Nine times out of ten , he will not sleep , and sometimes he is in there for two hours . Again , he is happy in there , so it is not a huge problem except for the other aspect . Micah is potty training right now , and he is totally ready for it . As such , he has decided he does not like it when his diaper is wet or dirty . When he is alone in his room , trapped in his crib , he simply takes his clothes off and removes the diaper once it is dirty . He has been doing this for about a week now , and it is not cool . He did it today while I was working out and he was supposed to be napping , and he had pooped . I will spare you the details , but you can imagine it was not good . That was one incident today . Incident # 2 , though not necessarily in order ( hmmm . . . in that case the previous one should be labeled # 2 . . . ) , Jamie and Micah left the house today without telling me . For Jamie that is not unusual , and it does not concern me in the summer because he is good outside . But he took Micah with him , and that is a strict no - no . Luckily , I noticed almost immediately and I charged outside to bring Micah back . I found the two of them on our porch swing . They had broken it , and I mean , beyond repair . They actually broke one of the metal rods off that holds the swing up . I could not believe it . Mere words can not adequately describe just how destructive my boys are . I was very upset , because it was obvious that it did not simply come apart , but the actual metal broke . The whole thing will now have to go to the dump and I officially have nothing to sit on outside . Well , other than my own anatomy , but that doesn 't really count . You can see on the side closer to the camera that there are two bars that hold the swing up . The far side has only one left . I think I might only buy stuff made of rubber or steel from now on . Incident # 3 : Somebody , though I can only narrow it down to either Jamie or Micah , plugged the toilet in the main bathroom . Honestly , it looks like there is close to a whole roll of toilet paper in there . This I discovered while I was trying to prepare them all for their baths . . . Oh , did I mention that immediately after Mike returned from his grocery shopping trip he left for a meeting in one of the nearby towns ? It is work - related too . I guess Mike has also been running off his feet all day . I have no idea when he will be home , but I have not heard from him and the meeting started an hour and a quarter ago . Anyway , so I was in charge of supper and bath time , my least favourite time of day . I tried several times to flush away the mess , but I could not . Fortunately , it did not overflow . Unfortunately , I was unable to find a plunger , so Mike will still have to remedy that situation upon his return home tonight . Mike finally broke down on the weekend and screwed a couple of boards into the wall on either side of our pantry door and we now have a board that we put on as a locking mechanism for the pantry . We just couldn 't take all the food theft anymore . So far it is working , though it has only been just over 24 hours since it went up . It is ugly , no offence , Mike , but these are the things we have to do to keep things sane around here . . . or at least sane - ish . Even still , I caught Micah on top of the piano key cover multiple times today and climbing many other forbidden places in the house . I 'd take a picture of the living room to post in here , but I am too ashamed . Popcorn all over the floor . Toys scattered everywhere . There was a consequence for that this evening , but I still have to live with the mess . My feet are aching . My laundry is still running . My eyes are begging me to shut them . I worked hard all day but I wouldn 't want anyone to drop in unannounced right now . I keep thinking of that line from Miss Congeniality . ( One of my favourite movies ! ) " In a way , America is like a big ship , and when we all work together , that 's when we make it safely back to shore . " Or something like that . That 's what I keep thinking about my little family , but unfortunately , it feels like the ship is going to break apart in the storm ! Don 't worry , I 'm saying this with some humour , but seriously , my house is taking an unbelievable beating from these kids ! Today , Jamie was mad at me for something and he grabbed a crayon and scribbled all over the coffee table just to make me mad . It worked . I threw the crayon in the garbage . Isn 't that pretty ? These are the lengths we must go to . A lock on the fridge . A board to bolt the pantry shut . Really , is this ridiculous ? For us , it 's normal life . Notice the pantry still has no frame around it . That was one of those details that fell by the wayside when we built this house . It is also , ironically , a reminder that this house is only five and a half years old . You wouldn 't know it to look around . Anyway , it seems all the boys are sleeping now , and thank goodness . I am exhausted , and my work is not even done yet . But it may remain undone for the evening . I am due for some writing , or possibly to finish a book I am currently reading . For now , I am going to sign off . Hopefully Mike will be home soon , but if not , I need to enjoy this time to myself seeing it 's the first I 've had all day . Bye for now . This week has ended with a bigger challenge than usual because Mike is away . He left last night after he bathed the boys , so around 6 : 30 p . m . and I have been on my own with them ever since . It has been all right , I guess . They have not been too bad , but last night I had a terrible time settling them all . I thought I had settled the older two and then at 7 : 50 p . m . I was putting Micah to bed when Cody got up . He could not sleep . So I tucked Micah in and took Cody out to the living room to sit with me for a while . It was kind of sweet . Cody and I don 't get a lot of quality one on one time , so it was nice to chat with him . He was so cute , and at one point he looked at me almost with a shy smile and said , " Mom , I just really want to marry you . " It was the sweetest thing . I gave him a hug and he said , " You 're my best mom ever ! " That 's my Cody . Very sweet and encouraging and so incredibly loving . I put him back to bed about half an hour later , but shortly after that Micah woke up . Yeesh . He was crying at first . I went to check him and there was not really anything wrong . I tucked him in again , but after that he was just singing at the top of his lungs in there . I had planned to spend my solitary evening writing and enjoying some quiet time , reading and relaxing . But I just couldn 't relax knowing my kids were not settled . This went on until 9 : 40 p . m . It was so frustrating . I ended up reading because I was too frazzled to write , so I was up later than I planned , but before I even turned out the lights ( somewhere around midnight ) , Jamie was up . I guess he was thirsty because I heard him leave his room and go to the kitchen . A few minutes later he returned to his room and shut the door . I did not even see him and was not sure which one of them had been up , but he did it again a few minutes later so I went to see if everything was okay . Well , it was , but I could not believe they had all been up . I was anticipating a horrible night . I managed to sleep until 5 : 30 a . m . After that , Radar went nuts outside and at 6 a . m . I had to yell at him to be quiet . So I got up on the wrong side of the bed . I was not a happy camper . I expect Mike home tonight , but not until well after I am in bed . Probably 1 : 30 or 2 a . m . Tonight was better though , in that everyone was asleep by 7 : 30 p . m . I am doing diaper laundry right now , but once it 's done I will move into my room and either read or work on my book some more . I really hope none of the boys will be up during the night tonight . I am also considering bringing the dog in overnight , as I was ready to kill him this morning ! The only other news around here is that we are still busy trying to organize this place , and Mike took our white racks out of the closet and built shelves and new hanging racks in there so we could get organized . I took some pictures , but none of them do it justice . Honestly , I love it so much I actually feel like hanging out in the closet . Haha . It 's like a nice quiet little room . I 'll post a picture or two from before we got all our stuff back in . It looks better now , but this gives an idea what it 's like . And other than that , life is the same as ever . I woke up in the morning a couple of days ago to this scene in the boys room , which had been cleaned just the day before . Yep . The boys took Jamie 's bed apart . They use the mattress for " skydiving " , in which they " fly " off Cody 's bed and land on the mattress . Notice the bedding and other junk all over the floor . Above you can see a white substance spread all over the carpet . That would be coconut , stolen from a high cupboard at an ungodly hour in the morning . It was all over the floor and each bed . The room smelled like a tropical vacation . Too bad it didn 't look like one . I was very frustrated , and made the boys clean it up , including vacuuming . But the next morning Jamie dumped iced tea powder all over his bed and Cody 's . Will I ever win this battle ? Now I am going to see whether I can lock Radar in his crate for the night . It 's getting dark out , so I 'll have to do it right now . That way , at least if he barks he can 't do it outside my window . Bye for now . I have not written in here in several days , and I do have a report to give , but first I have to update my salamander story from my last post . I got Mike to read the post that evening when he was home again . He laughed and said , " That