How to kill fruit flies

These fruit flies have been HORRIBLE!!! Just when I sanitize and think I get rid of everything they would like, I leave a dishrag out (that they like). Then the next night I'll forget to clean out the bottom of Royce's highchair w/ a microscopic piece of cantelope in it. Seriously, they multiply by the hundreds it seems and they drive me nuts. Well, apparently, all I have to do is NOT try to get rid of them, and they'll go away..........oh, and also with a little help from this:

Last night was Preston and Mason N.'s last night here and since they wouldn't be getting breakfast at work, I thought I would make them so Cinnamon Monkey Bread for them to grab w/ some fruit or something at 4 in the morning when they left.

Brooks, Preston, Mason and the 4 older kids went to McD's for dinner. I stayed home and put the 2 babies down. Whoa, whoa, let me back up.

Yesterday morning, I made something in the oven and it turned out great. I turned off the oven, and it wouldn't turn off. It stayed on BROIL, which I never turned on. It kept blinking "FI" at me, which I kept thinking was "FIRE" and it would NOT turn off. I got a little freaked out, so I went downstairs and turned off the breaker to the oven.

Okay, so last night when I heated up the oven to cook the monkey bread (for 30 minutes), when I put it in, I noticed the "Broil" heaters were on again, but for some reason just thought they would go off and were helping w/ the heating of the oven. (lame, I know, but I was hoping against hope that it wouldn't happen again.)

I went downstairs (Biggest Loser was on, duh) and 10 minutes later I smelled smoke.

Instead of running upstairs to see, I KNEW what it was and ran into the garage to shut off the oven breaker again. Then I bolted up the stairs to see a THICK blanket of smoke of about 2-3 ft. on the ceiling and fog down to the ground. Went into the kitchen and pulled out (the lovely dish shown on the oven that was SCORCHED and about to catch on fire), ran it outside, and quickly started to open up windows, turn on fans, etc. The smoke was so thick, and it stunk so bad.

I immediately went into action and just kept trying to air things out, shake towels to help and freezing out my house in the process. It must've been pure adrenaline that kept me going before, because by the time I sat down, I just broke down thinking of all the "what-ifs".

My mind went crazy thinking about Royce and Iris sleeping, and my plan of action if there WAS a fire to go and save Iris and Royce, etc. The mother in me just felt a little shaky about it all. It was too cold upstairs and I really couldn't do anything else, so I went downstairs to finish watching Biggest Loser and decided that my heart rate had probably been higher then their's anyway.

Everyone else got home about 9:15 and probably wondered what the HECK was going on. Most of the smoke was gone, but I'm sure my face said enough......and it STUNK of MAJOR smoke. And that got me thinking about what would it have been like for them if they came home and found fire trucks in front of their house! (Actually, the kids would've been thrilled, but for Brooks, I'm sure his stomach would've dropped).

With all this, I didn't really get the kids in bed, so the older 4 just stayed up and finished Biggest Loser with me, even though Mason and Preston were trying to sleep (the TV is in their "bedroom") because they had to get up at 4 a.m. this morning.

Checking on the kids before I went to bed made me cry being so scared thinking about it again. Needless to say, I sat in bed and read some of the Book of Mormon to calm me down (because I figured my mind wouldn't let me go to sleep!). It helped as well as praying that I could feel a little extra peace. It was so nice to know that Heavenly Father still has time for something as silly as this to show me he cares and help me sleep.

However there ARE two things I learned from this:

1) The smoke alarm apparently does NOT work

2) Smoke kills fruit flies. They're gone.

Oh, and it STILL reeks of smoke today. Ick.

And since I'm on an Iris kick lately on my blog (I could literally post a picture everyday of something she's done or got into), here's her this morning while I was feeding everyone else breakfast............NOT with my oven/stovetop.