Thursday, September 07, 2006

calm turned chaotic


All I was trying to do was capture a photo for my post today and my CALM day suddenly turned CHAOTIC....




These two pictures were suppose to document my original post for today. I was going to title it "Cheaper by the Almost Dozen". That all changed while I was capturing all of the kids hanging out of the car.....


I had backed the car out of the garage(we were heading out to take Taylor to dance) so I could see all of them better. I turned the car off because it made me a bit nervous having Weston in the driver seat while the car was running. Well, the kids decided they needed the radio on to make the pictures better. They turned the key to the on position and in the three or four minutes that I was snapping shots and then buckling everyone in the battery was drained. I have no idea why it has never done this before when I have left the key on for a few minutes.



You have to know that while I was getting everyone in the car to go Jared didn't want to bring wear his shoes. I told him he needed them and continued to tell him "What if the car breaks down or something and we have to get out and walk then you will not have any shoes?" I think I jinxed myself!!



I didn't know exactly what to do. None of my neighbors were home and Greg was at work. I looked up on our shelf in the garage and saw our charger that we had gotten on clearance at Target. I get it out of the box only to realize it had been left "ON" when we put it away last. It has a plug you use to charge it but I didn't know if I could plug it in the outlet and then jump start the car. I thought I would give it a whirl, but of course no luck. the minutes seemed to be ticking faster and faster. Taylor was going to be late if I didn't get it started quickly. I went theough all of my options and decided to clal Greg to let him listen to the car to make sure it was the battery and no the alternator or something else that could cause it to not start. He said he could leave work and come home to help. He jumped it off and we flew to drop Taylor at dance. She was thirty minutes late but I had to get her there after all Jenny went throught o get her new ballet shoes today.



Greg followed me incase I had trouble and we went over to the Honda dealership for them to check the battery. If it was the battery, or anything else it was still under warranty so would be a plus. They said everything looked fine. So what was with it thiry minutes earlier. We probably will never know. Maybe we were forced to not be on the road. There could have been an accident, or something. Who knows.




Of course there were comments on all of the kids pilingout of the van. Greg informed everyone they wer not all ours. It is so funny the looks you get when you have more than two or three kids with you.


After our car trouble all of the kids could see that the gas was a little low and they were so concerned that we were going to run out of gas, too. We DIDN'T run out of gas but the light did come on after I left the car dealership.

Weston's dirty feet

White trash kids. Amongst all the chaos I forgot to bring Weston shoes and Maryn ended up with only one shoe in the car so they were running through the car place barefoot. I know tacky, but what could I do. I was nutso by this point.
Maryn's dirty feet

My poor car after our fiasco. I gave the three little ones bags of cereal to take with us. It always makes for a nicer ride if they are occupied, but does result in a mess. This picture doesn't really do justice for the way my car really looks but I took this while driving.

My "what would have been a decent home cooked meal".


My alternative for dinner.

I had already began preparing dinner before the car mishap but I had to put it on hold until after I would have dropped off Taylor. Well since I was late dropping her off and did'nt come straight home I wasn't sure what to do. I left the Honda place about 535 and was heading home to finish it and Greg and Mackenzi wwere going to pick up Taylor. Remember it is 535 pm and geting home would usually take about 12 minutes but in rush hour it would be at least thirty minutes. That would put me home alittle after 6 would have to finish dinner, feed at least Jared then have him to soccer practive by 630. It wasn't happening. I called Greg and told him to pull in Costco and order a pizza(I had already passed it and would have to make the turn around). I dropped Jared off and he ran inside and Greg got him a single slice of pizza because he wouldn't have time to eat if he waited until we got home.
By now it is 555, Greg heads out to his football game, I rush to get Taylor. Of course I was a couple of minutes late. We make it home just in time to change Jared's shoes and let Mackenzi, Taylor, & Maci get out and start eating. I decided to leave them hom ewhile I ran Jared to practice. I figured they would be fine home alone since his practice is right outside the neighborhood. I dumped him off and ran back home to girls finished. I got the three little ones out and fed then begam bathtime.

Sorry no photos of bathtime. All six of them were bathed and in their jammies by about 715. I thought that was pretty good. I needed to get Jared at 730 but Jenny called and said she would stop and get him.

I realize this is probably a little bit winded but I had to give all the details and pictures so everyone could see why my calm normal day turned chaotic! After all of this I still am laughing at the whole situation. It is just so amusing when one thing seems to go wrong it just throws kink in your way of doing things.

On a side note, I am glad I was able to watch the Clouse kids while Jenny& Doug went to the Temple and dinner. They made my night extremely exciting!

4 comments:

jenny said...

I am glad you were calm in this situation, because I am not too sure I would have been. You really should have just bagged dance for Taylor. But thats water under the bridge.

Thanks so much for your time and feeding, bathing and keeping my kids happy. In fact, so happy they NEVER want to leave your house. Now we owe you, so plan a date my friend!

Jill said...

Whew, that's a seriously complex story. I think I would have bagged the dance class too rather than brave the roads with that car full of kids. You really went the extra mile on this one!

Bridget said...

On my gosh! I can't believe all of that went on with not just your kids but Jenny's as well. Crazy!

Anonymous said...

Wow! That sounds so stressful. What a good friend to do all of that to get Taylor to dance! It sounds like you handled the situation very well-despite the babies having dirty feet:)