explains it ! " He told me that Jamie had told him repeatedly that the salamander was in the van and he wanted to get it out . But here 's the catch . Jamie told him that Micah put it there . Obviously Micah is way too small to be able to open the van , so Mike knew Jamie was lying . Therefore he did not believe him , and did not check the van . In addition to that , Mike had locked the van , obviously after the salamander was in there , so Jamie could not get back in . Jamie tried several times to tell Mike , but each time he lied , either saying that Micah did it , or that the salamander crawled into the van by itself . So , we used the whole thing as a lesson on lying for Jamie , explaining that had he told the truth , the salamander could have been saved . It was also a lesson to us . Jamie tells tales , ( we 're working on that ) , but there is often an element of truth in it . . . especially if he is casting blame on someone else . So we will have to be careful to listen to what he says and check it out , even if it sounds like a tall tale . Okay , on to my other update . The day after the salamander fiasco , we went to my sister Andrea 's place . My brother - in - law , Steve , went fishing with Mike and Cody and Jamie , and us girls stayed back with Micah and my almost 8 month old nephew , Alex . We had a nice time , and the guys got back at lunch time . But after lunch , I changed into my riding clothes and Andrea and I headed out to see the horses . If I have not mentioned it before , she has our horses right now , because we had to move them in the flood . My horse , Sasha , got kicked a couple of weeks ago and has not been ridden since because she has been quite sore . In addition to that , I have not ridden her since August 4th last year , when I fell off and broke my right wrist , my right ankle and sprained my left wrist , for anyone who does not remember or has not been reading this that long . I have not been on any horse since then for a variety of reasons . But on Saturday , Andrea saddled up her horse , Indy , and I rode him . She gave me a lesson in the round pen , just to refresh me and get me past my nerves . Yes , I was quite nervous . I was even scared to go faster than a walk , but I did . Indy is a very " up and down " horse , so his gaits are not the easiest to sit . I was a complete spaz the first time I trotted him , but I improved quickly , so I was very happy with that . Then I dared to lope in the round pen , which is not the easiest , seeing it is quite small for that speed . I was nervous , again , but I did it . So after a good 15 or 20 minutes in there , Andrea saddled her new horse , Phoenix , ( formerly Sasha until I ended up with a Sasha before Andrea bought hers ) , and we went out on the trail . The plan was to just walk , and we did mostly walk , but I did trot a couple of times and even did a short lope . I rode for at least an hour in total , and I must say , it felt quite good . I plan to go again as soon as possible , which will not be until at least Sunday . I will still be very nervous to ride Sasha again , but she is coming along very nicely for Andrea , so by the time I ride her , she should be a much different horse than she was when I had my disaster fall . This first one is Indy , the one I rode . He is an appaloosa , but has no markings to show it . Haha . He 's a great horse , and he was perfect for me , which was nice . This is Phoenix . She is a Quarter Horse , and she is sort of a blue roan , but not quite . She is actually a tank . She is only five , and Andrea is still working the kinks out of her , but she will be a good horse with more hours on her . She is already doing well . She 's the biggest one in the herd now . Above is Maybelline , looking very well fed . She will be starting some training very shortly , and hopefully will be ridden this fall . And now a few before and after pictures of my Sasha . She came through the winter very well , but lost a lot of weight in the spring . She got terribly thin and we had to put her on a high calorie , high fat diet to shape her up . This first picture is horrible , but it shows how skinny she got . I think it was partly due to the bugs being so horrific at our place that the horses would just run all day to get away from them . So there she is , looking her absolute worst . And here she is now . Fantastic . She looks better now than she did when we got her . I finally have hope she is going to fill out and look like a normal Quarter Horse ! She is still getting lots of extra feed besides the hay and grass . It 's good to see her looking so healthy . Other than the lump on her face that appeared a few months ago for no apparent reason . Anyway , so there they are . I hope I will get a chance to ride Sasha this year , but I guess we 'll see how it goes . They will not be coming back to our place for the winter , so once the snow flies I won 't