Pictures at school

When I had lunch with Hannah this week at school, she was in the mood to take pictures with her teachers and her friends. I can never say no to pictures :)

Hannah with her two teachers, Mrs. Hasselquist and Mrs. I. Mrs. I is a student teacher who will be with Hannah for a couple more weeks and then she will be gone. :( We will sure miss her. These two teachers have been so amazing and we are so grateful to them.

Hannah, me and her friend, Noah

Hannah and her friend, April

Hannah and her friend, Nathan

A God stop

Last summer, I joined a Bible study in our church. It was on Jonah. Honestly, it was one of my favorite Bible studies I've ever had.

And one of my favorite, most cherished group of women and I'm so blessed. We call ourselves the "Nineveh" group and "Nineveh" sisters. Before we were done with the study last summer, we exchanged emails and cell phone numbers to keep in touch. It wasn't a big group---probably about 7---but this group has been such a blessing to me.

Every once in awhile we get together to do something to bless other people.

We had decided that for Valentine's Day we would get together and put together bags of goodies for the ladies at the local women's shelter.

I've been blessed that the ladies have let Hannah be a part of this group so when I told Hannah we were going shopping for the bags to put together with our Nineveh sisters, she was so excited. She told me "Mommy, we have to spoil them!". Of course, she also begged me a dozen times for a toy while we were there too. I did give in....sigh. She was patient while we were shopping.

Anyway, we filled our cart with a bunch of items to put into the goodie bags we were going to put together. We also had picked up some stuff for us so we had a big full cart.

When we came up to the cash register, the cashier looked like she wanted to be anywhere but where she was at. I don't know if she was having a bad day, didn't like her job or what was going on. But it was obvious she was just not happy.

I'm sure seeing my big full cart with a bunch of little things she was going to have to scan individually didn't help.

Hannah and I were putting all our stuff onto the counter for the cashier. I could see a line forming behind us and I could feel the irritation---both from the cashier and the people behind us.

I didn't want to brag or boast and I was very hesitant to say anything. But something told me I needed to explain. So I looked at the cashier and said in my sweetest voice, "I'm so sorry. I know it's very annoying and time consuming to have to ring up all this individually. I'm sorry! A group of us are putting together Valentine's bags for the women at the shelter which is why there are so many little things".

I grabbed the full bag of stuff to put into our cart and I didn't hear the cashier at all. Great, I thought, now she thinks I'm just bragging. I never should have said anything.

I realized then I didn't hear her ringing anything up anymore and I looked up.

She was crying. With a choked up voice she said in barely a whisper, "That is so nice of you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart".

With tears in my eyes I said "You're welcome. Oh, I wish I could give you a huge hug".

She smiled just a little and went on ringing up our stuff.

I don't know why she cried.
Maybe she was one of the women we blessed.
Maybe she knew someone who was struggling.
Maybe she was just having a bad day and needed to hear something nice.
Maybe it just touched her in a way we will never understand.

What I do know is that God nudged me to say something. I listened and in that moment, it was obvious our actions had touched this woman in a way that only God knows.

We may never know that woman's story. But I walked out of that store a different person. You never know how you will touch someone and sometimes it's a rare stop that just happens to be God orchestrated.

One of 12 bags we made:

Kindergarten--week 23

This week was Valentine's week. :)

Of course the letter was "V":

More sight words and games with sight words:

More work with numbers and adding and subtracting:

Her "The Hearts" book with the sight word "with". She answered the question on some pages and colored other pages :):

Some projects she did at school:

Gotta love this...aw :)

This one is special---she got to write 5 things she loves about something/someone. She chose her brother, Peter:

I LOVE this bookmark! She made it with her thumb print:

Now this broke my heart. :( Hannah's been struggling with some tummy aches and issues. One day when I went to pick her up, she told me she made me a card. It says "Mom I don't feel good". My heart broke in so many pieces that day. :( I felt so bad for her.

She also made a hedgehog with a pine cone:

Doogie 2008 - February 13, 2018

On February 13, 2018 our hearts were broken.

After supper, our dog, Doogie, was crying to go outside. Just normal routine for us. I went to crack open the door like I normally do to get the cable to hook him on so he could run outside. However, that sneaky dog got by me and ran outside without the cable on. Occasionally he'll sneak by so this was nothing new, just another frustrating Doogie moment. When this happens, we just wait for him to come back....he always does.

This time he didn't.

After calling and looking for him for about 15 minutes, I decided I needed to go look for him. Lately, his collar had been getting caught on blankets around the house so my first thought was that Doogie was caught in the woods. It was dark and cold so I knew I had to go find him before it got too cold. I remember thinking that dumb dog---getting out and then getting caught and I had to go and fix it for him.

