Sweet & Sour

I sure love my girls, but there are times when I wonder how they & I survive the day. This morning, after getting Becca and Ellie off to school, I started cleaning the house but realized very quickly that Sarah and Rachel were not making any noise. Discovering the front door wide open, I found both girls playing barefoot in the street. After explaining to them the dangers of being outside unsupervised, I told them that if they would get shoes on I would stay outside with them. They seemed pleased with the idea & so I watched them play as I weeded the front yard (we have grass growing up through our ivy & it has been begging to be pulled).
In addition to a weed infested yard, we also have a dead aspen tree :( and the branches keep falling off. Well, as I was bent over weeding (one of my least favorite chores) Rachel came up behind me with one of the fallen branches & whipped my back. OOOOH Baby! It hurt like the dickens.
After taking the branch away from her mischievous little hand and throwing it promptly in the garbage, I decided that I would take the girls to the hardware store and get some grass killer (and some carpenter ant killer for the naughty bugs making a home in our railroad ties) instead of weeding.
When we arrived at the store, both of the girls kept climbing in and out of the cart & they kept wanting to pick up the various bottles of poison for bugs and weeds.
It was all I could do to grab a couple bottles of herbicide & insecticide and run out the door. The problem there was easy to pinpoint, however. You see, we don't really go to the hardware store, we go to the "popcorn" store (they always have free bags of popcorn for the kiddos when we walk in), but since it was only 9:00 in the morning, they hadn't popped any corn and my girls were going through withdrawal.

Well, we got home & I thought things would go a little more smoothly, but apparently I was mistaken. Rachel clonked Sarah in the head with a toy & Sarah returned the favor. Both girls came crying down the stairs, with the sad misfortune that Rachel missed the last step & landed head first on the floor.

I calmed the girls down & started lunch & was two minutes into the process when I realized that the house was too quiet. I found the girls dumping shampoo on Becca's carpet (for the second time this week).

I hid the shampoo (apparently putting it away wasn't enough of a deterrent) and continued with lunch, but after about a minute I could hear a car driving up the road & realized that the front door was once again wide open.

I found the girls, pulled them inside & had them help me with my cooking. At the time I was frying up some won tons for a salad I am making for dinner & somehow, Rachel got one of the won tons, wadded it up in a ball, walked to the opposite side of the island (our stove is in our island) and threw a fastball right into the oil. As I type, I have eight distinct spots on my left hand and arm that are throbbing with heat (she, fortunately, did not get burned, though). I started to run my arm under cold water, and she waddled back to my side of the island carrying her dirty diaper in her hand saying "Nakey! Nakey!"

Well, I have given Rachel a bath, put her down for a nap, and sent the older two girls to the back yard in an attempt to preserve all our lives.

Before I started typing this post I peeked at all of the girls--Rachel sleeping, and Sarah & Ellie playing together outside-- and somehow, even with all their antics, they melted my heart... and I can honestly say that I just love them all to pieces!