see much of them , I 'm pretty sure . That 's okay . Andrea will do lots of work with them , which is what they need . Mike does not have time with all this flood stuff we are still dealing with , and I don 't have the nerve to do the training stuff , particularly with Maybelline . I have a lot more to say , but I will save it for tomorrow or this will get too long . Hope everyone has a good Tuesday . All right , for anyone who follows this blog on a regular basis , you know we have been struggling with flooding for four months now . We are still fighting it , and yesterday Mike 's brother was here with his backhoe , digging what is called a dry well . I don 't feel like getting into the details of what a dry well is , because quite frankly , I 'm tired of talking about all of our efforts to beat this flood . . . particularly because we seem to fail with everything we try ! Anyway , all you really need to know is that the day before yesterday , Mike spent the evening getting ready for the backhoe adventures . He had to dig up some equipment that was buried in a hole right against the north side of the house . I 'm assuming it was some kind of pump , but I don 't know . Not really relevant to my story . So he was standing in this hole , which was a good three feet wide and maybe as deep . It was also full of water , probably a foot deep , so he had to brace his feet on the sides to stay out of the water . The ground is all sand , so it caves in very easily , and the surface of the water was covered in a caramel - brown - ish foam . He was in the hole and I was standing beside it when I saw something splash in the water . Something alive . I had a minor freak out and told him a fish just jumped . Obviously that was impossible , but there was indeed a creature in our brown lagoon . It was a salamander , and a pretty big one at that . Mike could barely see it because its head was the only part out of the water , and it was covered in that foam , but he caught it and I put it in a pail and washed it off . The idea was , we 'd leave it in a safe place overnight and let the boys play with it for a while the next day , seeing they have a huge obsession with salamanders . So , we did , and sure enough , yesterday they played with it and had a great time . I made it very clear that they were not to hurt it , and that at the end of the day it would be released again into the wild . I was gone for the whole afternoon yesterday and did not return until nearly 6 p . m . When I got home , I asked about the salamander and where it was . I asked whether they had let it go . I got some vague and mixed answers . When I asked where it was , Jamie said , " Somewhere " , which is a typical response for him . Cody said it escaped and he did not know how . Mike confirmed that it had indeed escaped . Cody told me how sad they were about it , but I told him it was good that it got away because now it gets to live . Fast forward to today . I am on the phone with my mom , late morning . Cody continually interrupts me , despite promising not to , but he came in from outside with an urgent request that I give him the van keys . What ? I demanded to know why he wanted the van keys . He told me it was to get the salamander out . What ? ? I asked him what he was talking about and he said the salamander was crawling around in the van . I told him that was impossible , seeing it had escaped yesterday . I asked whether the van was locked and he said yes . So I asked him if it was locked , how did he know the salamander was in there . He said Jamie saw it . Oh yes , and that Jamie was on the roof of the van . WHAT ? ? ? For kicks , I kept my mom on the phone while I grabbed the keys and followed Cody to the van . Sure enough , Jamie was sitting on the roof , in nothing but his underwear . We don 't call him Mowgli for nothing . I hollered at him to get down from there and never to do that again . Then I unlocked the van and opened the driver 's door . On the floor was an ice cream pail with a lid , and slits cut in it so air could get in . I picked it up and tried to see through . Something thumped inside . Great . I opened the lid , and just like they said , a salamander was inside . Well , not exactly as they said . You see , this one was dead and stiff as a board . I was very disturbed , and more than a little mystified . I let them look at it , told them it was dead , and then , flung its body into the bush where it would never be found again . At least , not by them . My conclusions about this incident ? First , Jamie must have taken the salamander without Cody , or Mike , knowing it , and put it in that pail . Then , he hid it in the van and told nobody . Second , Jamie knows how to climb on top of the vehicle . Third , it seems I will never be able to get Jamie to wear clothing . Fourth , I cannot , cannot , cannot keep up with these boys . And fifth , I will not capture animals