Surprise!

Let's see if I remember how to do this blogging thing.  In the interest of jumping back in, I have set a timer and am going to type for the next 10 minutes - no going back to edit, just going with it.

Where have I been?  Busy living life and raising three crazy, sweet, argumentative, crazy, rowdy, sweet, wrestling boys.  And that sums up about 2 minutes with the 3 of them!  There are times when they finally fall into bed and I just want to lie on my bed, motionless, and absorb the quiet.  There are times when I want to scream, "Please do not touch me for five entire minutes."  And then there are times when they've been in bed for just a few minutes and I have to resist the urge to go snuggle up next to one of them just to be sure they are okay. 

My heart feels heavily lately knowing so many people are struggling with sick kids (or worse)  financial struggles or relationship woes.  I feel like it's hard to keep track of everyone I want to care for, pray for, worry about, encourage, love on, etc.  Maybe this is just an age thing, getting older leads to more grown up problems perhaps?  Or maybe it's just making me more sentimental?  Or maybe there just really is more tragedy and sadness?

Well, this isn't where I thought I would go with this post.  Where have I been was the question...

I'm nearly out of time so I think I'll share about our summer since I neglected to blog even one minute of it.  I would say this was my best summer as a mom!  Seth is 7 and I've been home for 5 years and I must say this summer rocked!  Part of it was the creation of Sister Sanity Day nearly once a week.  My boys LOVE hanging out with their cousins and my sister and I learned our kids were finally at ages where it was fun to be together and just hang out with all five of them so we did - the pool at the Y was a huge hit.  We also did found a beach (beach, in the middle of the Midwest, YES!) about 45 minutes away.  It was small and rather in the middle of an apartment complex but there was sand and water and five kiddos who had a great time and two sisters who could sit on towels near the water and chat and soak up the sun and keep a close eye on their sweet kiddos loving on each other.  (Note: leave before rush hour or just stay later next time - tired children sitting in a traffic jam were not the highlight of this day!)

Eek, I'm at 12 minutes.  Time to wrap it up for tonight.  Hopefully I'll be back soon.  But I think I won't make any big promises.