Patrick Harrington

Our prayers go out to my friend, Dan.  He lost his dad to a terrible farm accident on Monday.  Here's the article:
Corn bin incident claims El Paso area farmer
A 75-year-old rural Ellsworth man died Monday afternoon after he became trapped inside a corn bin while it was being unloaded. The victim was identified as Patrick H. Harrington.
Authorities were notified of the accident at the Patrick and Margaret Harrington farm, W3593 610th Ave., town of El Paso, at 1:55 p.m. The farm is located about a mile east of CTH BB and five miles south of Hwy. 29.
Ellsworth firefighters and EMS personnel "worked tirelessly to empty the corn bin and locate the missing man" for nearly 90 minutes before he was located, according to Pierce sheriff's deputy Robin Kivel.
Efforts to resuscitate him were unsuccessful and he was pronounced dead by Medical Examiner Sue Dzubay.
A medical helicopter from Life Link was also summoned to the scene and its staff assisted with the rescue attempt.
Dzubay said Harrington had been working with several semi-drivers, unloading the 18,000 bushel bin throughout the day. A driver had just repositioned his truck and exited the cab to discover Harrington missing. After a short search around the farm, workers discovered a pole inside bin, leading them to speculate that Harrington may have gone inside in an attempt to free a blockage near the bin's base.
There was about 4,000 bushels of corn remaining in the 36-foot bin when the accident occurred.
The incident remains under investigation, Kivel stated in a press release.

  It was a terrible accident and one that will likely be very difficult for Pat's wife, 8 children, 17 grandchildren, and, I think, 4 great grandchildren, to come to terms with.  I attended the funeral on Friday.  One of Pat's daughters got up to speak about him and made everyone laugh and cry.  She did an amazing job of portraying the man he was.  One of the grandsons, when asked what he'll miss most about his grandpa, answered - "Well, just everything..."

Orange Papa got a new hot rod!

Let's just name him "Pinky" for now...
But papa has plans to overhaul him and make him a bit less fruity looking.
Natalie, Kenzie, and Mommy are excited that Papa has a new hobby - his garage was full of furniture and it had nowhere to go. 

Here he is!

BTW - as I'm writing this, Jorey is talking to her baby...
"Get in your bed right now..."
"I'll lay with you for just a minute"
"Take your shirt off..."
" 'Cause you pooped..."
"...ya, you pooped..."
"You're naked...That's why you have your jammies on...you have to take a bath, 'cause you pooped..."
"You get in your bed right now.  This is the last time I'm telling you...."
       I'm wondering if this came from yesterday, when we had to discuss how this was going to go down about 38 times in 2 hours...could it be?

Today, they were lucky they're my most loved goyles...

"You're gonna miss this.  You're gonna want this back.  You're gonna wish these days hadn't gone by so fast...these are the good times.  So, take a good look around.  You may not know it now, but you're gonna miss this."   --That song is perfect for today...listen as you read...great stuff and I'm sure it's true because I'm already missing them as I write this.  It's hard to have to be the one that teaches them lessons and tries to keep them from being brats...all the time. ;)
Here's how today went for me...

6am - Jorey arrives in our room - wants to sleep in our bed.  After 30 minutes of digging her toes into my stomach...must love the squishy toy?...she falls asleep.
7:40am - Macy arrives to join our bed.
8:00am - Cartoons come on in hopes of 30 minutes of silence...no can do.
8:20am - Fighting over everything in a toy bin - Jorey touching Macy - Macy punching Jorey - Jorey punching back - both screaming and crying that it was each other.
9:00am - Mary Ann asks me to join at the Farmer's Market
             We discuss going next time - I would have to bring girls - in Jammies - Decide they will wait for us
              to join.
10:00am - running quite late - grab some cash - Macy and Jorey are fighting over water...it's water...it's not worthy of a fight, but I guess it's probably necessary to fight over it because that's the kind of day we're going to have.
10:45am - Arrive at Minneapolis Farmer's Market - it's not a farmers market like anything I know - rather, a compact zoo of tight twists and turns...I have my double stroller + 2 goyles...slight anxiety.
11:00am - Hit the bathrooms - get many dirty looks and nearly take out appx. 20 people with stroller trying to get it up the ramp and park it to get in 3 stall bathroom.
11:15am - Make it into potty - Tell Macy and Jorey 32 times each - 'Do not open the door', while I'm going potty...they both unlock it one time.
11:30am - Find Sr. - he has mini donuts...sweet.  We finish his and have one order of our own + fresh squeezed OJ...spill donuts one time into the bottom of the stroller - that was partly my fault.
Noon - start wandering - wander a couple places trying to keep up with Mary Ann's hunt for the perfect Mums. - Lose her 2x - then, gather the girls and try to take a short walk through.  Get another 8 dirty looks, topped off with a woman who wanted to walk past us and had to wait the .0817 second for us to pass...loudly she says, "Damn Stroller!" - I feel like I want to start a fight with her, but that would be wrong...but would feel so right.
12:30pm - I decide there's not much I need and really should get my ginormous stroller out of the maze, so we head out to our car - that is parked on a curb because it's the only parking spot I could find.
1:00pm - finally have my sugar & cinnamon dunked goyles cleaned up and put in the car.
1:30pm - see Jorey falling asleep - ask her if she's sleepy.  "No, I am NOT sleepy!"
1:40pm - Jorey's sleeping in her car seat.
2:00pm - Arrive Home - Put kids to bed.
2:10pm - Go remind girls that they're supposed to be napping.
2:20pm - Go remind them again - Macy tells me she has to poop.  - OK, go.
2:25pm - Come to help Macy wipe, see brown stuff on carpet - ask what it is - Informant tells me "Jorey wiped her poop on the floor".  Jorey confirms that this is true. 
2:26pm - Change Jorey's Diaper - Get Carpet Cleaner - Clean Carpet - Discuss that we don't dig in our pants and wipe poop on the floor.
2:30pm - Put both girls back to bed.
2:45pm - Remove Jorey from Macy's room - warn of pending spanking
2:50pm - Remove again - apply light spanking
2:55pm - Remove again - apply 3 spankings -
3:10pm - Go to [still screaming] Jorey's room and calm her down - share with her that when I say it's nap time, it's nap time.  Rub her back a little bit, and give her hugs...let her know that I love her and that it's not OK to go in Macy's room when it's nap time.
3:30pm - take lounger chair on the deck and try to close my eyes for 20 minutes.