for my boys to play with anymore , unless I am there to supervise the entire thing and personally witness the release of said animal . I suppose it was another lesson on death , but none of them understand . Cody said it would get to go to heaven now . I said no . He said maybe Jesus would bring it back to life again . I said he would not , and that the salamander will never be happy again because it only got one chance and now it is dead . But no matter what I say , the cannot grasp the concept at this point , which is okay , I guess . There are things they cannot understand , just as there are things my female brain cannot grasp , after being raised with only sisters and now having only boys in my home . I learn as I go , but the lessons I learn come from experience rather than some kind of supernatural anticipation so I can prevent these things before they happen . Somehow , I will have to adopt the mindset that truly anything can happen in a household full of boys , and perhaps then I will not be caught by surprise so frequently in their day to day antics . I 'll let you know how that goes . I 'm off to start the afternoon . This morning , like every morning , Cody and Jamie got up before us . Mike had left them each a little paper bag of popcorn to snack on , so they would not raid our cupboards . As usual , it did not work . Oh , they were thrilled with their popcorn treats , that 's for sure . But they completely misinterpreted our kindness . Let me just say that when I got up I heard incriminating sounds in the kitchen so I charged past Micah 's room , where he was hollering for us to get him out of his crib , and into the kitchen . Jamie was ducking behind the island counter . He had the canister of brown sugar , and there was a spoon in it . I was so mad . Oh , did I mention that he was naked from the waist down and was covered on his legs and bum in green , brown and orange marker ? Yep . Tatoos , Jamie style . Well , not totally Jamie style . Cody was also covered . His arms and legs were completely coloured . I was mad . Yes , I know it 's funny . Had Jamie been wearing underwear , I probably would have photographed the moment . But it 's still maddening . I told them I would no longer be purchasing brown sugar and that I am done making cookies . Yesterday I made raisin cookies because they ate the chocolate chips , or a good portion of them , and we have none left , so I bought raisins instead . Cody was mad at me , but I told him I will not be buying chocolate chips anymore . So , the battle rages on . I cannot keep my house from being destroyed . I cannot keep my baking ingredients from being stolen and desecrated , no matter how high up I keep them . And I cannot get my three - and - a - half - year - old to use markers on paper instead of on his own body , and on our furniture , and on the walls . Oh , and the carpet . Yes , that 's right . They even colour the carpet . My kids will be way behind in school because I will not have let them draw in their youth . Well , this is why . Even Cody wrote all over himself today , and I 'm sure it was just to impress his brother . In other news , ever since our holiday I have been cleaning like crazy , and it feels good . Bit by bit we are getting this place more and more organized , but I have also been doing detail cleaning . I mean , the stuff I don 't normally have time to pay attention to , including getting all the pen and other marks off the walls , polishing my piano . . . those kinds of details . Today I would like to make a cover for my dining room chair . That sounds funny . We have six chairs , but I want to start with one so I can possibly move Micah out of his high chair and into a booster seat . But I know from experience that if I put him into a booster without covering the seat underneath , he 'll destroy the chair , and I don 't want another one stained like Jamie 's . If I can come up with a good pattern , I 'd like to cover all of the boys ' chairs to prevent further spills . It would be much easier to clean up after them if now and again I could just remove the covers and throw them in the wash . But I will be using bath towels to do it , so I will be destroying some . I have been wondering whether they sell towels at the dollar store , but somehow I doubt it . It 's okay . I have a lot of old and very ugly towels that I have been using since I moved out of my parents ' house for university , many years ago . I won 't say how many . Haha . We are still fighting the flood here . Mike shut off one of our four pumps in the basement yesterday as an experiment to see whether three pumps could handle the water . They couldn 't . I don 't know how long the pump was off . Maybe a couple of hours ? But sure enough , water came into the basement again , so we still need all four pumps running . Crazy . We are halfway through August and have been flooded since May . It 's hard to