09/08/08

Here is the tailgate of a Chevrolet from Farm Days. :) I often wonder if in 50 years people will be taking pictures of our vehicles like we do of these old ones now. I often look at ours and think they won't, but who knows!!! lol


Let me just tell you that those kittens of ours continue to grab my heart. They are SO much fun and it is so nice to have something run up to you when you get home from work/school. Steve is loving it, too, although he tries to act like he doesn't have to have a cat. lol He said when he walked in the door tonight (he got home a bit before we did) that they both ran to greet him. I think it made his day! I am just loving these sweet gifts. I am hoping tonight while I grade papers that they will hop in my lap and fall asleep like they did last night when I was doing a bit of Bible study. Talk about stinkin' sweet!

Today something pretty neat happened at school. One of my students had brought in a chrysalis early last week. We had talked about it some and all of the kids had been looking at it. I truly didn't know if it would live, though, because I have had many in my teaching years that "died" because they were "watched" and loved so much!!

Late last week this one began to move back and forth. The kids were all excited so I moved it to my desk so it wouldn't get bumped around on the science table. When I left Friday it was still green and looked like the caterpillar yet had a bit of a different shape.

This morning when I got to school I looked in on it and saw that the chrysalis had turned more transparent!!!! I have only seen that in books!!! I was beyond excited to show my kids. Well, right before all of my kids began arriving for school, Mikayla came over to my desk before she went to her classroom and said "MOM!! The butterfly has hatched!!" I looked over at it and sure enough that butterfly had hatched out of the chrysalis! It was beautiful. I can't remember the exact name of the butterfly but it was mostly black and had some orange markings.

I propped up the blade of grass it had been on because it couldn't pump up and dry its wings in the bottom of the container. It hung onto that blade of grass for a better part of the morning. I was about to start reading groups when one of my students noticed it wasn't hanging upside down anymore and had spread its wings! We took a mini field trip outside to let it go. (I asked Mikayla's teacher if she could come with me to do this because she loves butterflies so much. She was so excited to see this, too.) The butterfly hung on to the grass until we got to the flower bed where we were going to place it and then off it went!! I got a bit teary-eyed when I saw it take flight. To think we watched it all of that time and now it was off flying and beautiful.

I told my students that is what new life in Christ does for you. The old things are passed away... behold all things become new! We are changed into a new creature when we accept Christ as our Savior.

That was the biggest bright spot in my day today. I can't tell you what that did to my heartstrings. I have never had that experience with a butterfly before and hope it won't be the last. This will be something I will always remember. I hope my students will, too.