Sorry to leave you hanging....

Many things to discuss. Where to start? First Jack (Noah named his after Jack Black - ???), Bowzer (Elijah's), and TJ Hopper (Heath's) have made it for over 24 hours!!!! I guess we've made it through the difficult adjustment period. Welcome to the family guys.

The life of an 8 year old boy... as seen through the eyes of his mother. We attended Heath & Elijah's awards program at school. Elijah received a trophy for making the honor roll all year. You go boy! Heath suprised us all by receiving an award for having the highest GPA in Math. WOW!!! He is just like his dad ;0) An exciting day to say the least. We left school, went to lunch & played all afternoon. That night all 3 boys were being recognized at the Diamond Jaxx game for being on the honor roll all year. They get to walk out on the field, say their name & school into the microphone while they're filmed for the big screen. Oh the excitement builds. Did I mention that that they got this really cool pennant from Union University & they were allowed to eat all the junk food that a kid could possibly eat? I am telling you it doesn't get any better than this. Dad had just walked in the door. I had all the cameras ready. I told the boys to put up the bikes & come in. IT'S TIME TO GO!!!!! Oh how exciting again. Heath says okay, be there in just a minute. Hum.. Sounds like a lesson is fixing to be learned. Our neighbor comes over with his way cooler bike. It has brakes on the handle bars. So, of course Heath decides to ride it & then he'll come in. Now, I don't blame our neighbor at all. I think it was very generous of him to share. The next thing I know is Heath is running in the house crying harder than I've ever seen. So, being the mother. I start looking for injuries. Found some... skinned knees, elbow & a bigger scrape on his shoulder. So, what do I do? Yes, you guessed it...I took the shirt off to bandage the booboo. Now, please understand that I am standing behind him. I see that his shoulder is about 4 inches lower than the other side & it's sticking out pretty far. I yell at Andy to come take a look at what I thought was a dislocated shoulder. He comes in & sees the front & doesn't tell me that he already knows he has broken his collar bone. (ugh!) I fix the booboo & put the shirt back on. DUH! I'm not a nurse, okay? Andy says he's taking him to the ER (or at least that's what I heard, instead he went to convenient care) We are instructed to go on to the game & meet up with the grandparents & 2 aunts that are meeting us at the game. So, we do our thing. We have it all on video & enough pics to fill my scrapbook page for this event. We are in line getting yet more junk food & the phone rings. Andy can't talk, but he states that "He broke his collar bone." WHAT????? I felt so bad. I spent the rest of the night on the phone, getting in line for more food, on the phone, in line, on the phone. I think you get the picture. I don't know what all happened with the game, but I do know from hearing the next day that we did win. Poor guy. I've never seen any of my children in the kind of pain that he was in. When he hurt, HE HURT! His little body would shake & break out in this sweat. Thank goodness for drugs. Well, that has been almost 3 weeks ago. We are feeling much better. In fact it's hard to make him understand that he is still injured even though he doesn't feel any pain. Hopefully he'll get out of the sling before his 9th birthday.

I think I mentioned that I am going to be teaching the boys (2 of them). I know I said I could never do this. But, God has bigger plans than I can imagine. I am actually excited about it now. I went to Nashville with a friend that has been doing it for years. We went to a curriculum fair. I have never been so convicted in my life. We have all the books & lesson plans ready except for Math, which is being ordered. We've been testing it a little & doing some "work" since we really can't do anything else this summer (see above post). I actually am enjoying spending time with the guys. They seem to respect each other more after we've learned something together. I know all days won't be rosey. I think I am ready for those days, and will take the suprises of a good day as a blessing. We'll keep you posted. I am sure it's going to be an adventure.

Until next time, -Charity