This has been quite an eventful weekend and I wish I had photos to go along with almost all of it. Pastor John and Wendy spent the weekend visiting supporters and their son in Minnesota and I stayed with the other three kids: Ana, 15; Elijah, 11; and Jeremiah, 8.

Saturday went well and I was able to get Elijah to his usher meeting and Ana to gymnastics in the morning and the afternoon went well as we went to the rec center at Tulane University and the swimming pool at Loyola University. The kids were good and tired for the evening so we ordered pizza and hung out.

Sunday morning I was able to get up in time to make dirty rice (a New Orleans favorite) for the church potluck but I forgot to go home and get church clothes the night before so I had to do that in the pouring rain. By the time I got back to the house it was 9:05 and we were supposed to leave at 9:25 to have Ana to church in time to be an usher. Of course, I had still not showered so I was running through that, trying to get kids dressed and ready and make sure the rice didn't burn.

We got out the door about 15 minutes late, but were still to church in plenty of time and I felt very accomplished. Potluck went well and at about 12:25 Elijah came to me and said that we could still make it to his basketball practice, even though he had told the coach the night before that he wouldn't be able to make it. So we rushed home, changed and headed off to the coach's house. But there was no one home and Eli couldn't remember where practice was. Thankfully his son walked up at that time and was able to call him and ask.

So we headed off in the general direction of where Eli though the gym was. It took us a while, but by trial and error we found it and he was only a few minutes late. I made it back to the house and was able to rest for about an hour before I had to wrap a birthday present and get the kids in the car to pick up Eli, run Ana to gymnastics and get the boys to a birthday party.

The afternoon was then spent at Jazzy Bear for the birthday party for a two year old son of one of the guys on staff. There were kids from 14 months to 11 years and it was several hours of high energy and lots of sugar.



We pretty much crashed that evening and kept it low key. Ana and I were watching tv and the boys were playing video games in the basement when I heard someone screaming. A minute later Eli came running up the stairs saying JJ was bleeding.

Ana and I ran downstairs and found JJ laying on his back, his foot in the air bleeding down his leg. Somehow he managed to slice from the inside of his big toe and around the bottom while playing on the elliptical machine. We got him upstairs and ran it under water in the bathtub trying to figure out how bad it was. We called his mom, who is a nurse, and finally got her and some advice. We got it to stop bleeding and ended up calling another friend (also a nurse) who was able to come over and help get it cleaned up. She was also able to determine he didn't need stitches, which made us all happy!

So we kept it elevated and wrapped and by the next morning it looked better. We stuck close to home and didn't do much. I took Ana to school in the morning and picked her up in the afternoon and other than that we kept it very low key. PJ and Wendy got home around 5:45 and I was so glad to see them!

Overall it was a good weekend, but I see even more so now why God generally grants one child at a time and they start out small!