Some of our Week In Reverse Review

Well, this has been yet another exciting week in Copeland family.

You wanna hear something funny? Earlier this week we found out that between Boushka's hospital stay in January, all the testing late in my pregnancy, our original or what I call our "fake" induction, the birth of Little K and my upcoming foot surgery we met our deductible. So, to be funny, I posted on facebook earlier this week

We met our deductible, now what...

And I immediately had a friend (Yes, you Traci) basically warn me that I'd opened Pandora's box... and apparently I did.

No, nothing medical is going on (thank God, seriously). But we had some stuff happen today that involves our home insurance... or should I say, it better involve our home insurance. We put a call in to our guy, but it's Sunday night so we obviously haven't heard anything yet. But this is some of the damage.

(That's our fence, totally blown down by a microburst)


I was standing at our kitchen window, which overlooks this part of our yard, when I heard and saw the wind really pick up! Having lived in Kansas my whole life, I'd never heard or seen anything like what I did tonight. All of a sudden the wind was insanely strong and it startled me enough to actually shut our windows.

(Pieces, that look oh so dangerous to be in a back yard that belongs to little kids, of our fence)


As I was closing the window above our sink, I saw our fence fall to the ground. I had Little K in my arms, and I have no idea how long my mouth was opened in shock. Next thing I know I'm screaming MATT! MATT! OUR FENCE!

(This is our fence, and it used to hold our dogs in our yard.)

You'd have to ask him, but I think my words didn't even make sense at first. I was yelling and the baby was crying, and our other kids began to cry, and our dogs were barking, and the wind was howling... so I don't even know if Matt hear me not make sense!

(Yep, it took our mailbox too!)

Luckily he ran outside and grabbed our two BIG DOGS as I struggled to grab our Bug and ever-defiant Boushka so we could head to the basement. The older two girls started for the basement upon hearing me scream and yell for Matt. And Little K remained in my arms. I think my mind was thinking Tornado, but I really couldn't tell you. I was most certainly on survival auto-pilot.

(You can see our mailbox down in the bottom right corner. And across the street you see a tree snapped in half)


Having been raised a Kansan, tornado drills are ingrained in my brain! I'm not sure the yelling and screaming was ever taught during a tornado drill... but I know the grab your loved ones and hit the basement routine certainly was!

(The view from our deck looking out at the damage caused by the microburst. Apparently there are lots of fences on our part of town that look similar. There's even rumor of a roof blown off a building just blocks from us)

By the time we made it to the basement, it was all over. The wind died down to a reasonable 40 mph and I headed upstairs to grab my camera. My curiosity definetly got the better of me and I was dying to take pictures. Then I remembered I was actually doing the smart thing since our adjuster would need to see this disaster! Again, I'm not so sure this is taught during tornado drills, but I know all tornado-alley dwellers love to photograph a good storm, or the aftermath. It's born in us!

Just minutes before this ugliness hit, my family and I were enjoying the sun while dining on our grilled chicken salad.

And just hours before, I was in our back yard snapping these photos.



You know, because at this point in the day it was 92 degrees. And now at 10pm its in the 50's and dropping.

On to other fun happenings...

We also had a soccer game yesterday. Peach is number 1!

My Peach sure does enjoy running the field and chasing that ball.
We tell her to be like Edie (our young, but BIG dog), translation: BE AGGRESSIVE! We don't mean to be aggressive with the other players, but we tell her to get after that ball. And she sure tries!

We also ventured out to Lowe's to see if there's some kind of solution for us to have a garden in a yard with two big dogs and not much sun. We did find some things that my husband began installing today, but I don't even know if it's still there after this microburst (that's what the meteorologist called it). Maybe I can snap some photos tomorrow and you all who know anything about gardening can give me some tips.

More fun...

On Friday we did Kindergarten round up. I still can't believe my sweet first-born babe is ready for Kindergarten.
I did have some tears form in the corner of my eyes, okay lots of times I had tears form in the corner of my eyes-- but the point is that I didn't let it all go.

I mean, I totally could have.

I could have made a mess out of myself that day.

I just kept picturing an actual picture I have of her lying on my shoulder when she wasn't even a day old yet. And I kept thinking, how did that tiny, helpless, perfect little girl grow up right before my eyes into a Kindergartner?

That thought right there---it's what made me want to turn my done up face into a HOT MESS!

In fact, it's turning my face right now (which is already showing the stress of the day) into a LUKE-WARM MESS! But that's okay, no one but the baby is around---and even she's asleep on my chest!

And on to our last topic of this post...

SHOES! Did you know that when you have 5 girls, some who like shoes and some who absolutely LOVE shoes, the shoes in your house pile up... or in this case


they pile across. Because I can't pile them up in a tower formation; they'd probably tumble. There are 60 some odd pairs here, and this is about 2/3 of the total amount of kid shoes we own. And I'm sure you guessed it-- the only boy in the house (DADDY) took this photo out of pure shock. He was a bit awe struck! By the way, just thought I'd add that I don't typically round up all of our shoes and photograph them. I knew we were in serious need of getting all shoes in one spot, matching them, and then giving them to the proper kiddos. This was the inventory I took in order to figure out what shoes we need for the upcoming season. Anyway...

And now that I've reviewed some of the past week in reverse, can we all just shout a little prayer (or as it turns out 4 little prayers) up to the heavens for me, please?

1. Pray I don't talk about deductibles anymore!

2. Pray that while my husband is out of town this week I don't completely poke my eyes out in one of my anxiety attacks... I think I'll need them so I can drive the kids around town and check my make up before leaving the house in the morning.

3. Pray that if I find anymore shoes, I don't just toss them out the window because I've given up. By the way, eyes would come in handy (see #2) here so I can sort shoes, of course!

And...

4. Pray that if I do poke my eyes out in an anxiety attack this week, I won't recall anymore pictures from my babies' newborn days or think about any of them leaving me EVER. Because we know I'll cry myself into a HOT MESS and I won't have the eyesight to re-do my make up.

Okay, so if you can shout those up to the blessed heavens, I'd be much appreciative--oh, and my kids would be too. They don't need a mommy with her eyes poked out-- at least not until their Daddy returns!