end of an era...

Yesterday Mick finished up his last school year as a teacher (for now). I have realized that in all the hecticness of baseball and end of the year that I haven't informed many people of Mick's change in scenery. (Like I almost forgot to tell my parents...) So I thought I would share here as a little tribute to Mick's teaching career. I have a few pics of when he was my teacher and thought what a better way to show how long he's been teaching than to put one from 1998 up. That's a post for another day...but just couldn't resist. Don't ask about my sweatsuit...it was homecoming. But long story short Mick was approached to work for the Board of Ed. as a "Math Coach" for the area high schools. He will be working with teacher's new and old and helping them improve their teaching skill and math scores. While I am biased, Mick works exceptionally hard at his job and gives way more than anyone I know so I think they saw that and wanted to use his talents (or abuse:)) in that area. Mick is looking forward to a change in pace and will still be able to coach at Chapel Hill and lead FCA and continue to build relationships with the kids there. That was our main concern that he not loose touch with the kids and loose out on that mission field. Now he will just be adding to it, not taking away. Although while I find other teacher's great...with him out of the classroom it makes it even less likely for me to want my children taught there:) This isn't a permanent assignment and while it could lead to other opportunities if he misses the classroom too much he can always go back. We are thankful that the Lord saw fit to bless our family with a change and we pray that it works out to our benefit. I apologize if this borders on boring but I thought this would be the easiest avenue to share the news when we continue to get the...what? Not teaching!?!?

Way to go, Haydee!

Rare instance of Hayden sitting still...and listening to his teacher!!
Look at that good boy waiting patiently to sing.

Hamming it up.

Do you see me Aunt Steph?? He was making sure...

Tonight Hayden graduated from Preschool. Hayden is really my first baby and it is crazy to think about him growing up. I feel like I almost birthed him...well my sister did all the work and I was there to see all the good stuff. But since that moment when Hayden entered our world he has been so special to me. Alot of things have changed in his life and he has had more than his fair share stacked against him...but thanks to my parents and God working for him he is doing great. It was a bittersweet time for all of us I think watching Hayden accomplish this but knowing the road ahead for him is still not easy(nor for us or my parents either). We are so proud of him and the little man he is becoming. They gave out "Occupational Awards" and Hayden was "Most Likely to be a Nascar Driver" Don't you know his Uncle Mick was proud. His teacher mentioned that this was because he does everything loudly and fast. At least we know we are talking about the same person. So congratulations to a great young man.

I don't talk about my sister much on here because of the issues at hand. It definitely isn't because I don't think about it...because I think of it everyday and still sob at the thought of her being absent. But God is continuing to use her situation to bring me closer to Him. Lately I have been trying hard to pray that He would heal my sister and make our family whole again. Not just a little bit but that He would actually enable and help her to be a mother. I would be eternally grateful if you would do the same...not for me but for our sweet little graduate. And if God doesn't see fit to answer this prayer in my time frame pray for my parents and their all consuming job of doing what God wants them to do in raising one wild little boy.

Mar-teen!

I have been wanting to get a picture of Micah with his favorite baseball player. So last night we had our baseball banquet and Micah finally got a picture with Martin (pronounced Marteen). I have been wanting to post about this relationship because it is so funny and interesting to me. Micah picked up on Martin at the beginning of this season and constantly started asking for him at the ball field. It is funny because while we love Martin and he is one of the most talented boys Mick has coached he is super quiet and therefore not someone Micah had been talking to, etc. He does love all of the boys and last night when Mick asked him who he wanted to pray for he said "the boys". But for some reason Micah chose to be his biggest fan. It is really sweet and shows that Micah can just sense good character. Martin is an incredible young man and I hope that Micah really does take after boys like him as he gets older. I have never heard Martin utter an ugly word (a miracle on the ballfield these days), he loves his momma, always says yes ma'am and is just an all around good kid. Thankfully, for the team and for Micah, Martin is a junior and isn't graduating so we have another year with him. Micah's obsession has been a little strange for a few reasons though.... Martin does happen to be one of the few darker skinned boys on the team so now when we watch college or mlb Micah assumes any dark skinned guy is obviously Martin(this has also happened at the gas station and other places)!! When we pull up to any ballfield (even to watch girls softball) Micah starts screaming Martin, Martin! And if we want Micah to do something, put on his shoes or eat his peas, if we tell him Martin does it he will get on it. Last, Martin works in the school office so whenever we visit, Micah first wants to see Martin of course. Well anyways, we think his obsession is cute and so funny that we never really encouraged it, it just happened. I wonder now if by next year he'll even remember. We'll see...hopefully we haven't creeped Martin out in the meantime.

updates, decisions and suggestions.

