Hey, Guys...

Hey, guys. 
I'm sorry I haven't posted in, like, an incredibly long time...!  Before I get into exactly WHY I haven't been posting as much lately, I want to give you all a heads up. 
As much as I hate to say it, I'm not going to be posting much anymore, if at all.  After the events of the past few weeks, I've decided that I should focus my time on my family as opposed to blogging.  Yes, you guys are practically my family as well, but...well, you'll understand why.   
I've talked it over with Eugene, Belle, and Zarina, and they're supporting me in my decision  - I wanted to make sure it wasn't a knee-jerk reaction to the past couple of weeks.

I may be posting again at one point and on special occasions, but for now, I just want to devote all my time on family. 

In THIS POST, I mentioned those strange Mattel dolls, right?  The ones that were supposedly Audrey and Jordan's adoptive parents, sometime before us?
Well...I was right to feel uneasy about them. 

October 31st - yes, Halloween - I woke up and, like most every morning, I went to check on the kiddos before going back to bed until they got up. 
Audrey and Jordan were missing.  Right out of their beds.  Gone. 
Casey and Zach were sleeping soundly, still in their own beds.  The other two were gone. 
I hope I never get that awful feeling in my stomach ever again.  I can't even put it into words, how it felt to wake up and see practically half of my entire family MISSING.  I can hardly even write about it. 

So of course, I woke Eugene up frantically.  He, half asleep, laughed it off and said they were probably planning a Halloween prank.  I repeated my sentence: "Audrey and Jordan are missing!"  and he came to his senses quickly. 

We wasted no time waking everyone else up, asking if they'd seen or heard something through the night.  Zelia was livid.  I feel that she, given the chance, would have happily torn those two Mattel dolls limb for limb.  She might have had to stand in line. 
Ray was angry at himself.  He, for some reason, thought it his fault - being a light sleeper, he thought he should have heard something, woken up, and caught them in the act.  Zelia had to talk him down.  I haven't seen him so furious in a long time. 
Fitz left to tell Zarina, and by the time the both of them (and Belle) came to the table, Casey and Zachary were up.  We explained the situation to Casey, and then Zarina told me she would stay behind with Casey and Zach. 
So then the search commenced. 
The search party consisted of Eugene, Zelia, Ray, Fitz, Belle, and I.  You would think we would either run into Tangled Fan during this time or run into those two awful dolls - I don't even know their names - but we didn't.  All day, we searched and searched for our girls.  We didn't find them.

For almost an entire week, we hunted for them.  We caught a glimpse of the female Barbie slipping off somewhere, but we couldn't catch her in time.  By then, Eugene's hip joints were just absolutely shot.  He had to stay back, and Zarina volunteered to take his place.  He watched Casey and Zach while we continued the search. 

FINALLY, we found them.  They had escaped, and Audrey had somehow managed to carry Jordan all the way across the room.  We found them hiding UNDER the shelving unit; she told me they'd been kept in the lowest drawer in Tangled Fan's dresser, the one she never uses.  None of us had considered looking in there; those drawers are nearly impossible to drag open for us dolls.  Anyway, Audrey was scared and hurt; Jordan was screaming.  We rushed them home. 
When they were safe and rested back on the table, they explained why they had taken them:  They had wanted to take them back not because they loved them, but because they 'owned' them.  She elaborated that she only acted excited about them when we ran across them on our day out because she was afraid to show any other emotion, thinking that they might come after them right then and there.   Safe to say, the next time we saw Tangled Fan, she told us she'd put them in a box in the attic for good. 

Yeesh.
That's the extremely compressed version.  I've never been happier to see them in my life.  Eugene's slowly on the mend.  They're home safe, and I'm pretty sure that we'll never let ANY of our kids out of sight again, not even at night xD  I can't believe them.  (The couple, not the kids.) 

I apologize for such a condensed post, but I, in all honesty, don't remember enough about to post in great detail about it.  All I know is that we were searching from sunup to sundown, desperate, and emotions were running high. It was just a blur. 

But anyway - before I start crying - I just wanted to thank you guys.  You have stuck with me through all of the absolutely INSANE year I've had the blog.  I love each and every one of you, and cannot thank you enough for following the blog to read about my - and our - insane, tangled, and emotional roller coaster rides that are bound to happen on a day-to-day basis. 
(For example: In eleven months, we've ended up with four kiddos, moved shelves countless times, made friends, lost friends, fallen and received injuries, gotten knocked out to the point of not remembering your own husband, had a baby when it's basically impossible for any other Disney doll (aside from Ariels) to do so...did I miss anything??  Probably...)
I hope we can get the time to breathe for, say, ten minutes before the next disaster?  If that ever happens, I'll post to let anyone still watching the blog know :D 
Thank you again, and...since Zachary is demanding some time with his mother (based on the loud cries and questions of  'Daddy can hold you too, right?  What's wrong, bud?'), I suppose I should stop now before either I'm a blubbering mess and have to explain to Eugene why I'm crying, or Zachary starts a full-blown hissy. 
See you all sometime, and thank you so much.  Of course, I'll leave the blog open in case you want to see old posts.  [: