Small Miracles

Ever receive an answer to a prayer that you never prayed? We had three this past week. Sometime in the last month or so, arriving home on a very blustery day we noticed that the very top piece of our gingerbread trim was missing. Not something we were particularly concerned about at the moment since it's cold and Tony doesn't plan on stretching the ladder that high to fix it. But it still bugged us when we saw it. And the thought crossed my mind as to how small of a piece of that stuff you could buy and then, would it match?

The other day the girls were outside riding bikes when Kerrigan came in carrying this:

Yep, you guessed it. The very piece that came off. It might be missing something but at least we have the basic size and can look for a match if needed.

Also, the day before, we went to Castleton Mall in order for Kerrigan to receive her free Build-A-Bear animal - their birthday gift to her. When that was done, we were getting ready to leave and the "birthday girl" decided she wanted to check out the Disney Store, "Just to look!" even though she'd spent all her money at Build-A-Bear. So we start toward the Disney store and encounter some other very girly, girl store. We had other things to do so it was either this store or Disney. She decided on this one.

Well all the sparkly pink and purple merchandise appealed greatly to Kerrigan but not to her older sisters or father. So they decided to head towards the Game shop (in search of the presently elusive Wii, I suspect). When Kerrigan was done, I spotted the Children's Place across the aisle. I called Tony and told him where to find me and I began to scour the clearance racks. Kerrigan was in desperate need of decent Wednesday night type clothing and I found a couple skirts that I thought might actually be below her knee. No small feat these days.

I took her in the dressing room and she modeled two outfits for her dad, who'd returned by then, tired and ready to leave. One did NOT impress him at all and the other was okay. I knew I'd already blown his extra spending money budget the day before shopping for after-Christmas clearance (if I'd have had Pepsi and chocolate on hand, my depression funk would have been cheaper on us for sure!) but I sweetly asked him if he would just go have the clerk do a price check while I helped Kerri back into her own clothes. He humored me (probably something to do with not wanting to revive the depression funk :) And when we came out of the dressing room, I thought I heard her say 99 cents but wasn't positive. When I got up to the counter Tony confirmed that yes, she did say 99 cents! I told her to hold on because I was sure there were a couple other skirts like that that I could modify for Janae.

I ended up with 5 skirts (two for Janae, two for Kerrigan and even one for our little friend Kallee). It isn't always easy to find modest clothing for girls with the right price tag. Those of you with boys, count your blessings!

So, I get home seeing a "mending" day in the near future - knowing that I have these skirts to add elastic to, a few uniform skirts that need attention and two pairs of Tony's pants to hem. Janae came up to me on Sunday morning and says, "Mom, did you know these skirts have these?"

Nope, I hadn't even thought to look but thank the Lord for small miracles! Now if I can just find some pants with an adjustable hem...