bebe and "skoo"

today was the start of the forth week of school for beatrix. i walked her to her classroom and for the second week in a row there were no tears. she got out her breakfast and sat right down at the table with the rest of the kids. i told her i loved her and said i would be back soon to pick her up and she waved at me and said clear as day, "bye. mom!"

her language is definitely growing. she spent the weekend telling me she had to go, "pee and poo" and that her favorite colors were "boo and een". she said, "bu-ble" when i filled her bath on saturday with bubble bath and she talked about her favorite movie "eo", which translated is the movie Rio. to the average person this might not seem like much, but for me, well, they are the beginnings of words and even more important than that is the fact that beatrix is trying to communicate. this was our main concern when she started school almost a month ago. i was worried, scared even, that she wouldn't even try. but her teachers have done such an amazing job building up her confidence that she is actually saying "hi" and "bye" to strangers. she waits until they are walking away so she won't have to engage them any more than what she feels confident in saying, but the point is that a month ago she wouldn't even do that. it is exciting and just the kind of result that we were hoping she would have.

rhonda, her private speech pathologist, has been coming on wednesday afternoons. she is optomistic as well and very encouraging of bea's progress. she is especially excited about bea's use of the vowel sound "eo" which rhonda told us is one of the harder sounds to get. it seems if the words beatrix are trying to say are emotionally connected to her then she will try harder to say them.

we feel so thankful that bea is getting the help she needs and that she is excited about learning. the process will be slow, but the small changes we have seen already help to keep us all motivated. bea's teachers recommended that she attend 5 weeks of summer school in the middle of the summer so that she doesn't lose momentum. so last thursday, i signed her up for that as well. she loves, "skoo" (school) and we are so very very thankful for all of the prayers that have been uttered on her behalf.

my son and the megalodon

my son studies. he loves to copy pages from books. matt told me that last week he had heard micah and one of his friends talking about sharks. micah handed him one of his pages that he had hand copied from a book and said to him, "here is the information i found out about sharks. how about you give me what you find out about them?" matt got a good chuckle overhearing that exchange. in the evenings, after baths, i often find the two of them in matt's office. matt will be unwinding via a chess game on-line and micah will be sitting next to him at the desk writing out information on snakes, spiders, lizards or some sort of sea creature. lately it has been sharks. specifically, the megalodon. 

micah came home friday sick with the flu and spent the next 24 hours throwing up and laying in bed. after a long nap, saturday morning he woke up hungry and feeling much better. sunday we went to church but decided to keep the kids with us in the service so as not to infect the other kids. matt told him that he could bring something to do during the service and he brought the book in the above picture and spent the morning happily writing out data. mid-service he whispered to me, "mama did you know that the megalodon's teeth could be as large as an adult human's hand?" i held up my hand and examined it and mouthed to him, "WHOA!" he grinned and went back to writing. 

later after the service one of the ladies of the church came up to me. her husband is a science teacher at a local high school and loves to collect fossils. apparently there is a river in the middle of florida that has the most sharks' teeth of any where in the world. it's like they all congregated there and promptly shed their teeth. many megalodon teeth have been found there as well. she told me that she had told micah that they had recently found a megalodon fossil. micah had asked how large it was and this lady had told him it was very large. she told him it was the size of penelope's hand. micah looked at her and said very matter of factly, "well, it must have been a baby megalodon because i read that fully grown megalodon sharks' teeth were the size of an adult human hand". she laughed so hard. almost as hard as i did when retelling the event to matt on the way home from church. we heard a sigh from the back seat and i said to micah, "micah we aren't laughing at you. we are laughing because you are so smart love. so very very smart!"

saturday happenings

she rolled over...

 and over...

 and over...

 and found herself stuck.

 sewing a thomas skirt.

 it's hard to find feminine thomas apparel.

he was visited by the flu bug.

yummy toes

 penelope's 20th week brought the discovery of her toes. matt and i don't remember the other two enjoying them as much as this little one does. 

in fact, this morning i woke up early and looked over into her bed. she had her legs up, toes in her mouth, with her eyes firmly shut. 

she even eats them in her sleep.

keeping out the bugs, leaves and mangoes

 a week ago monday, matt woke up and decided that he had had enough. enough of the bugs, and leaves and mangoes in his pool. he was determined to replace the screen above our pool with the help of a friend. i was skeptical, like usual, but he was as previously stated, determined. he borrowed some ladders, bought, the supplies and this is what i came outside to find. i was one freaked out lady! it just looks like a horrible accident waiting to happen.

 i am pretty sure daniel agreed with my observations though he is too loyal of a friend to say so. i tried to keep my mouth shut and not ruin the adventure.

 thankfully they found another way to do it. 

a few hours later...they had finished....

