Hay Happens and Hay's Happen

Isn’t this amazing? We tracked it through the week. Venus is so bright it soon aligned with Jupiter AND the moon. Visible in the morning! God is so revelationary! (is that a word?)

Tatum and I prepare for her Friday test through the week. She plays teacher usually on Thursday with me so we can practice. She does such a good job reviewing the phonics with us. We sing and chant to learn them!

So I have given her TWO tips for her test and she pinkie promised she’d do them. The reason is usually if she misses one it’s because she mistook the subtraction sign for an addition one or she just missed doing a problem. Both completely avoidable.

1. Whisper or mouth the problem to yourself. For example, if it says, 5 + 1, mouth to yourself 5 + 1. This will allow your brain to see the addition sign and make it stick in your mind. There is power in speaking it!!!
2. ALWAYS scan your paper before you turn it in. Go through the whole thing with your finger to make sure you didn’t miss one.

There, honey. You can do it now! I’m so proud of your hard efforts.

Venus and Jupiter still show in the morning. WOW. Can you just believe how bright and beautiful they are?

Today, it was the 100th day of school for Tatum. They always make it a special deal. She brought in a book with 100 flaps; an easy way to count to 100. They made Cheerios necklaces and Fruit Loop bracelets. My kind of jewelry!

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Tatum decided she wanted 100 donuts, so I brought home some of my favorite wrapping paper from my shower!

Speaking of my shower, Doug was sneaky in helping Sharon arrange the whole thing. SO kind of him! My girls surprised me at my book group on Thursday. I was not prepared at all, so I did not look my best AT ALL….(no sleep the night before).

They made me feel SOOOO special. We didn’t take many pics, but they all looked so lovely!

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Chocolate covered strawberries to boot from Eva who is the best baker in all of creation.

I brought home my balloons for Tatum and she took right to them.

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What a special day for Tatum and for me. I’m so grateful!

Don’t you love waiting? Tatum waited for 3 weeks to switch out her new earrings. She picked out a new pair on Amazon, and gave me $17 from her “spend” envelope to pay for a new pair. The wait paid off.

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Sparkly for my Supergirl. Coti wanted to watch this girl transform into her superheroness, so he joined.

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Oh, Coti…. This is how it’s done!

Well, this all led to the next event. We needed to go check out Doug’s tux for the wedding. Now, when you give a girl a 3 way mirror, she becomes her own chorus line.

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Doug, unaware, is changing in the dressing room spiffying himself up.

Can’t you just wait to see how handsome he is? You’ll have to stay tuned!!

Till then Tot will keep dancing, superheroing, and being cute as ever.

Tatum loves to turn her bedroom into a classroom. Today was MLK Jr. Day, and I had to work (in her room usually) while she taught. So, I guess we were both teaching!

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Hopefully her kids were paying close attention.

Each night, we are having our “God conversations,” and we are currently talking about the existence of life and how it couldn’t have happened by chance. For example, if we were farther away from the sun (just by a teeny amount), water would turn to ice etc. It is all so finely tuned. We also talked about the Lego builder in the sky. (GOD!) Legos don’t just construct on their own. They need a builder. Right!? Hmmm….pretty good analogy.

Ok, she gets that.

Well, this morning, the moon was so very bright and there were TWO planets shining so bright. They were the only two visible lights in the morning sky which never happens! So, they must be very close.

I had to know and I found they are Venus and Jupiter.

Tatum was just in awe as was I. I see the hand of God in everything. We must look for these little miracles daily to stay  in an attitude of gratitude. 

Sunday morning started out bright and early. Tatum came into my room with a load of books, her kids, and a chair. She was armed and ready to power through some Sparky! (Magic Bone books). I was on my chair reading the devotion, so it was fine with me although the quality of my “quiet time” was less than quiet. Ha!

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After breakfast, I wanted her to get ready for church, but she was busily making a sign for me and for Doug. I couldn’t get mad at her for this.

You see, she wanted me to know, Mommy, I finally know how much you love me, and I wanted you to know that I know. 

Ok, melt. I see that with you playing ball and surrounding by hearts.

Well, all this is leading to our evening. I wanted to try a different tactic for our “Bible Study” each night. I want her to know how much she is loved by me but more importantly by her creator, God!

In this day and age, I am finding that there are so many life forces in our culture which will pull her away from God and from the truth of Him. I cannot do anything about the culture, but I can arm her with a reason for her faith. I can provide her with true evidence and the WHY behind what we believe. She believes what I believe right now, but she’ll come to a point where she is on her own with her own beliefs. If I can give her a strong defense for not only the existence for God but for our FAITH, then she won’t be so malleable when she is “in the world.” (which is inevitable and vital if we want to be LIGHTS in this world).

I figured we’d start having conversations about GOD instead of our strict Bible study. Our conversations would lead to looking up Bible verses, so we accomplish both goals. I found a book to help me too!

Tonight: Here was the question: If you didn’t even know about the Bible or someone came up to you and asked you this, what would you say. ….How can you tell that God exists just by looking at nature?

We talked for about 30 minutes about the beauty of nature and how could it be created by anything but God (Psalm 16:1) ? Also, how can you explain our conscience or LOVE? (Romans 2) We laughed a bit, but I think she got it. She even said, Now, mommy, a human could create this bear or this water bottle or this sock because God gave humans brains, but we couldn’t create a foot or another person! That would be crazy!

Tatum I think you get it. I wouldn’t have even thought to say that, so you are showing me that you are thinking this through.

Stay tuned for more God conversations with Tatum.

I love you sweet girl.

Today, Tatum’s class got to ride a city bus. They each got to drive and honk the horn.

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She felt so big and important in the driver’s seat. Wouldn’t she love to be in charge!?

Later, I went into class to help and all the kids were playing with their buses. It was adorable!

Later, it was time to TASTE CAKE. Yes, I know, it’s a tough job, but we had to do it, ya know.

My dear friend Eva has a bakery in her home as she moved out of her store bakery. She offered to do our cake for us. WOW!

So, she had an assortment of cakes and fillings, and we went to town.

I think they are having a hard time deciding.

Eva, what are we supposed to do? It’s all so delicious!

We finally decided on a vanilla cake with fresh raspberry filling and butter cream frosting for the bottom cake. Oh my, all was fresh and no fake stuff. REAL! I didn’t even have a tummy ache after all the cake I ate.
The top layer will be gluten free with custard filling and butter cream frosting. It doesn’t even taste gluten free…seriously! Can I get an AMEN!?

So, as you can see we were sweetly blessed by this kindness from Eva and a good dose of perfectly pure cake and icing.

Thank you Mrs. Holman for a fun bus trip, and thank you, Eva for the kindness.