Another Long Break

This time for an unwelcome reason, ants. Icky icky ants. Last week we discovered them in the dining room and in the toybox (no surprise there, since Levi has a habit of carrying around food and then dropping it in there when he gets distracted. Nothing good, of course, just a scrap of old pancake (no syrup) and crumbs of cereal (dry)). So, after vacuuming and cleaning out the toybox, I sent Chris to get some ant traps. He came home with 2 boxes of poison bait, which I then hid in the corners and expected would work within a day or so. This was on a Friday, as it happened, the Friday I left to go out to Aimee's for the weekend. No problem, I thought, it means I get to miss the ants! They should be gone by the time I get back. I left in blissful ignorance.

When I got home Sunday night, I came to a kitchen full of ants. Ick ick ICK. My helpful hubby wiped off the counters and swept the floor. Good start, yes, BUT. Yes, but. He didn't take the various tins and bins off the counter and wipe behind them. he didn't even wash the dishes that he put in the sink. HELLO? Ugh. I then found out that he had bought the cheapest kind of bait out there, and the ants were totally ignoring it. They were just walking right around those bait traps and carrying off food from my counter. Ugh. So I washed the dishes and wiped down the counters and the sink. Then I went out and bought better bait traps. The kind with bait that actually appeals to ants. It still took another few days to work.

Finally, yesterday, we noticed that even after cleaning all the surfaces, it still smelled funny in the kitchen, and decided it was the drains in the sink. We poured bleach down the sink, and that seems to have taken care of the problem. So far today I have not seen any more ants. Let's hope, please, that they don't come back.


And on to more fun topics, we had a fun weekend in Ohio. It's a long trip (7 hours) but I had Troyer and Noah to keep me company, and they are good travellers. I had a lot of fun with Aimee and her kids. Her church had a street fair on Saturday, which was completely free, even the food and soda, and the boys brought home a bag full of prizes they won at the booths. It was really cool. Even better, most of the people at her church didn't realize she had a twin sister or that we look so much alike, so I was stopped often by people who were then annoyed because I had no clue who they were. Not that they believed me, but they thought I should be getting the inside jokes and have answers to questions. Aimee was working a booth, so I was wandering with the kids. One mom assumed I'd be watching her kids because I was standing next to them. Not that I had a clue who her kids were! LOL When we got together to eat lunch a lot of jaws dropped and eyes popped. It was fun!

This Wednesday was Caleb's birthday. Thank goodness the ant problem wasn't very bad at that point, because I wasn't sure what I was going to do with a cake if I couldn't put it on the counter. I'm happy to report, no ants in the cake. Caleb didn't have the best day, though. For a boy turning 6, he acted a lot more like a boy turning 3. Or maybe 2. There were lots of fights and crying and screaming and chasing, not to mention defiance and refusal to do chores. Because of the ants, I was adamant that there would be no party if the room wasn't clean, but even with that incentive, he complained and whined. So after finally getting the house clean, we went ahead and had cake and opened presents, but he was not allowed to take any of the toys out of the packaging. They are in a bag in my room. You'd think that would be good incentive to behave the next day, knowing all the good stuff he can open, just if he's good. But no, last night he was mad about something and went out to the back yard in a huff. When we went to call him for dinner, we couldn't find him. He had left out the gate and gone to talk to the boy next door, in their front yard. He didn't tell anyone he was leaving the yard, and he didn't come when he heard us call him. So he didn't get to open the toys yesterday either. I'm hoping for today, but who knows. sigh.

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Ok, so here's more pictures. I have pictures from Caleb's birthday, but I still haven't posted the pictures from Micah's birthday last month. Oops. Well, I'll catch up eventually!

The weekend before Micah's birthday we took the boys over to their Grandma's church. A local model railroad club had set up an N-scale track in their fellowship hall and invited everyone to come see it. Chris loves model trains, and I like them too, so we took the boys over. It was a nice track, the kind where it's layed out in a circle with a hole in the middle for the operators to stand in. They had 2 or 3 tracks, and 2 trains running in opposite directions. The boys liked best the part when one of the trains derailed LOL.


Samuel


"I can't see!"


"I can see! Thanks Troyer!"


Caleb and No-Take-A-Picture-Of-Me


Samuel and No-Take-A-Picture-Of-Me


YES! ME!


Troyer


Troyer and Caleb


Caleb

He really had the best time of all the boys. That is probably because of all the boys, he is the one who gets along best with older, grandpa-type men. Whereever he is, he gravitates toward the older men and talks them up and wraps them around his finger. No idea how or why, but he charms the socks off them. Since this was a group of grandpa-type men having fun playing in their retirement, it was the mother-lode for Caleb!



Noah The Grump
The only shot I got of Noah, because he kept running from the camera.
He spent the whole time pretending he was having a bad time.


My cutie Levi, getting a ride with Daddy.

Next time I will have pictures of Micah's 4 yo birthday.