Another crazy night at my household...

Just one of those nights. You know - where we are running a million different places with kids and trying to keep some semblance of sanity at home. Problem is - I don't think sanity feels very comfortable amidst the mess and chaos that resides here most evenings.
   Here is an example of how things went down tonight:

Kids get home from school. Rummage through kitchen to find and devour as much food as can legally be justified in calling it an 'afterschool snack' rather than a full meal. Who am I kidding? It was a full meal's worth of food.

We decided that because it officially froze last night - we should gather the rest of the goods from the garden. Here is what that looked like.

(Anyone want some squash? Let me know!)

So - it officially is Fall around here. I feel like a little chipmunk storing it all up for the winter!

Then I run Landen to Cross Country. He has been putting in some serious miles and I am way impressed with that kid. He ran so hard at the last meet. There were like 59 different teams from all over Idaho, so the competition was fierce.

Right after coming through the finish line. It was a super hot day!

Then I get back from taking him, and Greg and the kids are loaded up in the van pulling the flatbed trailer to a neighbor's house, so we could load up a washer and dryer that they were GIVING to an associate of Greg's who was in dire need of some. What great and charitable neighbors I have. Seriously.

Then we get tok all the kids over to visit their piano teacher, who is in a rehab facility after recently being diagnosed with cancer and spending 16 days in the hospital in Utah. She looked so frail and lonely sitting there and I wished that there were more that we could do than just flowers, chocolate and a 5 minute visit with rowdy kids. Ugh.

We head home, grab Landen from practice, and then it is time to run Seth to Football practice. Did I mention that he is in tackle football? Because, interestingly enough - here is what his arms are looking like these days...

Funny Story: He was actually asked about the bruising by his 7th grade teacher, and he just looked at her and said, "I don't know." Thankfully he finally told her he was playing football. Thank goodness I have not yet recieved a phone call from CPS! ;)

While Greg ran Seth to football, I hurried and whipped up some Quicke for dinner and threw it in the oven and then I ran Maelynn to Dance class, dropped her off, and headed to my local Hastings (free WiFi) so I could get a bit of studying in. Did I mention that I am supposed to be putting in 32 hours a week of studying for my 3 online classes? Yea - well, it's not happening. Sigh. My friend who also goes to BYU-I (but her kids are older so she gets to actually go on-campus) dropped by the other day with this sweet treat.

Did I mention that I have the greatest friends ever? Well, I do. School has been challenging me. But that is a whole other post for another day!

Then I picked Maelynn up from dance and we headed home and arrived just in time for Family Prayer, which is usually a time of gathering, quick review of the day and of what's going on tomorrow. Telling the person who's day it is what we admire about them, and then that person saying a family prayer. It usually takes only a few minutes (depending on the mood of both parents).

Well, tonight was one of those not-just-a-few-minutes-prayer-time nights. For some reason though - instead of just being all annoyed and impatient, I sorta just sat back and quietly took it all in and enjoyed it. Emerson and Miles were in rare, wild form...jumping up on my back and Greg's back and climbing onto Greg's shoulders. All while the kids were singing the words to that crazy European song "What Does the Fox Say" and dancing around to it. Then it turned into a somewhat heated debate about whether that song had any moral to it at all, which then turned into a debate about the song "A Boy Named Sue" and how Greg thought that it DID have a moral to it. Then Greg randomly said, "Who wants to prepare to run a half marathon?" To which me and Maelynn immediately busted up laughing. Then he said, "How about a 10K?" Maelynn laughed even harder. She was like, "That is more than a mile, so NOOOO!"  I said something about a 5K being the maximum I would ever want to run, then Maelynn said, "5K? I'd rather die!" Which prompted Seth and Landen to begin quoting a scene from Ice Age, "Were you killed?" "Sadly, yes. But I liiiived!" They busted up over it, and I had no clue what they were talking about - but it was pretty funny to watch them. (I finally searched for the clip of it on You Tube this morning!) After about 5 reminders each, the three little boys finally went to grab their toothbrushes so we could help them to brush. Then, after all that, there was a brief but sincere prayer said and everyone scuttled away to head to bed.

I walked around locking the doors and saw the piles and piles of dirty dishes, homework papers and junk all over every surface in the kitchen, loaded some sheets into the washer (because at nap time Emerson had coughed so hard he made himself puke all over my bed), took the dog out to pee, shoved about 248 loose socks back into their laundry basket and finally made my way towards bed.

It is days like these - full of chaos, running around, a completely messy house, and homework tasks building up in that  'gottagetitdonesoon' section of my brain, that I am able to kneel down and thank Heavenly Father for being blessed beyond measure.