This was a pretty exciting week.  Most people here were a little rattled after the Joplin tornado last Sunday.  We live three hours away from there and had some great opportunities to donate money and supplies.

On Wednesday, I was across the street at a friend's house when the siren started.  They usually test the system every Wednesday, but it seemed like a bad idea while we were in tornado watch (we are often in tornado watch here and barely notice anymore).  I opened the door to hear what was being said more clearly and heard, "Take shelter immediately."  We gathered the kids and headed to the storm shelter.  Ours in a metal box bolted to the floor of our garage.  I didn't want to risk taking my kids back across the street, so we piled in with my friend and her daughter.  She pulled out flashlights and a lantern.  She had also grabbed their bag of library books on the way out.

My phone had reception so I sent texts to people letting them know we were okay.  After 20-25 minutes, the sirens stopped and we came back out.  Things hadn't seemed too bad where we were, but we heard that afternoon that a tornado had touched down in Sedalia, which is about 20 minutes from us.  We were so grateful that we had been kept safe.  I also realized that it is even darker than I thought it would be in there so I bought more lights the next day.

Sydney's last day of first grade was Friday.  Ben has a four day weekend for Memorial Day so we were all going to meet Sydney at the bus stop.  Unfortunately, Tyler was sleeping, and it was raining.  I had made a banner and filled the bubble machine.  We decided to drive up there instead, taking the baby monitor to make sure we could hear Ty.  When Sydney's bus came, I jumped out by myself and held the sign up for her.  She loved it!  We didn't get any pictures because we jumped right in to the van after that.  She will be out for this week, then she will be going to summer school for three weeks.  She is really excited.

Zachary has decided to flip his badness switch to on.  In the last week, he has colored the spare room with markers so permanent that we will have to paint it, emptied all of my craft supplies onto my bedroom floor, squirted hydrocortisone cream on Tyler's hair, dumped half a bottle of nail polish and half a bottle of nail polish remover on to my bedroom carpet (which smelled terrible but made clean up easier), painted his forehead and wrists with pink nail polish and dripped it on the counter and floor, covered his face with black eye shadow, smeared Vaseline on my bathroom counter, smeared hand soap on his bathroom mirror and bed and window, colored his arms and pants with a ballpoint pen, colored the family room floor with blue crayon, colored the family room couch with green marker, hidden Ben's work keys in the hall closet, misplaced Ben's CTR ring, and dug a hole in wood chips in the backyard.

You might be asking, "Where were you during all of this?"  He is fast.  I will be finishing my bowl of cereal in the morning and sense that it is too quiet.  I might be preparing dinner or changing a diaper.  I don't know how he does it.  It don't think he has that much time.  I have decided that he has discovered some sort of time warp during which everything around him stops.  All I know is my patience is wearing thin.

He is also rubbing off on his brother.

Tyler dumped nearly an entire box of cereal on the floor yesterday.  Sigh.

Tansy has become the queen of talking back.  That girl ends up in time out all the time because of her mouth.  What happened to my sweet girl?  Don't get me wrong.  I love my kids, but sometimes they do drive me crazy.