Because no post is complete without pictures.
Micah doing the happy dance right after we got home from the lake because we could see sunshine:)

We spent part of our Memorial Day weekend at the lake. We had hoped for sun and sand and boatrides instead we got rain, rain, and more rain. While we did have a good time with my parents and Hayden we cut it short and came home on Sunday to spend some time in a little more space. Thanks to Mom and Dad though Mick and I did get a night out. Thanks so much! We hung out with friends on Memorial Day and today I had my ultrasound dr appt. Everything looked great, thank you Jesus! Although baby girl Harper was cross-legged through the entire assessment. She only spread'em at the very last minute and the tech confirmed it is a girly girl. So pink it is! Pheww...I think I might believe it now. Hard to believe I am over halfway through with this pregnancy. No time to read my week by week book or dote on my naps like the first. They did say baby girl is big! She already weighs a pound. To me that says, healthy, to the doctor they say stop eating so much:) Seriously it does look like she will take after her big brother in the large category. We'll see how that goes.

As for decisions, I have never been big on making lots of them. If I can defer to someone else that will be fine and when I am pregnant it takes me forever just to decide what bra to put on, nevermind the clothes. Soooo, here is the list of the things that are haunting me at night:

~A name!!! Good grief, how can we not name this girl. Our frontrunner right now is Lorelai. Having trouble with the middle name to go with it and aren't sure about it's meaning: "alluring temptress" (not exactly what we are wanting for our sweet girl)

~Should we put Micah in a big boy bed? We could leave in him in his crib and not change his room at all or we could switcheroo. Can't decide what is best.

~Color for baby girls room. I wanted hot pink and black, I thought. But the bedding we got on clearance months ago doesn't go.

~I just read a whole bunch on homeschooling...and am contemplating how we go about deciding what is best for OUR children. Ahhh the pressure.

~Potty training, to enter bootcamp or to wait til after the babies born?

I'll stop there, but you can see my preggo brain is reeling. Mick and I are hoping to get some time this summer to really assess the important things about our families direction and what God has for us (not that He is necessarily concerned with the color of a bedskirt.) But if any of you have any thoughts on any of these issues please share the wealth because I need some motivation to start making some decisions.

What's Been Going On?

Random pic of Micah and Mick
Storytime at the library this week with his friend Madison.

After Micah has turned two I have thought alot about how much he is changing, learning, growing, and challenging me. He is talking incessantly now. (who knew, my kid? no?) He has started to show interest in potty training. He has started to laugh at funny things...that he shouldn't neccessarily know are funny. He can count, differentiate color, sing ABC's etc. This is all for my comparison with my next bean. Here are a few cute or funny stories from our life in the last week or so:

~Micah has gotten into saying the blessing and has heard Hayden sing it a few times. Yesterday when I asked him at lunch if he wanted to say it he bowed his little head, folded his little hands and sang "Thank you Fadder, thank you Fadder, Amen, Amen" I ask him all the time to say it and we have not even tried to teach him that one. Wild!

~ This is weird, but to keep Micah busy while I go pee (I go alot due to the growing baby girl) at the chicken house there are some tiles on the wall and some are red. Almost everyday I ask him to point to the red squares. He never shows any clue that he knows which are which. Yesterday we walk in I tell him to find the reds and boom...he pointed to every stinkin' one.

~Potty training should be called Mommy training. I have worked way too much this week but Micah has been super flexible. He has started telling us when he has to go tee tee if he is naked. So we made the trek to Target yesterday and bought some "panties" he refuses to call them underwear. Today I put him in his underwear then totally forgot...bad mom move number one. Then I stuck him in front of the tv and let him watch elmo while I came up and worked on the computer....bad move two. Then I heard him yell a couple times but I was busy...so I let him be...number three. I finally hear him washing dishes(he pushes a chair up and scrubs the sink for hours) so I figure I should go make sure he isn't playing with knives...he was...bad move oh just stop judging and counting. I notice he looks a little wet and then I remember I just left my son on his first day of semi potty training alone to watch tv in underwear. I would have taken a picture of the chair but Mick wouldn't be happy. Oh well. We will try again when I can be more attentive. Bad Mommy!

~We have been going to Storytime at our local public library. A friend suggested it and a few friends have gone with us and Micah has really enjoyed it. This week was the last week until summer and I am sad that it has ended. I assumed it would be just a lady sitting in a rocker reading but they really put alot into it and Micah has really learned the songs, etc. This week our waitress, who is also our friend from Longhorn's brought her little girl and Micah loves her. He went back in to hug her three times. He usually wont even tell kids his age goodbye so apparently he likes the older women. Too cute!

