a few funny family stories

May 17th - 
this morning micah's teacher texted me that micah wanted me to know that he had lost his tooth sometime between last night and when i dropped him off at school that morning. she wrote "he's worried he may have ate his tooth" haha we had a nice laugh. i came into the house after dropping him off and i believe God gave me the thought to check his balled up paper towel with the remains of his breakfast sandwich. i went out to the car (cause i don't throw garbage away often enough for moments such as these!) and i unwrapped the paper towel and there was his little tooth waiting for me. i texted micah's teacher to ask her if she would let micah know where i found his tooth. and then i said, "you couldn't make this stuff up!"

May 19th - 

micah came into where i was writing this morning with a sad look on his face. "what's the matter, buddy? did you have a good sleep?" micah-"she didn't come again." me-"what do you mean?" micah-"the tooth fairy didn't come again last night." my internal dialogue while i held micah...should i tell him the truth? should i tell him that daddy and i forgot the two nights in a row because of all that is going on right now? no, i'll find a way to put the money in there without him knowing. "i'm sorry love. would you like to play daddy's ipad in the living room?" micah sadly - "sigh...sure" i fast walked to our bedroom, taking the change jar into our bathroom so i wouldn't wake matt up and so micah couldn't hear me, i counted out three dollars. the tooth fairy leaves more when she has made you wait. as i was putting our change jar back onto matt's dresser, his eyes opened and he asked me what i was doing. all i had to say was, we forgot again! he quickly got out of bed, went into the office and proceeded to write micah a letter from the tooth fairy. i came back into the office to ask him what he wrote and he just waved me away. and quickly went into micah's room. minutes passed and i just walked by micah's room. the curtains are hanging haphazardly, the blinds are wide open, the windows are open as far as they can go and it looks like the tooth fairy came and went in a hurry! i love that husband of mine. he really knows how to bring a story to completion. later after micah had found the note i snuck back into his room to read it. the note from matt aka tooth fairy read in beautiful curly handwriting mind you...Dearest Sweetest Micah, Please forgive the tardiness of my delivery of your coins. i have been very busy and had to sneak in through your window while you played on your Father's ipad. Sincerely, The Tooth Fairy. --he just looked at us and was like what?!? and then he counted his three dollars worth of coins. matt commented on how it was very dangerous to leave the window wide open like that but that we would forgive her this time. then the two of us walked down the hall to our bedroom and silently high fived each other for an amazing recovery!

May 21st - 

me watching bea this morning playing with her luvy - "you sure are cute beebee."

beatrix not looking up from her play - "YEP! i cute sometimes."

May 29th - 

{an exasperated car conversations} me-"micah! for the last time sit back in your seat or if you don't and we are in a car accident your head will get cut off!!!" beatrix- "yeah. and then we would haf to go to hos-bital and ga-lue it back on."

thoughts on mr. harrison

 today marked the final full day of teaching english and philosophy at trinity for mr. harrison. next week is finals and next thursday is graduation. matt's seventh senior class will walk down the isle with robes and caps on ready to venture out into the world armed with the knowledge and wisdom my husband tried to push into their heads. matt will walk into that graduation as mr. harrison. teacher. and he will leave the ceremony mr. harrison. dean of students.
a whole new set of responsibilities and lessons are waiting around the bend for him. 

matt was content at his job. he loves teaching with a passion i've never witnessed before. the thing about it is, he is an amazing teacher. and i'm not just saying that because i'm his wife. his past and present students will nod their heads in agreement to this statement. he KNOWS, capital letters knows, his subject matter. he LOVES, capital letters loves, his subject matter. and he CARES, capital letters cares, for his students. he doesn't just stand up in front of them droning on about something. he presents his subject matter with flair and a zeal that ignites in them an enthusiasm for learning and for understanding what their purpose is while they are here, the purpose God has spoken into each of their hearts. 

i embarrased matt on his last full day of teaching by showing up with my camera. i walked into his homeroom and was greeted by all of the seniors. they are not normally all in his room for homeroom, usually it is just half of these faces. but on this day, this lucky last day, they were all in there. i announced much to the horror of matt, that i would like to get a group picture with all of them. they were more than excited. in fact they all raced to get around matt. he was holding penelope who when all the kids rushed him burst into sobs!  that is why this picture is a little on the blurry side. for that reason and the fact that matt wanted it over as fast as possible. after the picture was over they all went to lunch and matt held back. "thanks alot for that", he said to me sarcastically. to which i replied in a no nonsense kind of way. "you might not like it now, but someday you will be thankful i took that picture!" i think he agreed because as he was walking to lunch, he said to me, "i'm going out to play dominoes with the kids for the last time....you can come and take a picture of it if you want to." oh! i want to husband. i truly want to. the picture below is that picture. every friday matt would sit with students and play dominoes. the sound of the little white rectangles with different colored dots smacking on the tables echoed off the walls. 

he looks happy in this picture. truly happy. 

i pray this next chapter of matt's time at Trinity brings him happiness and contentment and growth. i pray it stretches his natural talents and that God continues to use him. i know that it will be a different kind of "teaching" and a different kind of loving these kids, but i am certain that he will do it with consideration and with flair. 

because that is just the kind of man this man of mine is. 

congratulations Dean Harrison! 

"It may be that when we no longer know what to do we have come to our real work,
and that when we no longer know which way to go we have come to our real journey." - 

Wendell Berry an excerpt from his poem The Real Work 

butterfly world for my sister

it's been awhile again since i have posted. 

i talked to my sister on the phone last night (hi anna!) and she very calmly asked me when i was going to post on the blog again. the blog i have neglected for months. i told her that my brain space had felt used up the last 6 months and that i had neglected the blog because of that. she told me she missed seeing the pictures of the kids and then she suggested, "hey you could just start from today." to which i replied, "you know you are right!" sometimes it takes a sister to tell you that she misses you to get you back on track again. 

last week i went on micah's last second grade field trip with him. the girls got to come a long too. we went to butterfly world. it was a giant greenhouse full of thousands of butterflies. 

i can't even do it justice by trying to describe it, but it was amazing! 

 just a small example of the butterflies that you could see. 

can you count them? 

 as i was winding my way around with a stroller and a very fussy toddler i came up to beatrix. she was bent over looking closely at something on the ground. i got a little closer, bent down with her, and asked her what she was looking at. she looked up at me sadly and said, "mama it broke it's wing" i gently picked the butterfly up off the ground by it's legs and set it up right on my finger. she sighed and said, "it's going to die." i told her we didn't know that, it was still moving, it just couldn't fly because it was missing one of it's wings. so i set it on the flower in the above picture and beatrix stood there a long time watching it. she talked about that butterfly the rest of the day and even told matt about it later that night. she has incredible empathy for things that are hurt. she even does it when we are watching TV together. she will cover her face or hide behind the couch if someone is being mean to someone else or picking on another person because they are different. i told her that feeling she was experiencing is called compassion or empathy and it is a good feeling to remember. 
it is God inside of you tell you to keep caring. 

 afterwards the kids got to eat their lunches on picnic tables and 

then they were all able to play in the park for an hour. 

 beatrix was especially hard to get a photo of in the park. 
she was all red faced and racing around with some of the little girls in micah's class. 

she can't wait to go to kindergarten with micah and daddy. 

 pips thinking she's big stuff. 

 the girls and i left about an hour earlier than micah and his class. 
we were all tired and about 15 minutes out, with music calmly playing and the air conditioner on high, they were both asleep. 
it was a little under an hour drive and it was nice to have the quiet to just enjoy the ride.