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.