One Heart and Mind: Random September/October

I feel like sometimes like I'm on one of those hamster wheels. I keep running and running and can't get off. It is a very busy time in our lives and we fill it to the maximum. These past two months have been full of birthdays, football games, basketball games, volleyball games, canning, and just trying to keep my head above water being a Mom to many. And one particular child is giving me a heck of a lot of trouble....the one that hasn't even been born yet (I told the kids he was getting a time out the minute he is born for making my life so miserable).

Despite it all I manage to make homemade pies because I just can't go through peach season without a peach pie. It just isn't right no matter how rotten I feel.

I also canned pears for the first time in my life. Not fun, but bearable if you have company to do it with. Thanks to my parents we managed to make it through and came up with some storage for the winter. I would Not, Repeat, Not attempt this on my own....it's a sanity breaker.

My little side kick in everything I do. It looks like he is getting into something that maybe he knows he shouldn't.

Then as if life weren't taking enough of a toll, I get a call from the elementary school as I'm hauling in my groceries telling me that I needed to get to the school immediately because Riley had really messed up his knee falling off the monkey bars. I dropped everything and went to the school not sure what I was going to find. He was in the office, laying down, crying, with both knees wrapped. Apparently with some miscommunication it wasn't the monkey bars, but a rough basketball game in which he tripped over a kid and went sliding across the asphalt.

The nurse told me that his one knee was really bad and would need stitches. Of course our very favorite doctor had the day off and there was not a doctor around because it was lunch. I sat in the emergency room parking lot contemplating if I should go in. I called Rob all panicked because Riley was in so much pain and I just wanted to help the poor kid. Well, Rob contacted our friend who is also our doctor and that sweet man came in on his day off and spent a lot of time picking rocks out of Riley's wound and stitching him up. He told me I didn't want to look at it because it was really bad but I looked anyway and he was right....it was a nasty hole in his knee. He got stitches inside and out.

Riley also received his arrow of light and has now graduated into the boy scout program.

His leader has been in scouts for years and has been with all my boys. She is so good to make sure they pass everything off that they need to. She gave Riley a really great tribute before she sent him off.

And then just some random pictures of one out of my many future missionaries. This is his first white shirt and tie. He's been wanting to be like his brothers for awhile.