3:50pm - hear Jorey screaming 'Mommy' from the top of the stairs - tell her to come down - get told that she can't come down because she has too much stuff - baby, blankie, lion, etc.  Tell her, again, to come down.

4:15pm - Macy's up and wants to play in the pool - way too late for that.  Have discussion about how we could have played in the pool if they listened, but they didn't, so we just can't.

5:00pm - Take babies and strollers for a walk around the neighborhood.  Argue most of the time about whether or not they should or should not crash into one another - sometimes fun, sometimes not.

6:00pm - Put Mighty Joe Young in the DVD Player and relax with a nice TV Dinner. 

7:00pm - Dinner's done, talk about snacks - Macy says she wants to pick first, then Jorey wants to be first...sort it out.

7:30pm - Jorey wants to watch movie on the couch with Macy, but Macy says she can't because she stinks.  I ask Jorey if she pooped - 'No, I did not!', so who knows...maybe she does stink, but I thought she smelled fine.

8:30pm - Dad's finally home and I'm loving the silence as he puts them to bed.

9:15 - I'm going to take a bath!

Oh, I do love them, but today was a tough day for all of us!

Rewinding just a bit - Macy got some make-up kits for her birthday and she invited auntie Natalie and auntie Kenzie over for some make overs...here are a few shots of their unwavering beauty.  :)  Mackenzie had a large clump of orange 'sauce' on her eyelid for about 20 minutes...so funny.  

A Night Away

I scheduled myself a night away for Saturday night, up to my friend Melissa's house.  Ken was at his national softball tournament in Oklahoma (where they took 2nd place!  Woo Hoo).  The girls had 2 babysitters.  Auntie Natalie and Auntie Amy.  Natalie came over on Saturday, while the girls were napping and then had them outside, playing in the pool for much of the afternoon.  When I checked in on their status the next day, I was informed that Macy offered a standoff outside.  She was NOT coming in the house, so auntie had to carry her in.  I can only imagine that scene and the standoff by my sassy 4-year-old!  ha ha.  Following that, Amy came over on Sunday just in time for Macy to get a sliver in her foot.  Yellow Papa and Gramma came pulling in shortly after this sliver went into her foot, in order to assist in getting it out. 
Sometimes, I feel bad that our babysitters are tortured, but mostly I just giggle to myself at what it must have been like to argue these points with them.
I'm so thankful that we have these adult and stable babysitters that are willing to help out - for free - I'm not sure a 12-year-old would survive the madness.

Speaking of madness, I never did put any of the pictures of Macy's birthday party festivities on here.  We invited her entire class of 26 kids over to the house, + a few friends and a couple cousins.  We ended up with 24 kids under the age of 5!  We started with the madness in the jumper, tried a water-balloon toss - they didn't get the concept - was I really thinking they would?  Yes - but, clearly that was just one of those moments that I need to pull my head out of my a$$.  After that futile attempt at the organized toss, though, we did offer an all-out assault on Ken.  The kids had a blast throwing the balloons at him and then if he caught it, he'd throw it back at him...craziness.  We had pizza, ice cream, Mary Ann's fab cupcakes, and then played pin the slipper on Cinderella, which also resulted in many kids wondering why Macy's crazy mom was putting a towel over their face so they couldn't see...good times.  Here are some photos of the event.  We had a blast and Macy and her friends sure did, too. 

I think all the little kids in her class are going to want to conduct an all-out assault on Ken next time they see him in a vulnerable situation!