Lost

Last week we had a scary experience at our house!! I think that this type of experience has now happened with all 3 of our girls.

Last week my husband had a day "off" from work. However, he had scheduled a phone conference from home on the morning that he had "off". His phone meeting was scheduled right during our morning school rush. That was fine. I have gotten the kids ready and out the door for school on my own many times. So, I was in the kitchen preparing lunches, getting breakfast made, and getting kids homework packed, spelling test review for my son, doing hair... all the usual stuff. Now, when I had started all of our morning business, Livee had been with us. She had started eating breakfast, but at some point she had gotten off her stool and headed out of the kitchen. She headed in the direction of our computer/tv room, where Travis was having a phone conference. I figured that she had went in with Travis and so I continued getting the kids ready for school. About 15-20 minutes later, I had all of the kids getting in the car for school and I asked the older kids to go and get Livee from the computer room. They came back and said she wasn't there. What?! Hmmmm, it's been really quiet and I haven't seen her. I called out her name a few times. No answer. I asked Gloria and Gray to run upstairs and look, while I looked downstairs . I ran straight to the pool (always a major worry), and then ran around the downstairs. No Livee. Not upstairs, not downstairs. At this point I interrupt Travis and tell him that Livee has been missing for 15-20 minutes. Has he seen her? He says no, drops the phone and runs outside. The big kids run outside and I stay inside, looking in cupboards and closets,under couches and under beds, yelling her name the whole time. About 10 minutes have passed, by now. Travis and the kids have run to the end of the property and I have searched everywhere. I had said a prayer at the beginning of this experience, asking for Livee to be safe- but now I am starting to freak out! I am crying and my body is shaking so hard and I am envisioning all sorts of bad things. I am upstairs in the attic (yes, looking in the attic) and thinking that I need to come downstairs and call the police. I am terrified, but I took a moment while I was in the attic to kneel down and say another prayer. In this prayer I ask Heavenly Father to help us find her immediately, I have looked every where that I can think too, I begged Him to help us find her quickly. I asked for her to be safe. Then I got up and ran to the door and when I got to the stairs, she was standing there, right in the middle, looking up at me. She smiled and said "hi mommy". I grabbed her and held her on the stairs, I practically collapsed and just held her and rocked her while I was crying. I was shaking so badly. I then thought of Travis and the kids out running around the property and up and down the street. I gathered my strength and ran outside with Liv and started yelling for Travis. We ran part way down the driveway (it's a really, really long driveway, you can't see the end of it from our house, and you can't see our house from the start of the driveway). I was yelling for Travis. When he finally heard me, he yelled "did you find her?", I yelled "yes" and in about 20 seconds the whole family was huddled around me and Livee, hugging and loving her.

Where was she, you ask? Well, she was hidden behind our lovely yellow drapes in our family room, coloring on a coloring book, because she was GROUNDED from crayons (for coloring on walls). She had taken a coloring book and crayons behind the drapes and was coloring. I am so thankful that she is OK. It was one of the worst moments of life!!