May 2013 will probably go down as one of the most scattered months of my life.  I feel like everything looked so “together” on the outside but in my spirit. . . tumultuous, I tell you!

May is always tough – – school is drawing to a close, paperwork is being filled out for the NEXT year, plans for summer are being finalized, field day, 2 spirit weeks, Mother’s Day teas, etc. etc.  This May was intensified by several factors unique to 2013.

I think I am going to write a few posts about May and post them throughout the rest of the week.  If I tried to put it all in one entry no one would make it to the end and I have BIG NEWS.  You’ll have to keep coming back and I’ll tell you the BIG NEWS at the end of the week.

First, the expected:
I only had two Mother’s Day teas to attend this year – KB’s and Little’s. They were both on the same day and four hours apart, so technically it was the smoothest “Tea Fest” I have ever experience! Lots of mommy friends made this year extra fun too.

Little was one of the few students who walked up to the microphone and read her list of things she loves about me; I was very proud of her for being so brave.  Funny thing is that most of her reasons for loving me are related to cheese and the purchase of toys.  Nice.

It was a wonderful year at Promise and Little’s teacher, Mrs. Lee, and Little’s sweet friend, Faith, were major contributors to that.

Funny thing. . . the year was so great (in relation to school) I didn’t really know how to process it when May arrived.  The kids learned their spelling words, Bubba did his book projects, KB learned all her letter sounds. . .there were a couple of discipline issues but we dealt with those and moved on.  There were several exciting joys and we celebrated those. Teachers were great.  There seemed to be a calm rhythm.  Unbelievable and a first for us – thank you Jesus for all that calm before a stormy May.

Honey goes in to Little’s room each night to give her medicine and change her pull-up one last time.  It is one of my favorite parts of each day and I usually stay out of sight and just listen to the interchange.  Little sits straight up when the door opens and her mouth immediately begins running.  There is never any way of predicting what the topic will be.

Honey and I ate dinner after the kids went to bed tonight and so the first thing out of Little’s mouth when the door opened was, “What did you and mom have for dinner tonight?”  Honey answered, “We had an Asian dish called Spicy Cashew Chicken.”

Little replied, “When I go to Asia I will have Asian Chicken too.”  Honey just responded with, “Okay, here’s your pull-up.”

Little continued, “Know what they have in Australia?”  Honey said, “Australian chicken?”  Little replied, “You are so right!”

There were kisses and hugs and she went back to sleep.
Tonight I dream of multicultural chickens – – with a smile on my face.

Our church took a week at the end of April and focused on the World’s need for Jesus.  Missionaries that our church supports came from around the world and spent time sharing about what they are seeing God do “back home”.  Growing up with a Missions Pastor for a daddy, well you can imagine how much I love this week.  I was asked to help in some way and I picked the welcome baskets.

I contacted the office of the aforementioned Missions Pastor and asked them what they put in their welcome bags.  I compiled a list and added to it what our gal put in last year and “wah-lah” the search content for a Pinterest board was created!!!

Hindsight is 20/20 and if I’m asked to do this again next year I will gladly say “YES!” and use different parameters for what I include.   The theme was “Kingdom Calling” and, honestly, I went a little crazy on this first go-round.

I tried to think of things that are locally made so that the visitors could have a “taste” of St. Louis.  So we included Fitz’s Rootbeer, Gooey Louie Buttercake, Billy Goat Chips, and Dad’s Cookies’ Chocolate Arch.  There were Arch notecards drawn by a church member too!

After the local items were chosen I tried to think of things for the wife and husband to enjoy. . . something they would use.  For the women there was a key fob, with a little phone charm to remind them where it came from.

There was also a journal that had a fabric cover they could remove and use again the notebook was filled up.  For the men. . . the book Kingdom Calling.  And since everyone and their mother was going to be hugging these visitors and shaking their hands, a little “Kingdom Calling” hand sanitizer!!  This was seriously fun to put together.  Next year I would do the book, the journal, and the chocolate Arch.  (maybe the hand sanitizer?)

The missionary bags were due to the missions lady on April 16 and then on April 17 I was to deliver the gift bags for the teachers at Promise for Teacher Appreciation Week.  

Every teacher received a gift card to Panera, lemonade mix with a Wordle cover, a heating pad eye mask, cutesy binder clips, and a bookmark.  The bookmark is awesome and I kept one for myself.  *wink*  Everything went into a “monogrammed” bag and was delivered with a smile.

My kids were thrilled when I was finished but I loved having a project to work on and a need for creativity.  Throw in loving on people I am thankful for and WOW!! What a treat for me!