1.My oldest went away for three days with a load of 5th graders. She had a blast. She was treated kindly. She came home safely. This was a huge mountain crested for me; not so much the going away, she has done that. What consistently seems insurmountable for me, the mother, is trusting others with her. So, while this 14er is behind us, there is a complete range ahead. Now that we have one climb behind us, I pray the next will be that much easier.

Little’s only lament was that she thought she was going to miss the school book fair.

2.  A new season of Dr. Who started and within the first 10 min. of the first episode the writer had posed an incredible ethical question. THAT is why I love Dr. Who and don’t mind if I am called a geek; good writing, tough questions, and humor can be a real gift.

3. It is too late in the night for me to blog – I will write something personal and sad. So I will pause here until tomorrow when I can be pensive and funny. (Let’s see if I really get back to this tomorrow or in a month!)

4. I’m back. KB’s class has been studying insects; each child was given a mealworms to care for and watch as they turned into Darkling Beetles. KB names hers Chocolate. The teacher’s plan was that once one worm turned into a beetle all the kids would take theirs home. Chocolate came to live with us this week. He did great for a few days but as of this morning and I afraid Chocolate has gone to meet his maker (Either that or he is in the pupa stage, but  I doubt that.)  I found myself praying over a mealworms this morning, asking Jesus to please let him not be dead. KB is going to be crushed; she is so tender-hearted.

5. I quit my job; first time I’ve ever done that. This is a whole post that I am preparing to write.

6. I love selling Jamberry. It’s funny – in high school you take those tests that tell you what you should do as a job in your future. Mine said sales and I giggle about that when i think of how much fun I am having.

7. We went to the movies as a family today and Lily made it through the previews and one sentence into Hotel Transylvania 2. She and I got our money back and went home until the show was over. (This goes on my list of positives for living in a place as small as FoCo. After the movie we all went to Chickfila and turned in kids’ meals toys so that everyone had free ice cream. We also all wore sports team shirts and all went home with a free sandwich for dinner. This frugal mama was LOVING that.

8. Mom, Bubba said today that he wishes we had a cool porch on our house like Memom has at her house. Apparently he is convinced it would come with a hammock. He has forbidden KB to ever talk about swinging on the hammock over Labor Day. Hilarious.

9. We are reading The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe aloud. Little and Bubba let me read it to them when they were six but KB has never made it past the first chapter; she is my sensitive one. So now, finally, I told her we were going to push on and she would see what a lovely book it was. Her eyes have been the size of saucers each night and she begs to read “one more chapter”. We just finished Peter’s First Battle and it is has one of my favorite passages in it. It led to an amazing conversation with my seven-year old and that is probably going to be a post as well.

10. Bubba has joined the Run/Walk club at school so every Monday and Thursday he can be found doing laps outside for an hour. I never thought, in a million years, that my son would choose to be active for an hour but I am overjoyed. He has a goal to go 100 miles during the course of the year and three days in he has done 5.75 miles. When I picked him up on Monday of this week he told me that he had a new strategy. He realized he would go further during the hour if he would run more, so he was running a little bit of every lap. I held back a giggle and asked if he had worked out a pattern to run the short ends and walk the long ends or something of that nature. He responded, “Even the short ends are too long to run the whole thing, mom.”

School started this week for our kiddos and it’s the FIRST TIME EVER that all three went to the SAME school. I got choked up Monday morning while praying for them before they left; I was just so excited they would all be together. It was also the FIRST TIME EVER that I dropped my kids off at school and didn’t call my mom crying. I called my mom – I just didn’t cry.

The school where they are all attending starts at 9:00 AM so we had a nice leisurely morning before they had to be there. Honestly, this is one of the things I am most excited about this year. We had breakfast together – it was “National Pancake Day”, so we had pumpkin pancakes. We spent time with God together. It was so great.You can see the verse we looked at. . . this is Bubba’s picture. I wish I had a recording of his voice saying, “This is me now and God is with me and loves me completely (God is represented by the smiling sun in all of Bub’s pictures) and this is me when I am old and God is still with me and loves me just as wholly and completely.” Seriously? Happy mom moment for sure.

Little was committed to riding the bus even though I was going to have to drive her siblings in the car right behind her (their paperwork is finished yet.) I walked out with her, gave kisses, and waved her off; she has the same bus driver as last year and it was “home-townish” to see and greet someone we knew.

Walking KB and Bubba up to their doors wasn’t as intimidating for me as it was last year. For some reason there weren’t as many dogs and Little wasn’t with me to stop and talk to the ones we did pass. Bubba had a death grip on my left hand and I was so focused on silently praying for his day that all else seemed small. KB said, “The first day is always nervy and then. . . it’s the second day. Bye, Mom.” Gotta love her.

Bubba did NOT adhere to her “rip off the bandaid” approach; instead he attempted to rip off my pointer finger. He said the words, “I wanna go back to TPAAK, Mom, ” and I saw the lip begin to quiver. I whispered a prayer in his ear.

It literally hurts watching our son build up enough nerve to do something like walk into a new classroom. I could NOT be more proud of him. I could see him shaking and eye contact with his teacher (who was greeting everyone at the door) was not an option, but he did give a fist bump and walked in.

Can I tell you one of the great blessings of the day? I had dropped the ball and not gotten the kids’ medical forms signed and so I had to go back up to the school at 1:00PM to give Bubs and Little their medication. Little was, of course, in heaven being back at school and she threw back her pill and headed out with barely a wave. The beautiful thing was Bubba. He walked in talking and left talking. . . they were doing a bingo game and the teacher had changed a diaper and this boy was born outside Colorado, and on and on. Happy Heart.

When I picked the kids up and started walking down the street toward the van, I listened to them chatter about the day. I asked Bubba, “So you’re okay with being here instead of TPAAK?” and I could swear that I heard angels sing as he answered, “Definitely!”

The 5^th grade class at Little’s school goes away to camp for “Eco Week” in September and LITTLE is responsible for raising the money to pay for it. We’ve never done a fundraiser before; there’s a first time for everything.

We are committed to her being involved as much as possible and she loves Jamberry Nails, so that’s what we’re selling. 30% of every wrap sold will go toward her trip and each supporter will get a personal video message of thanks from Little.

There is an event page on Facebook and if you join you will learn something each day about the product, the camp, or the Little girl raising the money!!! Let me know if you would like to join in and I’ll send you an invite to the event page.

The link will close down at noon on August 31 or when the goal is reached.

Hoping this is a win win for everyone . . . maybe Christmas or a birthday party coming up?

Place your order with me through personal message or my gmail account (thebluehutch@) and then pay over by check or through Paypal! I’ll   cover the tax and shipping! Everyone who makes a purchase is entered  to win a prize given away at the end of the month.
Check out the merch: thebluehutch.jamberrynails.com

She is so excited.