Would you like to buy some cookies?

Our Mile High Madelyn is a Brownie with some school friends this year. And, as such, she's been selling Girl Scout cookies.

It turns out that her troop is considered a "super troop" because they sold SO. MANY. COOKIES. last year. Last year, the girls averaged 284 boxes each and that is after the two highest sellers' numbers were taken out. Yikes! Needless to say, our house has been taken over by Girl Scout cookies over the past month.

She (we) committed to her selling 200 boxes. It is her first year, after all. She got right on it in terms of selling. Of her inventory, she sold almost 150 boxes which is terrific!

Her troop participates in booth sales at local grocery stores. So far, through three booth sales, she's sold approximately 110 additional boxes. That goal of 200 boxes flew by faster than a road sign at 65 mph! And, she still has one booth sale left to go.

The remaining 45 boxes of cookies are finally off my dining room table and in the corner of the room.

I crafted our very own set of cookie costumes. That's a Thin Mint on the left and a Samoa on the right. They might be cute and look delicious but please don't actually eat them.

We are incredibly proud of Madelyn and how hard she's worked at selling cookies. She is so well spoken, polite, and can quickly add up the price of her customers' cookies. It's no wonder she's done so well this year. Luckily, cookie sales are over in two more weeks and then we get a break until next February. And, the girls can go to Girl Scout Camp with the money they've raised as a troop!

Fear and excitement.

WAKE UP!

This morning's alarm clock came earlier than expected when our smoke detectors went off at 4:30. No, it wasn't one smoke detector chirping because it needs a new battery. Every alarm in the entire house was going off. It was awful.

Griff grabbed the womping stick from under the bed, thinking at first that it was the security alarm. Not knowing what was going on, I got dressed to leave the house and gathered kids. The three of us went downstairs to put on shoes while Griff checked the whole house. And found nothing.

An hour later - It was probably just 4 or 5 minutes - the alarms stopped.

I told Griff I would feel better if we called 9-1-1 and just asked them about it. So, I did. I stressed that it wasn't an emergency but we didn't know why the smoke detectors sounded for so long this morning. They said they'd send the truck over to walk through our house.

Relative tangent to the story: Sawyer is OBSESSED with fire trucks and everything firefighter. He loves his Fireman Sam DVD and always requests Fireman Sam whenever Madelyn and he are getting a show. Last weekend, at the picnic in Aunt Shelley's neighborhood, the Denver Fire Department came by and (gently) sprayed people with water as it was SO hot that day. Madelyn and he played "white firetruck spraying you" for quite a while that evening. There is a fire station (Station No 18) less than a mile from our house. We toured it in April and he always requests to "see firetrucks" when we drive by because I have so much pull in whether the fire station doors are open or closed and if the trucks are in or out. For his birthday in June, we gave him a framed picture of our fire station with the hook and ladder parked out front. It hangs on the wall right beside his crib.

As we waited for the firefighters this morning. I could see both fear and excitement in Sawyer. Excitement because the fire truck was coming! And, because it was not quite 5:00A, we could hear the truck coming down the street behind us (without sirens, thankfully) and making it's way to our house. To make a story that's becoming longer than necessary shorter, Sawyer was definitely scared when the fire truck pulled up and the firefighters came inside.

The firefighters explained some things to Griff and I about smoke detectors. Basically, without smoke and the alarms having stopped, we have to wait until next time (Yay!) to figure out which one is malfunctioning. Yadda yadda yadda. We also determined, between the two of us, that it was probably the humidifier in Sawyer's room which had generated too much moisture with his door closed and subsequently set off the alarms.

No one went back to bed. Later, Griff told me that he thought it probably was a good idea the firefighters didn't walk through our whole house. If they had seen the framed picture of their truck in Sawyer's room, they might have thought we were crazy firefighter fans who had called in the middle of the night just to have them stop by. Yep, I'm sure that's exactly what they would have thought!

Hopefully we can avoid any more false alarms. And, hopefully our next encounter with the fine folks from Station No 18 will be at a fire station tour or when they visit school again in the Fall.

Never a dull moment.

Let's set the scene. The time was a little after 600P on a Friday. Griff was on his way home from a business trip in Lake Tahoe. The kids had just traded in their old balloons for new ones. Madelyn chose purple (her favorite!) and Sawyer chose red. I'm in the kitchen with my back turned -- Yes, I realize this is ultimately where I went wrong. -- putting together dinner plates for some Friday night homemade macaroni and cheese.

I should tell you that these two LOVE balloons. Really, what kid doesn't? So, the amount of happy noise and playing I was hearing behind me was not alarming. There was much pitter patter of feet and a Sawyer cat meowing. I'm not sure for how long he was meowing but there was a lot of it. In fact, there was so much, Madelyn admits that even she tuned it out.

When I turned around, I was stopped dead in my tracks at what I saw. Sawyer was on all fours on the kitchen table...crawling laps around the center piece...meowing like a cat. I didn't know whether to yell, laugh, or grab the camera. So first, I grabbed the camera. To give you an idea of his speed, he made at least three laps in the time it took me to grab my phone and start recording.

Yes, the video's short but in the interest of my child's safety, I thought I should cut things off pretty quickly. Apparently, I've got a climber on my hands!

Meow, meow, meow, meow, meow.