We haven’t gone for a family walk in years, it used to be something we did all the time – but not so much anymore. A few weeks ago, we decided to go for one. We headed out, on foot and sans technology to a local park, about a mile from home. The kids were having a blast, running ahead and back, laughing, not fighting with each other! My husband and I were taking our time, it really was a beautiful night!

The kids get to the park a minute before us, and run straight to the monkey bars (the favorite). As Mike and I are walking down the path, we see Alex jump up to grab the first bar, miss and falls. When he stands up, he has tears in his eyes and he comes walking towards us. Before the words were out of his mouth, I already knew what he was going to say. “Mom, I broke my arm again,” he cried as he collapsed into my lap. I wasn’t quite sure what to do, at first, we were over a mile from home with no phones. “RUN,” I turned to my husband and yelled, and he did!

It was a bit of an adventure getting Alex from the playground to the street, and to keep him awake. Promises of new video games and special treats were made. His brothers were fantastically well behaved while we waited for daddy to get back with the car. He made great time, about 20 minutes later, he pulled up, dropped the brothers and mom off at home and headed to the ER with Alex. It was a slightly different break than last time (My Broken Boy) and required IV’s and his oxygen level was a little low, I think from the hyperventilating he was doing. But, 6 hours later the bone was set and home he came.

Later that next week we met with the Orthopedic doctor and got a cast, but because he broke it before (and, not that long ago), a full cast wasn’t an option for the whole time this time. So, about 2 weeks later we went in and Alex got a special brace made just for him. The cool part about the brace is that he can swim in it! Which makes it easier better to have a broken arm in the summer time!

He’s about half way through the healing process now, and he is a champ! If he keeps following the rules until early September, he will be able to only wear his brace part time after school starts (he will have to wear it during any sort of rough play or activity, but not around the classroom)! He’s pretty excited about that!

The fact that he broke his same arm, in the same place 1 1/2 years apart doing the same thing is a total fluke. His arm isn’t weaker or more susceptible because it broke before, it’s all about the way he fell. We’re hoping this is the last one…but he keeps talking about getting back on the monkey bars….

When you break your arm, and have to wait 20 minutes at the park for a ride, you get Ice Cream the next day!

A new blue cast, because blue makes him feel happy!

The brace! Yes, his arm is still a little wiggly looking, it will straighten over time.

It was only 62*F this day, but he didn’t care, after 3 weeks of a cast – he was finally able to swim!

Life gets stressful and busy and this summer has been no different. I keep telling myself to STOP and get in the moment, enjoy the here and now – but my head just keeps swimming to the next thing on the agenda. I can’t shut it off, I am always going 100 Miles Per Hour. My family calls me the whirling dervish….But, that’s not what this post is about, this post is about the one afternoon I did shut if off! Our afternoon on a boat!

Our next door neighbors have a boat and near our house is a big lake – we’ve lived here for 3 years and have talked about going out on the boat a lot but never have. But a few weeks ago, all that changed. I had a hundred things to do, the grass needed mowing, I needed to run to the store, the laundry was piled up, waiting – but the neighbors called and invited us to go out on their boat that afternoon and I said yes! We packed up some snacks and threw on our swimsuits and off we went.

I know nothing about boats. I can’t help with the trailer, I can’t help drive, I don’t know which bin they keep the lifejackets in…so I was stuck. Stuck doing nothing. As the boat picked up speed across the lake, I looked up at the front and saw the smiles on my kids’ faces, and literally felt the weight of everything fly off my shoulders and into the waves behind us!

It was one of the most relaxing afternoons I’ve had in a very long time. Sitting there on the boat, I couldn’t do the laundry or the dishes – I could do nothing and I embraced it. The kids had a blast (even my Broken Boy, who was the only kid who got to drive the boat, since he was the only kid who couldn’t swim)! My youngest told me on the way home that it was the best day of his life.

It was so worth letting go of what I thought needed to be done to go out and do what my family really needed. Fun, time together and a mom who isn’t frazzled and running around like a madwoman all the time! I truly look forward to the next time we go out on a boat – so I can be forced into relaxing and enjoying without guilt.

My kids are baseball players, and we are right in the midst of ball season – which means that we don’t get a lot of family time. It’s a lot of crossing paths on our way to someones practices or games. It gets to be a lot sometimes, but watching the kids play makes it so worth it! Most weeks we have 6-9 games/practices to get to in the evenings, my husband coaches and I am team manager for both teams and the bench mom for one. It’s a crazy life we live – and if you need us, we’ll be at the ball park!

My youngest hasn’t started yet, technically he could be playing T-Ball, but with coaching responsibilities, we couldn’t get both him and the middle where they needed to be when they needed to be there this year. So he’s doing sports day-camp this summer to learn the skills so he’s ready to play next year! But, he’s always on the sidelines cheering his brothers on (and playing with his baseball buddies)!

My middle son, Alex, is playing coach pitch for the second year. He loves playing and feels so proud when he’s wearing his uniform. This year, he’s on the Royals. I am a bench mom on his team, which lets me get to know all of the kids pretty well (and keep them from hurting each other with the bats….). It’s so fun to watch them learn the basics and improve throughout the season. As we start, everyone hits and everyone runs the bases – but starting next week they are playing with real outs – and that is a very different experience for them!

This year my oldest is playing traveling ball – which is a much bigger commitment. Plus, my husband coaches! His games are not just in our community, but surrounding ones up to 40 minutes away. He plays several games a week, starting as late as 8PM and in tournaments many weekends (these can be hours away from home….requiring hotel stays). But he LOVES it. And so do we. Being a part of the traveling baseball community is awesome. The games are very competitive, the parents are there to support each other (other moms send me photos all the time, since I can’t be at many of Adam’s weeknight games) – it’s awesome. Plus, they have really cute shirts for moms to wear while cheering!

So there you go, if you’ve been wondering where I am or why I’m so quiet these days, it’s because of baseball! Now I have to run – I have time for a cup of coffee with my husband before he and Adam are off to Saturday morning practice!

Last week, we had a snow day. Where I live, snow days are uncommon, and even more so in April. In fact, this was the first snow day ever called in April in our district’s history. But, the winds were blowing, the temps were dropping and most cities had already started summarizing their plows – meaning clean up was going to be a challenge. So, snow day.

We ended up with just shy of 12″ of snow, a pretty good dumping (again, especially for April) of the really heavy, wet snow. The perfect snow for playing in. So, I sent the little’s outside to play. After making snow angels, they asked if I would take a video of them singing the “Sharer’s Snow Day song,” so I did. The Sharers are a YouTube Channel. A trio of siblings do crazy things with popular trends like Nerf, fidget spinners, silly challenges etc all while spreading the message “Share the Love.” Compared to some of the other things they want to watch, this channel is one of my favorites because they are always DOING never sitting around playing video games. This is a very popular YouTube channel with their age-group right now, and they have millions of subscribers.

After recording their little video, I posted it on my Instagram page with a few hashtags and went on with my day. A few hours later, I was back on Instagram and saw I had some likes – and imagine my surprise when I saw that all three of the Sharer’s – these YouTubers my kids are obsessed with – had liked their video. I told the boys that Carter, Lizzy and Stephen had watched their video and liked it – and they were over the moon! I don’t think I’ve ever seen them feel so special. (So, thanks Carter, Lizzy and Stephen for making their snow day extra amazing.) Here it is, if you’re curious – Alex and Lucas sing Snow Day!