believe this is still happening . We still have no answers as to whether we will get any financial assistance to get us through this . We also have no answers about what we will have to do to ensure this does not happen again next spring . So far , things are not looking good . There is a smell in our house that is not always noticeable , but sometimes it smells really gross , from all the moisture in the basement . I hate it , and also wonder about health concerns . Last night I was thrilled for a cool evening , so I opened all the windows in the house and let this beautiful breeze in . It felt amazing . Until bed time . The wind totally died , and when we went to bed there was a slight scent of sewer in the air . Mike checked the basement , which was fine , so we went to bed . But I was up in the middle of the night , and the smell was totally overpowering . Our whole house smelled like that , and again Mike checked and we are fine in the basement . We came to the conclusion that the issue is all the standing water in our round pen , which is not far from the house . So it is still gross to live here . Today I put some dish cloths and towels through the laundry with bleach , so now it smells faintly of chlorine in our kitchen . I have to say , it smells quite lovely . Clean . It has been a long time since our house smelled clean . I sincerely hope we can have it nice in here by October . I keep moving our goal back further and further . I really thought by the end of July we 'd be fine . Then by September . Now , I 'm thinking October is fairly optimistic . It is difficult not to despair sometimes . Maybe that 's why I 'm so desperate to make things nicer upstairs . Maybe some part of me believes if it 's nice enough up here it will balance out the disaster below . I have to intervene in the kitchen now . The boys are eating in there alone . Yes , Mike is gone again , so I am fighting the battles alone . Micah refused to use his high chair for lunch , so he is loose in there . Scary . I better go make sure everything is still standing . It is just after 10 : 30 in the morning and I am sitting on my bed in my room , in darkness . My blinds are not closed . Okay , I don 't even have blinds . Where we live , we can do that , though it still makes me uneasy ! Outside it is dark and rainy , very gloomy , hence the reason my room is so dark despite my lack of blinds . We are still in no position to be welcoming more rain , but here it is , so we will have an indoor day here and hopefully the fighting will be kept to a minimum . I guess I have not written in here this week at all . At the moment , I don 't remember much about my week . It has been quiet . We did go to town one day to do errands , but that was about the extent of our activities , other than supper at the farm one evening . I don 't even remember which one . Yikes . The days are all blending together in the absence of defined weekends . The one exciting thing about my week has been cleaning . Ha . So exciting , right ? Well , for some reason , ever since my trip I have been extra inspired to get this place clean , or at least as organized as possible . I have done way more cleaning than I have in a long time , other than the day Micah was sick and I just sat with him most of the day because that was the only thing that made him happy . ( Wow , the rain is REALLY coming down out there ! ) Anyway , as I was reflecting on our house and how difficult it is to keep it clean ( or even get it clean in the first place ) , I was struck with a perfect metaphor . My house is basically Humpty Dumpty . Five years ago we moved in to our brand new , freshly completed house . Okay , it was not even quite completed , but it was close enough , seeing I was eight months pregnant with Cody and we needed to move before I had him . Our house was beautiful . Well , to me it was . Everything was " fresh , with no mistakes in it " , to quote from Anne of Green Gables . My baby room was perfect and even though our house is not even close to a mansion or anything remotely fancy , I was so incredibly grateful to be moving into this spotless place . I had lived in many apartments before it , and the mobile home just before , and all of them were filled with years of grime from previous tenants . Not this time . Here was my place . Our place . Let 's call it , Humpty . Well , then we had Cody , and the place stayed pretty clean , albeit a bit more cluttered with toys and other baby gear . When he was in his crawling stage , I confined him to the living room and covered the entire floor with bed sheets to catch the extremely frequent spit - ups . Yes , I was a first time mom , and very uptight about that stuff . It worked , but it was quite a process to stay on top of that too . But once I had three very busy boys , that 's when Humpty became Humpty Dumpty . Yep . Toys , clothes , bedding , food , drinks . . . anything