...two triangles. HA! it took much longer than anticipated. i foresee this project taking a few weekends through out the summer. it was much cheaper to DIY it.

bea's hair

when beatrix was very very little and had hardly any hair, the topic of growing it came up during one of our conversations. matt told me that he would like to let her hair grow down to her bottom. i laughed and thought it was a silly request. three years later our daughter's hair is almost to the middle of her bottom and i think it is beautiful for two reasons. the first reason is because at the very end of her golden tresses is the hair she had on her head when she came out of me. we have never cut it. the second reason i love her hair is because i get to watch one of the "toughest" men i have ever met in my life brush his little girl's hair. and that is a beautiful, beautiful thing to witness.

easter

easter was a beautiful day. 

the service was wonderful and the singing was joyous. upon entering the sanctuary, the scent from the lilies surrounding the pulpit overwhelmed me. this year matt really wanted to purchase a lily for finn and one for his grandma that passed away this year, finn's namesake.

 after church, while i was working on lunch and getting dinner ready, the kids and matt took advantage of the warm weather and got in our, to me, frigid pool. i called matt's parents and talked to his dad while they were in there. he told me it was cold in michigan. i had to rub it in a bit.

 beatrix brought this bucket over by her boys so she could join them. 

we thought it was pretty cute.

 pips and i joined them for a few minutes.

 and right before we went inside matt spied this little visitor. our first one spied at the new house. many more to come i am sure. 

 later after great naps by all, our friend lisa and her daughter morgan joined us for dinner. it was wonderful having them with us. as much as i love my little family i really adore sharing our holiday with friends.

 lisa thoughtfully brought gifts for the kids. she brought a movie for bea and micah and for the little peanut she brought her an easter outfit.

 

the backside was the cutest!

for the record we enjoyed easter dinner to the lovely sounds of the tigers baseball game. ah, sweet traditions. at least matt did dishes while he was listening to the game. we were sitting around the table while he was cleaning up, talking and i asked morgan to go outside and hide some easter eggs, pretty stealthily i might add. the kids were none the wiser. i had spent nap time filling the kids' eggs from last year with their candy from the egg hunt the day before. talk about thrifty! later micah asked me when i had gone outside to hide the eggs. i looked him right in the eye and said, "buddy i didn't hide the eggs!"

 morgan did an amazing job of hiding them in some really fun places!

it took the kids awhile to find them all.

 i love these two pictures so much. i pray that they remain close like this their whole lives. 

when they do argue i will be that mother that pulls these pictures out and says, remember when you loved each other like crazy?

saturday egg hunt

 last saturday morning after a very quick stop at the library, i took micah, beatrix and penelope (not pictured because she was in the sling) to an easter coloring contest and egg hunt. micah's teacher at trinity attends the church where it was hosted and so she had told micah about the coloring contest. of course my ART LOVING SON was more than excited to enter a coloring contest. i obviously do not know how to follow directions, because i thought he had to make a picture and bring it along. in fact he was supposed to color the brochure and bring it back with him. *shaking my head* this was even after texting his teacher to have her explain what he was supposed to do. i blame it on lack of sleep and nursing.

 i have noticed even in the two weeks bea has been in school that her coloring has improved by miles! the picture above is hers. the picture below is micah coloring what he was supposed to have colored to be entered in the contest.

 this is the picture that he worked on. he made it so that the sun, eggs, butterfly and dragonfly pop off the page on little slips of paper. his teacher graciously hung it up anyway.

they had the egg hunt divided up for the age groups which is so smart! i told micah he could come out if he agreed to stand by me and not try to collect the eggs for beatrix. "she has to be able to do it herself", i told him. he couldn't help himself from pointing out the eggs though.

 

  bea was more than pleased with all the eggs she found.

i shouldn't have been too concerned with micah helping her, because she did the same thing to him. this girl can hold her own. mama lesson-if it doesn't bother her, it shouldn't bother me.

 micah used a net that normally carries his snorkeling gear. ha! man i love this kid.

 penelope was happy to be in her seat going home. and micah and beatrix excitedly told her about their finds.

flowers on a grave

last friday i was driving home after having picked micah up from a birthday party, and we drove by a cemetary. micah was looking out the window and he saw all the plastic flowers on the graves. from the back seat he asked, "mama, what is that place?" 

"it's a cemetery love." 

"oh", he said, "why are there flowers all over the place?" 

"because sometimes the family of the person who died wants pretty things around the ground where they are buried." 

"does finn's grave have flowers on it?" he asked. 

"it did for awhile. i'm not sure if there are any there now or not. mommy and daddy planted a butterfly bush there a few years ago, but i don't know if it is living. it makes me sad sometimes that i'm not there to take care of it." 

he was quiet then and started to tickle penelope sitting next to him. i on the other hand started to think about finn's grave and i wondered how it was looking. i started to wonder if anyone ever visited it anymore. in fact i went to bed thinking about it. the next morning i went on with my day, taking the kids to the library, going to an easter egg hunt, making their lunches and then putting them down for a rest. i was sitting in a chair in our living room nursing penelope when i got a text. i opened it up and started to cry immediately. my sister-in-law blessed me more than i could ever even try to put into words. here was a picture of my neice putting flowers on finn's grave. i KNOW that the Spirit was speaking to her, prompting her to do this. she told me that she was nervous how i would react to it, but she sent it anyway. i was thankful. so very thankful that God used her to show me that once again He cares about these little things with me. He knows that my heart hurts when i think about his grave not being cared for the way i would care for it if i lived there. 

thank you dajana. thank you olivia. 

thank you from the bottom of this mama's heart.

18 weeks

smiling, giggling, rolling over, drooling, cooing, watching us all, and chewing on fingers, hers and ours. lots of changes for penelope lately. and we are loving every single one.