firsts | our little fairy tale

I think we shall call him, "The Boy Who Cries. A LOT." or equally popular for his current stage of life, "Whinny bum." This kid is giving us some fun emotional whiplash lately. Today he wanted to dance too. We are thinking on it. Kid is going to trip on that lip someday. He has his pout down.

Kaylee has been begging for dance classes, or gymnastics classes, or soccer for a while now. I FINALLY got her to pick ONE. I think we will also be able to swing soccer. Later. We are still adjusting to the new schedule and school.

The studio she goes to offers a free trial class. So she checked it out, and LOVED it. So we signed her up for Jazz/Ballet class. She is having so much fun, and looks way TOO cute in class.

I am really loving having my tiny dancer in actual dance classes. And more importantly she is LOVE LOVE LOVING dance class.

We took the children on an over night camp out with the ward. Kaylee was so excited to be camping with so many church friends. She had an amazing time, and was so lovely. Regan gave us emotional whiplash. Apparently 5 days of antibiotics is not quite long enough when you are fighting an ear infection. Poor dude. Then he got motion sick on the drive home, and puked all over himself, and somehow into my water bottle. Ha! He had good times mixed in with his pouty not feeling so hot self. He especially enjoyed playing basketball with "my guys". These boys were so sweet with Regan.

So then Regan puked on the way home. And since we were only 20ish min from home and I figured it would take about that long to properly clean him and and change his clothes just to strip him for a shower when we got home…. I just did a quick mop up and gave him a puke bag. Poor little dude.

AND then when we were seriously less than a minute from home the truck caught fire! Oh, the chaos. The craziness. The momentary panic as I was getting the kids OUT of the truck onto the median of whether I should grab the camera or not. Sanity reigned and the camera got left behind.

We were at our last intersection before pulling into our neighborhood, stopped at a red light when smoke starts pouring into the cab through the vents. Thick nasty smoke. Jon quickly rolls down the windows, and tries to pop the hood. Gages all were reading normal. Truck had been running beautifully. I called Josh and asked him where the hazards where, and to let him know that oh, by the way your truck that you so kindly lent us for the camp out is on fire!

Can I just say for every rude person there are many more kind helpful souls out there. Truck on fire, Regan covered in chunks, everyone looking/smelling awful from camping, standing in a busy intersection, and Kaylee just wants to go home and get ready for the pirate party she had been invited to. Let the good times roll! And remember that sanity reigned and so there are NO pictures of this madness. So must visualize.

People were yelling both kind and helpful things, and others, not so much. We had a couple very sweet good Samaritans come to our rescue. And I find it amusing that the scariest looking dudes are usually the sweetest. This lovely fellow with a truck a supplies to tow offered to tow the truck home. Awww.

This awesome woman offered to drive me and kiddos home. She was a Mama who didn't have her children with her and therefor had empty car seats for mine. (Fasted answered prayer EVER!) She also chewed out this RUDE lady for me.

Rude Lady: Hello! This is a terrible spot to park! Get out of the way, you are being SO rude! (Said with MUCH anger, and attitude!)

Sweet Lady: Excuse ME for trying to get these little kids OUT of a dangerous situation! You can go around me, or wait, but I am helping them!

Rude Lady: You are so rude and inconsiderate! (Stupidly, and far to rapidly zooms away.)

Sweet Lady: (To me.) Some people are idiots! (To which I emphatically agreed.)

LOVED my Sweet Lady so much.

So while Jon and the nice fellow took care of getting the truck home, I stripped Regan down to his soggy puked underwear in the road before loading the kids into the sweet ladies car. I figured we were already a spectacle the lest I could do was strip a kid down for everyone. Nah, mostly I was trying to get as little puke on sweet lady's car seat as possible.

Josh arrived after I had tossed the kids into the shower, and after the truck was settled into it's final resting place. He made good time from his house. The whole fiasco was the longest 15 minutes of my life.

It appears a critter built a nest, and that's where the fire started. Dwayne says it's fixable. I cried. LOTS. Kaylee, ever my example has been praying non stop for Uncle Josh's truck.

And her prayers are quite effective. We originally thought the truck was toast, that fixing it would be thousands. But it turns out it should be fixable for hundreds. YEA!

Hopefully this charred melty goodness will soon be pretty, shiny, and new.

This was one epic family adventure. One I am okay NEVER repeating again. Well I'll repeat the camping part, just not the vehicle on fire part.