Mark had not been feeling well and had been having bad confusion and hallucinations. I didn't really want Hannah to come out in the cold and dark with me looking for Doogie and I didn't really want her alone with Mark when he wasn't doing well. So, we decided I would take my phone with me and she could talk to me as I'm looking for Doogie.

Hannah and I were talking on the phone and she was telling me about her day at school. I was shining the flashlight into the woods and calling his name every once in awhile.

I was at the end of our driveway and Hannah was telling me a joke when I saw him. He was laying on the side of the road.

"Oh, Doogie!"

He looked like he was just sleeping but deep in my heart I knew he was gone.

I ran over to him still saying his name. When I got to him and saw the life gone from his eyes, the tears started coming "Oh Doogie, I'm so sorry. I'm just so sorry"

The voice of my little girl snapped me back to reality. "Mommy, what is it? What's wrong? What happened?"

I suddenly realized I was still on the phone with Hannah.

I couldn't tell her on the phone. I needed to tell her face to face. "I'm coming in sweetie"

"But Mommy, what's wrong? Where's Doogie? What happened?"

I told her he was hit by a car. It was all I could say. In my mind, that would give me a chance to just get to the house before I told her everything. Our neighbor's dog had recently been hit by a car, but the dog had been fine. I knew Hannah wouldn't be too upset.....yet.

I got into the house and I could see the fear in her eyes. She just looked at me and asked "Is he okay?"

I started crying and crying hard "No sweetie. He's not".

Hannah ran up to me. I was so proud of her that night. I wasn't the best mom as I felt like she was the one comforting me. I couldn't think. I couldn't talk. I just cried. I felt like I failed Hannah.

Hannah handed me the phone "Mommy, you need someone. Call someone. Call someone to help you".

My baby girl grew up so much in that moment.

I called a friend who happened to be leaving work just about a mile from our house. Together we got Doogie and put him into a box. We prayed over him.

Our baby boy was gone.

The next morning, I brought him into the vet to get cremated. There was another customer there waiting for his dog. He looked at the box and said "Oh do we have a cat coming in a Walmart box?" with a little chuckle.

I burst into tears. "My dog was hit by a car and killed last night".

I was amazed at how fast that customer jumped up and the staff came from around the counter to help. They carried Doogie's body to the back. I'll never forget watching Doogie leave like that. Until then it didn't seem final...but seeing them carry him back hit me hard.

I sobbed and sobbed.

The customer was amazing. He asked the right questions, wanted to know more about Doogie, and then as they brought out his own dog, he asked if I would like to hold him.

I cried as I held the sweet dog who licked my face and showed me love.

I needed that. That customer was an angel that day.

Since then, it's been hard. Nights have been extremely hard for Hannah as the three of us always got ready for bed together and would snuggle. We know with time it will get better but right now, we are sad.

This is what I shared on Facebook the next day:

Thank you all for the love, support and prayers with the loss of our Doogie. Oh Doogie. He was a dog that could drive me crazy. He barked at everything from the mailman to a falling leaf. He was a runner and if he saw an opportunity to sneak out of the house, he would and run all around the neighborhood. I got to know the neighbors and their yards very well.

But he was also a very loving dog. He was a snuggle bug for sure. He got me through some tough years before we were blessed with Hannah. Tough times were a little easier because I had my Doogie to snuggle and love up on. At night he liked to lay under my knees. I'm going to miss that so much.

He just loved to snuggle with people. He thought he would fit in anyone's lap. He was so patient with Hannah. So patient. He pretty much let Hannah do whatever she wanted to him

We're going to miss him so much. God is a bit busier now trying to control Doogie on those streets of gold. Doogie is probably going from house to house saying hi.

Till we meet again Doogie. We love you

Kindergarten--week 22

This week included the 100th day of school! The project that the kids had to do was come up with 100 things and display in a creative fashion. I'm usually not very creative but I think I did okay this time. We took 100 paperclips and displayed them in the year they were graduating---2030.

Hannah also decided to surprise her teachers with flowers this week. She likes to do things like this randomly. It makes me so proud:

It was the letter "G" this week:

More work with numbers, adding and subtracting:

Some work with shapes:

More sight words:

They also did some games with sight words where they had to find sight words around the room. Hannah loved it!

And she had to match the picture with the words:

Her art project:

This week was also the start of the Olympics so they made a couple Olympic projects:

For Hannah's guidance class at school, this week we were to write how Hannah was special to us:

And here is Hannah reading with her friend Noah: