What do you do at Midnight?

I'm trying to get some blogging done right now because the house is QUIET!! Thanks to our church having an outdoor movie night and a son who was not working and can drive them there! 
About Midnight.... 
Do you have dogs?  Well along with our 9 children at home, we have 3 dogs. Two Dauschunds and one Bassett hound. Their  adoption stories are just as good as our children's but those are for another day.  Anyway, the other night past midnight,  almost close to 1 am, I was not too happy.   As is my custom I get up about midnight to make sure all the kids are ok, thermostats are turned to 72 (kids tend to change those), check behind my older boys who are to have the doors locked, lights out and dogs put into their sleeping crates.

 Well during my rounds, I found no dogs anywhere, several lights left on and all the doors unlocked. The older boys were in bed.  I sigh! I found 2 dogs, Millie and Pixie outside panting, very willing to come in because the heat had been so bad even at that early in the morning; poor babies.  Our Bassetthound, though was no where to be found. Only after I spent 20 minutes calling his name, did I hear a faint hound bark.  
I kept calling his name but but couldnt exactly tell if it was him or not. I proceeded to go to front yard to the gates to see if the electric dog fence is connected and I discover that some child has unplugged it.  I go get Graham my 16 year old up because he is actually awake and ask him to call Boudreau because Boudreau loves Graham and I consider Graham my animal whisperer. ( Maybe that  is why animals always show up at our house)  He says it is Bou's bark and its coming from the field behind our house. Now the field behind our house has waist high Cali grass. The perfect place for Rattlers and other critters. I am not walking out here barefoot or in shorts in the dark! 
Graham and I head back into the house to get boots, long pants, a lantern and dog leash. By this time, my other two older boys are up trying to help but are not succeeding.  One tries to follow us out into the field, even after I tell him that he's not appropriately dressed. He's wearing shorts and flip flops.  He insists to follow us which just adds to my frustration and ticks me off a little as I give him a lecture about rattlesnakes and I'm not gonna help him when it bites him! Anyway...  We did find Boudreau and leashed him but he refused to come back into the gate.  He just sat down and wouldn't cross. I nudge his butt and mumble something about a stupid dog while he just sits there. Graham finally convinces him to keep going towards the house and we get him into his crate.  

 I'm tired, hot, and it's 12:40. AND The boys decide to get into a stupid argument. Stupid, tired hot me, got  involved and let's just say pretty didn't happen. The evening, (or should I say morning) ends with apologies from all of us and off to bed we went.  I had to take deep breaths, get some Balance Essential Oil and have a talk with Jesus. Kids, dogs, Jesus. Need I say more?

He looks innocent but his nose gets him into trouble ALL the time!  He's gotten lost 3 times and his return stories are crazy! Jesus must love him.  Secretly I do too. 

The Dog is Choking!!!

The following story is true! You never know what is going to happen around here. The pictures are reinactments that I MADE them do because In the crisis there was no camera available and I wanted to blog this story. So they are all laughing and fooling around during the "photo shoot". One day we will look back at all this and laugh, cry or smile at the memories and they will be glad that I blogged.
Graham's two buddies, Seth and Blake came running in the other night all in a panic saying that Pepper their dog was choking! She had swallowed an eye of a teddy bear!
Sure enough the little dog which is a Chihuahua, was acting like she couldn't breath and seemed to be gasping for air. She was pretty calm but then we figured she was about to die and therefore had no energy. Seth rushed him back to Duane because of course a Pediatrician would know what to do. Duane proceeded to do the Heimlich maneuver to no avail. He tried to look into her airway but that was hard to do. The poor puppy got squeezed more times than I am sure she preferred. Then Duane said, Well, I don't think she is choking, she is breathing through her nose. She might have the eye lodged in her esophagus and you are going to have to take her to the Vet for that. Pepper still kept stretching her head out like she was trying to dislodge something. We were at a loss at what to do. I then took her and put my finger in her mouth while Duane is informing me that I am going to push something further back and she will then for sure be choking. I put my finger in her mouth anyway and felt in the back of her throat, then made a sweep in her mouth and guess what I found? She had the eye stuck on her back took and therefore couldn't close her mouth and she was trying to dislodge it from her tooth! I firmly tugged at it and voila! off it came. She looked totally relieved and everybody else grossed out because it was pretty slimy. I guess you sort of had to be there to feel the excitement and adrenaline going on. We are happy that Pepper our neighbor dog is okay and alive. Not saved by the Pediatrician but by the Pediatrician's wife! (You know I'm kidding you honey!)

The Three Musketeers that live in the neighborhood. Blake, Seth and Graham
Of course the pediatrician trying to do the heimlech maneuver on the poor dog
Great re inactment guys! yeah right!
Poor little puppy! It took a mom to solve her problem!
This is the plastic eye I pulled out of her mouth!

The Pumkin Patch - The animals

The Big Billy Goat
Three baby goats
Look at those pigs!
One of the moms brought her albino labs with them. Her name was Ghost

Meet our dogs

This is Sassy. The photo is not very good because she moves a lot and it was taken with my cell phone. She came to us recently and is Maggie's dog. She is a chocolate Scottie. A lady called us up who was a friend of our in-laws and asked us if we would take the dog. We debated but finally said yes. He original name was Sachel but after living with for a few days we changed it to Sassy. Which is what she is.
Remember the story of how she bit me? She wants what she wants when she wants it. She totally disdained the other dogs when she got here and we had many dog fights and blood. Nathaniel lost the tip of his thumb, Graham lost part of his fingernail and I of course had a big gash in my leg and hand torn up. But like any child needing love unconditionally we persisted and she is settling down some. Boo still curls his lip at her when she comes around but the dog fight have lessened. She is hyper and gets stressed at the slightest change. But now she is a Carter.
Boo is our fluffy Shitzhu/Dauschund mix. Someone called us to take him after their dog wouldn't get along with him as a puppy. Boo is Seora's dog pretty much. She baby's him like he were the only thing that mattered in the world. I know she sneaks him food and talks baby talk to him. (They just think I don't know!) Everytime we turn around they are kissing each other! Boo is pretty jealous of Seora and the other dogs don't bother him too much. Except Sassy.
Boo's special need is that he is terrified of dryer's. The previous owners little girl threww him in one day and tossed him. Now he is mentaly distraught when one comes on.
Boo has been instrumental in Seora's
Meet Midnight. She is our black lab. I guess Midnight came to us almost 2 years ago. She was dropped off at my in laws house 2 towns over and they tried for 2 weeks to find the owner. Graham pleaded with us to keep her. I relented under the condition that she was an outside dog. Yeah right! How long do you think that lasted? After being hit by cars three times and ME nursing her back to health and hauling her to the vet and back, I sort of secretly got attached to her. (SHHHHHH!!! Don't tell anybody) So now she thinks she is a big baby and owns the couch. She really is a good dog and is afraid of the water.
Millie, our Daushund is my baby. We have about worn her out bringing puppies into the house. She gets mad at us for about a week and then decides to mother them. Besides the other three we have, we have had two Basset hounds which have died from weird things and getting hit by the UPS man. Anyway Millie came to us by way of the paper when Ben and Nathaniel were little. Even though we got her from a breeder, she was not wanted because of her defects. Everything a breed Daushund could have wrong with her, she had it. WE loved her anyway and when we went to have her fixed, found out afterwards that she had been pregnant. It broke our hearts.
Millie is sweet and has been hit by cars two times. Though she originally clung to me, she now prefers Duane over all of us. She is not a morning dog and pretends to still be asleep when we go to let the dogs out of the laundry room in the mornings. She will finally decide to go out around 9:30 or 10am. She is starting to turn gray and is getting slow but runs this household for certain.
P.S.
Please don't call us to take any of your animals, I really don't think I can handle another personality at the moment.

It's Friday! It's Saturday! YARD SALE!!! PART 4

Yard sale stuff
Eli demonstrating how the piano works
Boo found our flower pot to chill out in


Well, As you can imagine, we came home from the day pretty tired. But as we drove into our neighborhood, we counted at least 10 yardsales that were going to be happening on Saturday.
Now I have been decluttering the house now for about 3 months and have been boxing yard sale stuff up and storing it til we had one hopefully in a few weeks. Being the thrifty person that I am, I thought, "Hey, I could have a yard sale and not have to advertise!"
So, I asked the kids,"Who wants to help me set up for a yard sale? I still had 4 rooms to clean out but we had plenty of stuff. I have the best kids! They were great helpers. I talked Duane into helping us bring the boxes up from the basement garage and with all of us working we pretty much got all of it out in 4 hours. We sold a few pieces of furniture while we were putting it out. Maggie and I stayed up a little longer as we found a couple of boxes that did not already have prices. Ben and I ran down the road and posted a sign.
Have you ever tried to roll an upright antique piano up a hill in the dark?
Well, let me tell you, it was sort of hard. but The boys and I did it and rolled it into the garage for overnight. Finally at midnight, maggie and I rolled into bed and set our alarms for 5am. It came way too early.
We got up, uncovered stuff and waited. One person came around 6am. Finally around 9, I was wondering where the people were. I could see masses down the road.
Duane had gone to meet with friends for breakfast and when he came back, he said where was your sign? They don't know about you.
So the Carter family flew into action!
We quickly got some poster boards and markers and made 3 signs. Ben went and taped them to neighbor's mailboxes(After permission of course) and Graham taped one to his bike and rode around the other yard sales so people could see it. (He thought of that idea by himself)
Finally, about 10:30am people started coming. We started selling. Even though it did not look like we sold much we did pretty good. We pulled all of it inside the garage for next week and I am hoping that I can get those 4 rooms declutterd before then. I did place an ad for this next weeks' sale. Sometimes thrifty doesn't work out for the best.
Any body need rubber stamps for scrapbooking? I am getting rid of my whole collection of over three hundred. Shoot me an email at kdcarter@mac.com

Somedays are just Dog Days!

