The day before yesterday, James and I took out the toilet, because somehow it had gotten clogged and we couldn't plunge it.   After taking the toilet out, and getting rid of what clogging it up (paper towels!), we went back in and realized that the floor underneath it was rotting, because the seal on the toilet wasn't good and it had been leaking.

So that whole day was spent with us tearing out the floor, and tearing out the wall beside it too. We took the sink out too.   James ended up having to take out all of the pipes that lead to the septic tank and trying to replace them with new ones (that was a whole other problem, but I didn't know exactly what caused it).  We finally got the toilet back on and working in the end.

Then yesterday, sometime in the afternoon, Noah was acting really hyper and I told him it was about time for a nap.  He didn't want to go to bed, and he cried after I put him there (he usually does that when he's really tired).  I was on the phone with one of my friends, and had to just try to tone him out for a bit.  He finally quieted down and I was able to have a pleasant conversation for a while, then all of a sudden, I heard Caleb saying, "MOM, you have to come in here and see what Noah did! It's BAD!"     I jumped up and ran into the bathroom where I heard the noise coming from, and I saw the sink pipe, broken, with water gushing out of it!   Noah had apparently been pulling on the pipe.  Ugh!

I ran back to the phone, told my friend I'd have to call her back, and then ran as fast as I could to the water valve to shut the water off.     I tried to turn the little knob, but it was really hard to turn, and I thought that maybe I was pulling the wrong part.  So I ran back to the house (our house is a long way from the valve), and called James to ask him how to do it.  He didn't answer the phone. Isn't that how it always goes when you need someone really fast? They're never there!   I was freaking out ,cause the water was gushing as I spent time doing this, so I quickly typed in "how to turn off water valve" on the internet, and found an image that helped me see that I actually had it right the first time.  

So I ran back to the water valve, shut it off, and ran back to the house to see if the water was off.  It was, but there was about an inch of water in the bathroom, an inch in the master bedroom, and all down the hallway.  Bonnie and Caleb were able to catch a lot of it in one of their plastic toy boxes, fortunately, but there was so much water, everywhere! 

I looked at the pipe where it had broken and thought maybe I could repair it.  I have never really done any plumbing, but if I wanted to have water yesterday, I had to do something.  Also, as much work as James had put into the bathroom Monday, I didn't want him to have to do it again when he got back.

My brother in law came over, and  offered to watch the kids while I drove to the hardware store....I picked up a few pipes, and on the way back I saw a yard sale, stopped at it and bought 7 towels to mop up the water with. 

When I got back, I put the towels on the floor and within about 2 minutes, all 7 towels were completely soaked..  I used a few covers to try to soak up the rest.  Then, for the rest of the day, I spent my time breaking out part of the wall, measuring pipe, cutting it, and trying to piece it together so that it would fit and patch it up.   It took FOREVER, cause I had no idea what I was doing.  

The good news is that I had it all pieced together when James got home!!!  (Except that he had to put the glue on the pipes).  I was so proud of myself for having done it!  lol   So, was my big accomplishment for the day. ha ha