It's Friday!

While I'm thrilled that today is Friday, I have to say that this week has gone by REALLY fast -- despite the fact that Brad was out of town for a couple of days, which always seems to make things go by much slower. I'm embarassed to say I had a little "incident" while he was gone that made me feel like I'm sort of helpless without him around... I was taking a break on Wednesday, making myself lunch while the kids were eating, and all of the sudden all of the fire alarms in the house started going off simultaneously. Seeing as we have a new construction house that's right up to code, we have about a million of them -- one in the basement, one in the attic, one in every single bedroom, three in the downstairs hallways. Truly ear shattering levels of high pitched noise. Needless to say, the baby (who was trying to go to sleep) started screaming, Maddie and Sienna were understandably alarmed and pretty agitated, and Rachael developed a headache about 5 minutes in. I sent them all outside while I tried to figure out how to turn the darnn things off, to no avail. I had already checked all throughout the house, and knew there was no smoke or fire anywhere. I couldn't reach Brad, who is often inside the equivalent of a fortress while on his business trips (meaning no cell coverage!) and while my dad tried to help over the phone, nothing would work. I tried disconnecting individual ones, pushing the test buttons, flipping each circuit breaker and then even the main breaker for the whole house, thinking it might turn them off. Nothing worked. I ended up having to call the fire department, who brought a truck and all the gear and figured it out in about two minutes flat. We were all so relieved to have some silence after at least an hour of blaring fire alarms. And I was so relieved that the fire department at least left the sirens off...maybe just a little less embarassing!

On a different topic altogether, the kids are starting today VERY happy little campers. I finally found an eggless pancake recipe, so I made some pancakes from scratch this morning. We've been on a pancake strike ever since Sienna's appointment with the allergist, where he confirmed her serious egg allergies. Never underestimate how happy a yummy pancake will made a toddler or a preschooler, though! :-)