Ok, gosh I had much more to share but I realized nobody wants to read all this except for MAYBE Nana and even she will get bored:)

Hot dog, Hot dog, Hot diggety dog!

Opening presents, this was nuts. I have got to figure out how to make this more organized with the next one.
Cheese, a truck.

Jaxson and Taron

The new tricycle

Budda and Adam

Paxton playing with Sunny's doll. This one's for Uncle Brad:) We missed you!

All the kiddos: Charlee Ray, Jaxson, Sunny, Christian, Micah, Bay, Paxton, Hayden, Jayden and Jake.

Longingly looking at the cake.

Micah enjoying his bicycle (don't tell Micah it isn't one) from Aunt Dot, with my Grandmama too.

Our fam

Diggin' in.

These are all out of order...

Thanks to Taron for taking a play by play of Micah's eating. I wish he would take this kind of interest in eating healthy food.

Me and My birthday boy! Now trying to scrape ice cream off the lid.

Jaxson grabbing all the strings off the pinata.

Getting the loot.

Paxton pulling his string.

Pax was serious about getting some candy for himself.

Micah and Jaxson getting serious about eating their suckers.

Laid back, enjoying the party.

Sunny, Christian, and Micahbird.

Best friends picture. Boy my face is getting rounder.

other best friends.

This picture is funny because Taron and I realized Micah was about to attack Jaxson.

What was left of the girls and their crew.

Today was Micah's 2nd birthday party. We had planned to do alot outside with lots of water games, and trampoline...but a monsoon came in while I was in walmart getting the cake! We had about 30 people including 10 kiddos all inside our house. It seemed to go by so fast and I think it was because people were ready to get some personal space at their own house. Micah seemed to have a great time and loved all the attention that is for sure. I loved the presents more than he did I think. He got two personalized items...which is always my obsession. I will post pictures of those if I can ever get caught up on all this blogging. Micah also got a tricycle, trucks, coloring books, pool and sand toys, a Mickey Mouse towel, 2 personalized bookbags, a wallet, and lots more things that I can't remember right now. For all the work an at home birthday party takes this one was over really fast. I guess when you work hard you want to enjoy it a little more. Although after the dust settled and Micah went down for his nap(and so did Mick) I had time to do my bible study. It made me think about the fact that it isn't bad to have a day about Micah but that isn't what all the work and fuss should be about. I always find myself at the end of the event feeling a little disappointed that it is over and nothing to show. I think it is because it is hard to maintain your focus and the importance of Christ day to day and especially trying to communicate that at a birthday party to a two year old and your friends and family. Anyways, today was a special day nonetheless but it did make me rethink ways that I could make it better next year. I guess that is what God reminded me of today, maybe it makes sense maybe it doesn't...but I am weird like that anyways. Thanks to all our friends and family who came, I was terrible with invitations this year, so if you thought you would have been invited you probably were, I probably just still have your invitation:) Seriously thanks for helping make this a special day for Micahbird. (and me)

Baseball comes to a Sad but Happy End.

So we traveled this week to Valdosta for the second round of the playoffs. The boys played so well but lost in the bottom of the 7th to a good team. We should have won but you know how that goes:) Mick made me proud and I was sad for him and the boys. This group is so good with Micah and Micah loves them so much. We made the trek by ourselves and we wont do that again. While it went ok, Micah and I both prefer to have friends along to make it more fun! He did get to go swimming in the pool and play with friends at the games, but since I was a single Momma for the time I didn't have a chance to get my camera. My child would have drowned or been hit by a car had a taken any pictures at all. So these are the few I have of Micah eating an ice cream. I have found that Micah gets more of what he wants on trips like these because I feel so guilty for dragging him around during naptime and late into the night. The last pictures are from the last game. The boys really didn't want any pictures of a loss but I wanted at least one of Micah running to his daddy. After every game he goes out with the boys and shakes hands and says the prayer with Mick. I think the boys should thank him because he also stays out there while the get their postgame congrats or chewed out...so I am sure they got the abridged version due to Micah's little ears.

Birthday Part One

Micah wasn't feeling great on the day of his actual birthday so we kept it very lowkey. Nana and Pops were going to be out of town so we did cake and had them over for a miniparty for Micah. We ate at Moe's and came home and had family time. It was really nice and so hard to believe our little man was turning two. Oddly enough we went to the doctor the next day for his 2 year old check up and to talk about his breathing issue. His doctor thinks he has childhood asthma, really mild, that only flares up after he has a virus, etc. Soooo, not good but definitely helps explain why he starts to wheeze and freak me out at night whenever he just has the sniffles. Micah weighs 30lbs and is above the 50th percentile in height and weight. He is solid as a rock. We are so thankful that God has blessed us with a happy (most of the time) and healthy boy!