Playing Catch Up....

So the past posting may have left anyone who reads this blog wondering what the heck was up....well, we had a very crazy Labor Day weekend and I am playing catch up with my blogging!  It started like any other weekend with neighborhood get togethers like the one below...my good friend Tiffany's son was leaving for college and so she threw him a big shin dig...!  I took lots of pictures of the yummy treats she made (they were delicious!) and they had a live band (her son was the lead guitarist) and we had such a good time visiting with friends and listening to music!  And that's how everything started...

these were my favorite!

Warning: Due to the graphic nature of the photos you are about to see, parental guidance may be necessary....and so forth and so on....This is the part where the weekend went haywire and crazy...the party ended, and my children were walking and riding their bicycles home...I was driving my van and taking a neighbor and her son home when I heard screaming...you know when your kids are screaming but you know it's not a serious scream?  Heck, my 5 year old screams like she's dying no matter what has happened so it's usually hard to differentiate if she's really hurt or just being dramatic.  So, back to the story.  I hear this screaming from my 10 year old...she's screaming, "Mom!  Come now!  Zoe is hurt really bad!"  Then I hear my 13 year old son...he's the calmest boy in town normally but I hear him yelling my name in a way that I never want to hear again...his yell made me sick to my stomach because I knew something really bad had happened so I whipped the van around so I could put my lights on where my kids were crouching in the street and I found my 5 year was hysterically screaming.  And then I saw her ankle was wrenched into the spokes of the bike so hard and tight that we could not move the tire without her being in lots of pain.  We then noticed her ankle was cut open...and this is where it gets really gross...in the picture you can see some "stuff" hanging out of her ankle...it's not bone, which I originally thought it was...it is the fat layer that is between the skin and bones and it's kind of just hanging there like gristle...I was a bit horrified to say the least but my good friend Burgandy was there and we both looked at each other as if to say, "oh my gosh, this is really bad", but we both pulled it together because my ten year old and my five year old were screaming hysterically...we had to be cool and calm and take hold of the situation....we removed my little one's sandal thinking we'd be able to pull the bike off of her ankle but that didn't work.  I tried peeling the spokes off of her ankles with my fingers and they wouldn't budge...I kept waiting for that rush of adrenaline to come, that superhuman strength that would allow me to pry those metal spokes right off of her ankle but it didn't happen...I had to call 911 because I just didn't have the right tools to cut that bike from her foot and she was screaming even louder at this point...she was not only screaming from pain but she was screaming about dying...she repeatedly screamed that she didn't want to die, that she didn't want to go to heaven yet...and then she broke my heart by telling her ten year old sister, "goodbye Kenzie, you've been a true friend but I have to go now"....it was so sad...and dramatic...VERY DRAMATIC....and in the midst of this craziness it made my friend and I kind of laugh....the rescuers, those wonderful fireman in blue arrived on the scene, cut the spokes with big wire cutters and her foot was released!  Again with the screaming because my baby was sure the firemen were gonna cut off her foot!  Then I made a quick call to my husband letting him know he needed to come right home cause there had been an emergency...he got there so fast and held her in his arms and got her into the car...3 stitches later, some killer sedative (for her, not me) and a broken ankle and hot pink cast later, we are recuperating from our long weekend...I have to thank my friend, my wonderful husband, the paramedics and the hospital staff who treated her with such kindness and patience cause that girl screamed a lot (until they gave her drugs).  Everone was amazing and I was so appreciative that I wasn't alone when this happened.  I'm grateful we haven't had too many crazy accidents, I have 6 children and this is the first broken bone we've had yet...not bad...!  Thanks for reading this long post...I really don't know if anyone is reading but I'm looking at my blog posts the same as if I'm journaling and this was definitely something that needed to be recorded...hope your Labor Day weekend was accident free!