I have no photographs for this day but it would have been well worth it if I had! Maybe I'll find one of our dogs.
It is Saturday, my only day to sleep in. But not today! I was awakened by the nappy bark of our newest family member Sassy at 6:30am this morning coming from outside! As I moaned and groaned pulling myself out of bed, I complained under my breath about the kids not putting the dogs up the night before int he laundry room like they were supposed to. After letting the Sassy in the house, I tried to go back to sleep but couldn't. I then remembered that I had seen a yard sale sign in the neighborhood yesterday and so I decided I might as well go hunt for bargains. I got up and got dressed and slipped out unnoticed! Yeah!!!!!
One For ME!
Of course I found some things I can use, including a rocking chair for Isaiah's room. Happy with my little treasures, I went back home to find Eli looking for me! "Where did you go???" he asked in frustration, "I was lookin and lookin' for you." When I told him that I had been to a yard sale, he decided that I should have told him and asked him to go with me. (Eli has discovered that yard sales allow him to come home with lots of loot.)
Anyway, I talked to Duane a little bit as he was awake by now and then headed to the computer to work on one of my websites because he has told me he wants to give me Saturdays with some time off. A little bit later, Graham who was getting ready for Soccer practice yelled, "Mom something is wrong with Midnight, she smells horrible!" About that time Midnight,(Our black lab) bounded into the office all happy and carefree and smelling so horrible that I began to gag trying not to throw up! We rushed her outside and holding my breath, I grabed her collar and snapped it off as it was covered in something nasty and took it to the laundry room to drown it in bleach! The smell was so bad, that I started gagging again and with that I peed in my pants!!!
I rushed to my bathroom and exclaimed upon arrival to Duane,
" Sometime, I hate my life!" He smiled asking what was up. I told him ending with, "Now I am going to have to wash that dumb dog." Ever so calmly he just tell me to get Graham to wash Midnight.
"Uh, yeah, right!" I tried that one before and we ended up with a wild dog, a wild kid, and a wild mama getting nothing done. It is easier for me to do it myself.
Do you even want to know what happened?

Probably not, but I am going to tell you anyway!
While all my children, enjoyed their leisurely morning sleeping in, I attempted to try to give the dog a bath.
First, I decided that I needed to tie Midnight up on a short leash. So I wrapped a cord around a tree to make it shorter and hooked her up. Then I got the hose and lo and behold, it wouldn't reach the dog! ugh!
I unleashed Midnight to try to extend the cord and she took off running. Ugh!
I extended the cord and tried to get Midnight hooked back up. She refused to move and snapped her collar off.
Frustrated, I tried to figure out what to do when I heard a wonderful sound! A Sneeze! It was my 16 year old son, Ben. He had been at a neighbor's house giving their dogs medicine while they are away on a trip. I seized him and told him he was recruited to help give Midnight a bath. He went and got doggy treats and the leash.
We finally got her to the hose and turned on the water!
You would think that was all good, but she started fighting us and Sassy, who is weird all around and has this obsession with water coming out of a hose started going crazy. I was reminded about it as soon as the water came on. Sassy tries to eat the water out of a hose and she enters into her own world when the water appears. She snaps, runs, jumps and barks at it. It is funny but then can become annoying especially if you are trying to wash another dog!
So,all the while, we are fussing at her to stop and to Midnight to sit down.
I dumped half a bottle of shampoo on Midnight and started to lather her up and she relaxed a bit. Sassy continued her little maniac episode. Then all of a sudden, I felt this incredible pain in my hand and looked down to see that the dumb dog has bitten me! It wasn't a nip but a downright bite drawing blood! UGH! OUCH!!!
At this point Midnight looked like a big foam covered black lump and so I couldn't stop washing her. Ben gave me her leash and scooped up Sassy to put her in her crate so we could finish the bath in peace. I hurried up and finished because my hand was throbbing . We let Midnight go and she ran across the yard and immediately found a dirt pile to roll in. At least she doesn't stink anymore.
I went into the house and cleaned out the wound and changed my clothes.
Then settled in at the computer to do some work. A little while later, Graham hollers, "Mom, Midnight stinks again!" Ugh!
We traversed the yard and found nothing or smelled nothing that we thought she could have rolled in. So maybe I didn't get her clean. Who knows!
Remember it was my "OFF" day?
There is really never an "off" day for moms but we sure can try. Today, I have been rerouting them to their dad.
Some days NEVER turn out how you plan them to. But that is Life with a large family.