you can think of was dumped everywhere imaginable in this house . It is still that way , and it drives me crazy , but try as I might , I can 't seem to get it to change . So I started thinking about poor Humpty and how he / she indeed did have a great fall . Gone was the beautiful unmarred house we had moved into . And all the king 's horses . . . wait , okay , so this is not a castle . We do have horses , but they were no help . And all the king 's men . . . well , all my men . . . couldn 't put Humpty together again . Well no kidding . They were too busy ripping it to pieces . But the biggest of the men built me some shelves yesterday and some locker - like cubbies that I have wanted for a long time . I am hoping this will help the rest of the " king 's men " to keep Humpty in better shape at the very least . Here are a few pictures to show you what I am talking about . Mike put up these shelves in a little nook in Micah 's room that was previously empty . We had other plans for that spot originally , but that didn 't take into account three boys . I like the shelves , and we can display his toys and his laundry basket also fits underneath , though we may yet move that , I haven 't decided yet . Either way , it looks cute , in my opinion , and certainly helps to get the clutter dealt with . This picture is a bit on the dark side , but it shows the view from the door . Yes , Micah is still in a crib , and I dread the day we take it down because he will NOT stay in bed . And please excuse the " curtain " , which is actually a fleece blanket that doesn 't even cover the whole window . We have learned to be creative about stuff like that in this house , seeing the boys destroyed the blinds in their room . We cannot spend the extra cash on stuff they are guaranteed to ruin . That is also the reason I will not paint over the baby room decor , despite the desperate need . I can 't do it knowing they 'll write on the wall and put dents in it . . . etc . Some day . There is Micah , enjoying the fruits of Mike 's labour . You can see the corner of the change table in there and also the diaper pail . Hopefully in the next six months or so we will get him out of diapers and then we can get that stuff out too , which will also help . His room will feel huge then ! Okay , this is what I dreamed up , though Mike did all the building , measuring . . . etc . I have wanted something like this in my front closet forever , so the boys have no excuse not to hang up and put away their own things . They each have their own spot ( Cody 's on the far left , then Jamie , then Micah ) , and they can all easily hang up their own stuff and put their shoes in their own spot . This way we will not only have a more organized front entrance , but we will not have to search high and low for each shoe , hat and everything in between every time we want to leave the house . I like it ! The top spots are for their " accessories " , so right now their hats and sunglasses , but in the winter they can put their toques ( winter hats , for you Americans ) , and mitts up there , and they can hang their scarves and jackets and ski pants on their hooks . Mike spent a good part of the afternoon and evening getting these built , and even though they are simple in design , I am quite thrilled with them . We are one step closer to having a place that doesn 't make me want to pull my hair out 24 hours a day . I hope the boys will work with us on this . Well , they 'll simply have to . Micah is already trying to pull stuff out , because that 's what two - year - olds do , but he 'll learn . I 'm hoping it will help them having spots designated for them individually . Outside the rain continues to pour down , and I must sign off . I will probably have to tackle the rest of the front closet now , though if I can get away with it I would like to work on my book in the quiet of my room . Maybe this afternoon I will be able to . I am nearing the end of chapter nine , so I 'm almost in the double digits ! I would say I am a little more than a third of the way through , and I am happy with that . I wish everyone a peaceful and happy day , rain or shine . Bye for now . Exactly one year ago today , in this moment , I was at the emergency room . This was the day I fell off my horse , Sasha , and broke my right wrist and my right ankle , and sprained my left wrist . . . not to mention the poison ivy I landed in . It was a rough time for me and my family , as I was pretty much unable to do anything for a while . Our year has been a difficult one with a lot of heartache and trials . I guess it started in June of last year when our dear Jamie was so very sick . Either way , today I have been thinking a bit about the anniversary of my fall . I guess what I want is for today to be the end of a really bad year ( and a bit ) and the start of something full of life , blessings , hope , peace , and health . That 