Hello, I love you, won't you tell me your name?

Hey! Hey there? Remember the time when i used to blog often? Since my last blog was when Ella turned 12 and she is 3 months shy of 13, needless to say--lots has happened. WE moved to a new home, I graduated from college, got a new job as a 3rd grade teacher, and I am attempting to learn my way as the leader of this special group. I would love to put there pictures up, I don't as a respect of confidentiality. But trust me, they are awesome. Teaching them is a great gift. I am learning much and finding that I am inadequate in so many ways. What matters is I am loving them in ways only I can (like making them own problems, be responsible in our school community, and chewing gum in our room is totally ok even when the school community won't let us :)

I have found that living in a new house is a great and wonderful thing. Now what is not so wonderful is the limited amount of time I have to make this home "ours". What does that mean really? New paint, new furnishings, new drapes? You know its your home when you come home to find Ella's boots in the foyer, her coat following her in the living room floor, and she is sitting in the kitchen already into her 2nd bowl of Reese's Puffs cereal after a long day of being and academic genius (well, for middle school that is). Those are the times I breathe in a sigh of thankfulness--then tell her to be responsible and get her stuff up.

Grant played his first season of freshman football and came out all the better. He is a lean, trim version of the unsure Grant we once knew. I applaud how courageous he was even when he was so mad at us for making him do "this". He has often said, "I don't know what i would be like if you hadn't made me play football." I know what he would have been like and I'm glad that I made him push himself. I'm glad when he was begging me not to make him go back to camp, I told him to "suck it up" and get in the car. I'm glad I got to sit in the bleachers and watch him from the sidelines as he was passed over to play, while his friends won game after game, and I got the pleasure of watching him congratulate them genuinely. He learned the game of football, yes. But the best teacher of the semester was the master of looking outside yourself and being part of the team. He was part. Not a significant part this year. Maybe not even next year. But he had joy just being in the game. Part of the team. One of the guys. And they boys on the team loved him. Were encouraged by his resolve. Were cheered up by him "good gaming" them when they came off the field. Were helped when mom gave them rides from practice and he never complained about not playing. Isn't that how we should be in towards service to the church. Rooting on one another with no complaining? Cheering those who are seemingly "more" in the game than we. He learned much from the semester sport, but was an example to me of just being in the Lord. Growing on the sideline. That is a sweet lesson only taught by patience and perseverance.