Another day of canning. . .

Alright, I am a little sad because I wanted to take more pictures today, but my camera died. It is a rechargeable battery and I just didn't pay attention to the battery light until it was too late. So, I thought it would be fun to show some pictures from my oldest in the hospital in January from his sledding accident.

In January, on a Friday evening, we went sledding for a FUN family activity. Michael was supposed to have a Basketball practice, but it was cancelled so with fresh snow on the ground we figured we would go sledding. Of course, I am the nervous mom not wanting my children to get hurt. I could hardly watch them come down the hill with their crazy tricks.
I was visiting with one of my friends and Michael starts crying. I figured it was some small incident so I told him to quite crying and get back up the hill if he wanted to keep sledding. Then I turned my head to look and see what was happening and was in TOTAL SHOCK and PANIC (with 4 boys it takes alot for me to panic :). We ran to the car and loaded 4 boys and 4 inflated tubes into the van. Ran to instacare, but within minutes the doctor was telling us to rush over to the Emergency Room because he was concerned about the swelling growing so fast.
This is what his eye looked like on the way to the Emergency Room. The swelling was growing as fast as I could drive. Zachary and Michael had decided it would be fun to see if Michael could jump at Zachary as he came down the hill with his tube to see if he could stop him. He stopped him alright, with his head.

This is what Michael's eye looked like about an hour after being at the hospital. We ended up going to an optomotrist at 10:45 p.m. to see if he had lost his vision in that eye.

The good news is. . .it has been 10 months now and his eye is healed and he didn't lose any of his vision. We sure are lucky!
The best part was that he decided he didn't want to miss his Junior Jazz game on Saturday so here is a picture of him playing on Saturday morning. He also had team pictures a week later. Team pictures we will never forget :).

Here are a couple of pictures of his eye healing over the next few weeks in January.


We've been starting to get in a good consistent habit of reading the Book of Mormon everyday. We were actually getting to the point that we would read in the morning and in the evening. We loved it and the kids loved it! For some reason we have gotten back out of the habit for the last week. We decided that this morning we would read before the kids hurried to the bus. By 8:00 a.m. the phone was ringing and by 8:45 a.m. I had gotten 4 phone calls. Needless to say, our habit didn't start back up this morning.

Then I ran off to a PTA Board Meeting. I am the Treasurer this year so I had to get there a few minutes early to make some copies. I got done with the meeting and the few things that I had to take care of around 11:30 p.m.

After that I ran over to pick up my son from Preschool and then raced to get my kindergartner off the bus. From there we spent the day bottling tomatoes, making Raspberry jam and making Strawberry Syrup.

In the middle of that I had scouts. We got to go to the Fire Department for scouts today. It was alot of fun and the boys had a good time. Field trips for cubscouts always make it fun for the boys and easy for us. We only have 4 boys and we have a good time.

It is always fun to be with my family. We laugh, joke, work hard together and of course, have our differences every once in awhile :). That adds for great variety and entertainment. I love it!

With the 2 days of canning together here is my mom-sanity thought:

Yesterday I got a phone call asking me to share a thought at the PTA Board Meeting today. Each month we have a Character that we focus on with the students. This month is Tolerance and Diversity. When I got the phone call yesterday we were DEEP into the Strawberry Jam and working with several different personalities. As it got later and everyone was tired and hungry the word Tolerance came to mind.

I am grateful that I have such a wonderful family that shows alot of tolerance for each other. No matter what we go through and our differences we love each other and can work together and find ourselves willing to do things for each other.

In the packet of thoughts and activities for this Character there was a quote that I loved. "The highest result of education is tolerance" by Helen Keller. I find that tolerance and recognizing the best in individuals is very important. I truly believe that most people strive to do their best.

If you would like to see all of the packet or other ideas of other Characters you can go to www.lindoncharacterconnection.com. Then click on curriculum and you can find all of the packets. They are great for office thoughts, FHE topics with your children, etc.