I know there's a smudge on the lens, but I can't tell you how much I love this photo.  This is the kind of wonderfulness that happens when we have nowhere to go.  Love those kinds of evenings.  Daddy gets home from work, and sits in a chair, and memories happen.  <3
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On the way home from dinner last night, someone started singing “I See the Moon.”  This song has so much sentimental meaning with our family

 

It is the song Matt sang to Julia in my tummy for 9 months, and then soon after birth in the recovery room.  She stopped her screaming and opened her little newborn peepers, and stared right at him as he sang it to her.  Hello, Daddy.

 

As Julia grew through her first two years, we sang it to her often and made up new words to it to create a second verse which included the announcement to her that we were expecting Hope.  Welcome, Hope.  It’s your song too.

 

It is the song Matt has sung to and with all of our children.  It is the song that they probably first heard him harmonize with me.

 

It is the song that Matt’s father, “Grampa,” sang to his children and our children through the years until he died.  He gave us these simple words:

 

I see the moon, and the moon sees me.

The moon sees somebody I like to see.

God bless the moon, and God bless me

And God bless the somebody I’d like to see.

 

Matt started telling the kids a story …

 

"Imagine a scene very similar to this.  Riding home late at night in the family station wagon, on our way home from Uncle Ralph’s house.  It’s dark, and we’re all tired, and the family is singing this exact song, harmonizing.  There I was, 13 years old, tired but content from a night of fun.  And as I was there in that station wagon, singing this song, the moon was indeed shining on my special Somebody.  It was shining on 5 year old little Natalee, down in Louisiana.  I never could have known.  I was asking God to bless your mom.  Girls, right now, some of you who will get married someday …. The moon might be shining on your husband."

 

Which got me started on a story …

 

"When I was still in Louisiana, a girl of about 10, I remember being worried about finding a good husband.  I remember asking my Mom if I would be able to find a husband as good as my Daddy.  She must have told somebody at church that I was concerned about it, because a woman gave me a prayer to St. Raphael.  The prayer asked the saint to watch over my future spouse and keep him for me, until it was time for us to be together.  So I too, was praying for your dad, and I didn’t even know him.  See how God has blessed us?"
 

As I sit here tonight, I am blown away by the realization that God has taken such good care of us, and that He does indeed answer prayers.  Just ask, and wait, and believe.