call 911! the house is on fire!.

Always keep your hair clean, always keep your kids in cute pajamas at night, because you never know....what starts out as an ordinary day can sometimes turn crazy...

Abigail was teaching the kids a nice song from her songbook...they were all mellowed out for bed...

(I just had to sneak this one in here, Camille in the basket)

We got the two little girls tucked in, then the bigger kids....then! The dryer was on fire! It happened so fast, the black smoke was billowing out the doorway, Paul grabbed the fire extinguisher (ALWAYS have one on hand, it saved our home. We literally would be homeless right now if we didn't have them, he actually used two).....he yelled to call 911, and I started yelling for all the kids to go out the deck door to the front yard, RIGHT NOW! I ran for Camille in her little green bed, and flagged down Mirielle to get Charlotte. Samuel was downstairs pounding on the bathroom door, Margaret was taking a shower. He was yelling for her to get out fast, the house was on fire...and Benjamin was lying in bed, half asleep, thinking Sam was just mad. It is not unusual for Sam to pound on the bathroom door. Anyway, we got out to the front yard, and I was counting, and panicking because I kept getting 15 kids....who is missing? And all the kids were yelling things like, "I'm here, I'm here", and "MOM, we are all here!"....then someone reminded me that Emily is in Norway. Okay. We have the right number. The fire engines started coming, there were at least 8 or 10, and about 40 firemen, plus the ambulance. The first thing they asked was if everyone was out. It's funny, because I did not even think of one thing I wanted to grab. The kids were out, the dog was out, and I just didn't even care at that point about the house, (or sorry kitties, you didn't even cross my mind). I was just glad the kids and Paul were safe. Our across the street neighbors and our next door neighbor came over, glad too that everyone was okay. It took a good ten minutes for the firemen to arrive, we live out in the country. At least 4 different fire companies came. If Paul hadn't used that extinguisher, our house would have been engulfed by then. Especially with the number of clothes that were in that room. When the ambulance people arrived, they came over and got the kids to wait in there, and gave them Gatorade and little Beenie babies. Jon, however, was in Abigail's car with her, and was terrified. He was hysterical, and did not want to get out of the car. Benjamin sat in his truck with Rosie, or she would have been nuts.

So, now all that bedding that was stacked up to be washed is in the living room and kitchen, mixed with other hampers that were dumped....there were clothes in there literally on fire, and the firemen brought them out to the front yard and dumped them, smoldering. I think one thing was my good gray bra, just washed and hanging in there. Rats. So they moved the hampers out of their way by dumping them out....and they used the firehose in there...oh, what a mess.


Here is my living room....

And here is my kitchen....

This is my laundry room...

They chopped a hole in the wall to make sure the fire was out. All the clothes that are still in there, like those jeans, are covered in soot and smell like smoke. The whole house is covered in fine black dust....





Evelyn took a picture of this shirt...

So now we have our work cut out for us. I have to call the insurance company in the morning and see what our deductable is. Because our dryer is literally toast. And all the clothes that aren't ruined will have to go to the laundry mat. Or wouldn't it be nice to throw them all out and start over? I just bought the girls some things today at Target, 75% off, but really nice, and they are hanging in there covered with soot. fun. But when I started pointing things out, the kids all started in on me, saying, "Mom, just be thankful we have our house, be thankful we are okay." Oh, how quickly we forget. We are such hardheaded people, how quickly we forget.....