's a pretty tall order , I guess , but I 'm putting it out there anyway . I know God is more than able to do more than I ask or imagine . Where I struggle is in believing that He will . But I have decided to ask anyway , and He can decide what is right for me and my family . I do hope He will choose to bless us this coming year . I don 't feel like I can take any more trials , and it makes me feel weak and faithless . Perhaps I am . Difficult times can bring out the best in us , or the worst . I can 't honestly say what is coming out in me . I feel like a toy whose battery is dying and I can 't function the way I was intended to anymore . I have no idea how to recharge . So , may this be the end of my bad year and the beginning of something truly divine . I am now off to work on my book . Micah is sleeping soundly and the other two are in bed , but very loudly playing and hypering in there . I will probably have to issue threats soon . Still , I will enjoy the semi - peace of the moment and hopefully have some inspiration . Tomorrow is bound to be a long day , with Mike gone most of the day for appointments . I 'm off for now . But I have to post these few pictures of my sweeties from this evening first . Micah in his " new " baby swing . ( Bought last year but we didn 't put it up due to circumstances . Mike put it up tonight . ) And my Sasha . Not the best picture , but she has put on a lot of weight , which is a good thing for her ! I hope to ride her some time in the next month . My little Micah is sick today . He was not himself last night and woke up multiple times before midnight ( thankfully ) crying hysterically . Nothing would calm him down except for sitting on my lap . I figured he was out of sorts from the trip , or possibly scared . I thought if he was sick he would still be fussy , even on my lap , but he wasn 't . Still , he felt warm to me , so I was suspicious . We got him settled eventually , though not that far before midnight . Somehow he slept through the night , and even slept in really late in the morning . He did not get up until 9 : 45 a . m . , which is unheard of in this house . ( Though I confess this morning Mike let me sleep in and I got up at that time too ! I felt terribly guilty , but my body really needed it . ) But this morning , Micah was burning up . He did eat breakfast , but then he would only sit on my lap . I took his temperature and it was 102 . 4 , which is fairly high . I felt horrible for him . It was a long day . I was home alone with him until lunch time and during that time he lay on my lap , sometimes on his back , sometimes on his tummy , hugging me . His fever went down when we gave him advil ( and later tylenol , and then more advil again ) , but he was not happy all day . I forced him to go down for a nap and he was terribly unhappy about it , but he did sleep eventually . Then he woke up hysterical again so I brought him to my bed and laid down with him . He fell asleep under a blanket beside me and stayed that way quite a while . He is acting much more normal this evening , but he is horribly grouchy . I put him to bed about ten minutes ago and he is still crying , though not hysterically . I can also hear the other two fooling around . Mike is not here this evening either . I hope the evening is not disastrous . I am scared he may have a stomach issue , though his only indication was a tiny amount of diarrhea once at lunch time , but nothing since then , so he is probably okay in that area . But when he was on my bed with me he would suddenly start crying saying " Owie ! Owie ! " and being a two - year - old , he could not tell me where it was hurting . He barely drank or ate today , but he did eat some chicken and rice for supper , so that is good . He refused lunch . I hate having sick kids . It is the most horrible feeling in the world . Really , I think I would rather be sick myself than have them sick . It is such a helpless feeling when there is nothing you can do to make them feel better . If he is really feverish tomorrow I might take him to the doctor . He was shaking this morning when he got up . Poor little guy . Anyway , it is quiet in here for the moment . I sincerely hope it stays that way all evening , though at this point I still have my doubts . Regardless , I intend to take advantage of the silence and work on my book . I am on chapter eight now , and would love to finish it this week and move on to chapter nine , if possible . So , I am off for now . What to say ? In a nutshell , I am married to Mike and we now have three boys which is intimidating , but also amazing ! I have two cats : Cricket ( black and white ) and Tabu ( tabby ) , a black and white mini - lop named Oreo and a German Shepherd cross named Radar for his larger - than - life ears ! ( Trust me on that one ! ) I work for the government , but am currently on leave , taking care of my kids while they are small .