FUN!

Ok - this is totally a waste of time plugging in pictures in odd settings...but OH so much fun. I saw this on Angry Chicken's blog.

VBS Recap

What a wonderful week we had at VBS! Today was our last day as I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow which I'm EXTREMELY happy about because I don't think my sciatica could have taken one more day of VBS. Today in fact, we had to go in 1 1/2 hours late cause I was in so much pain but we got through it. It was such a blessing to be a part of such an incredible ministry and I'm so thankful that I could be apart. It took over 100 volunteers to make it happen so I'm glad I could do my small part.

Another lady and I taught the 3rd graders and had 15 kids. (Side note: it was extremely interesting to note the differences in boys vs. girls. I love my little boy and am thankful for having another one on the way - but boys are a real handful. It's amazing to see how different they are - boys being so physical vs. girls being emotional.) Total there were probably around 200 kids attending VBS at our church. Our church does a fantastic job organizing it and keeping the kids busy. It starts at 9am and ends at 12 each day. We basically rotated around different areas throughout each day starting & ending in the fellowship hall for music. We do crafts, movie, drama, snack & bible story time. Our church did such a great job letting the kids experience the bible story each day physically, musically, emotionally, etc. It really drove the story home each day. One day the kids were blindfolded and had oatmeal put above their eyes. Yesterday the kids got to even walk on water - a fun experiment with cornstarch and water makes this possible. It was such a great experience!

Joshua was in the 2 year old class and was brought to the finale music each day. I can't tell you how precious he looked every day walking into the fellowship hall seemingly in awe of all the kids and the "fast" (that is how he says loud) music. Every night at dinner we tell daddy about our day and I wondered how much Joshua was getting out of the program so I asked him if he heard a story about Jesus and he said, "Yes, walk water". I was FLOORED that he actually recalled the theme for the day which was the story of Peter walking on water. Anyways, it just goes to show you what little sponges their little brains are even at 2!

Strawberry Pickin'

This past Saturday we went Strawberry picking. Joshua had a blast! One of his favorite lines right now is "This way!" - as you can see by the first picture. He also loved picking the green strawberries - even though we kept telling him to only pick the red ones. Then, after picking the green ones, he would say, "Sorry green one." He had a great time also petting the farm dog!

Washing cars!

This is actually what we did last weekend...but I'm a little behind. Joshua had a great time helping daddy wash the cars.

Summer Activities

I've been starting to research my local area for things to do over the summer with Joshua. Here are some of the things we will be doing this summer.

1. Free movies. Our local theatre offers free movies for kids. Also, Mom Advice had a great blog about discount Summer movies for kids in areas all over the country.
2. The pool. There is a neighborhood a few miles away that has a pool membership for $200 that I just can't pass up. The pool is clean and with a lifeguard and great fun for our family.
3. Storytime at the Library. Always a fun activity for us and free, free, free!
4. Playdates at the park. I try to set up a playdate once a week for us - usually on Thursdays. During the summer we spend LOTS of time at our local park.
5. Gardening. I gave up my vegetable garden the last two summers but this summer I'm putting it back and think Joshua will have a BLAST watching the vegetables grow. On one end I'll be putting in my Sunflowers for the Sunflower Project.
6. Vacation Bible School. I usually volunteer for VBS and haven't definitely decided on this or not since Joshua is still kind of young to benefit. We'll see on this one.
7. Sprinkler parties. I've decided to have several events in my yard this summer which I'm basically calling sprinkler parties. Which basically means - inviting my friends and their kids over to run in the sprinklers.

How are you keeping your kids busy over the summer?

Christmas Dinner Entertainment

This year I have made Christmas Crackers for all my guests. I used a wrapping paper tube and cut into smaller pieces. I glued wrapping paper around each one and tied each end with a ribbon after putting little prizes inside each. I glued name tags on each of the crackers. This will indicate where to sit as well as have a question on the back that my guest must answer before they can open their cracker. Questions might include: What is your favorite Christmas tradition? etc

We will also be playing a few games between dinner & dessert. I found quite a few good ones at THIS site. It should be lots of fun!

Joshua Video

Joshua probably did this for 30 minutes straight. Make sure to click the play button on the bottom left.

Harvest Festival

Here are pictures from our church's Harvest Festival. Joshua rode his first pony...and LOVED it! (In fact, he went twice!) Which isn't helping me with John's desire to have a pony at Joshua's 2nd birthday party. Joshua, always the dancer, also square danced, played ball, ate cotton candy & popcorn, went through tunnels, on a hayride and more. We really had a great time! I also added a few pictures of Joshua playing with his new 'used' train. :)

The Big Reveal!!

So for those of you who have been wondering what Joshua is for Halloween this year...here is the big reveal...a dragonsauras!! I found the costume at a consignment sale for $6! Wahoo! It's taken some practice to get him to warm up to the idea of even wearing the costume...thus the sad looking face picture. But he seemed to forget that he was wearing it after a while...but wasn't real happy about the hood part. Anyways, we went to a festival today at the farmers market so that is where most of these pictures are from. Tomorrow we go to our churchs Harvest Festival - so I should have even more pictures. Enjoy!

MOPS UPdate & Exciting Celebrity News!!!

I just got back from the MOPS convention in Orlando which was 5,000 mothers of preschoolers all joined together. That is ALOT of moms in one place!! It was an awesome time!! Sara Groves opened up our session with about 5 of her songs on Friday & ended our session on Saturday. We were also led in worship by Matt Redmon who wrote a ton of popular songs - like "Here I am to Worship" & "Blessed be the Name". We had amazing uplifting messages and fellowship. Some of the speakers at the conference included John Ortberg who had an absolutely amazing message about contentment & slowing down. I know I'm going to definitely get his book - When the game is over, it all goes back in the box! We also heard from Julie Barnhill who is HILARIOUS & full of incredible messages about parenting. We also heard from Laurie Smith, David James, Elisa Morgan, Lysa Terkheurst & many more wonderful speakers.

SOOO...the exciting celebrity news is that we had dinner with Laurie Smith from Trading Spaces on Friday night. We were eating dinner when she happened to walk into our restaurant. Well, one of the other ladies I went with and I decided to go over and invite her to eat with us as she was dining alone. She said she would be delighted and so the 7 of us dined, talked, and laughed together for about 3 hours. I couldn't help but be completely star struck. She was really nice and really talkative. I think God definitely brings people together for a reason because I happened to ask something about her 10 month old that caused her to share that her daughter has been struggling with the same weight issues as Joshua and recently had the same cystic fibrosis test. We did get a picture of her with us with one of the ladies camera's however, I'm waiting for her to email it to me - so stay tuned.

Scrabble

John and I played Scrabble last night which was quite enjoyable. Typically in scrabble - it is thrilling to pull out a 28 or even 36 point word...but my dear husband came up with a 99 point word. YES, 99 points!! I had previously put the word 'duce' (which I might add he challenged saying it wasn't a word and lost a turn because it was). Anyways, he added 5 letters to 'duce' to make it 'reducers' which hit 2 triple word scores so his 11 point word was multiplied by 9 for a 99 point word. Competitive as I am, I'm happy to say I still beat him by 5 points even with his 99 point word. :) Aren't game nights fun!!

Happy 4th of July!!!

Our friends Sue & Evan had a fun fourth of July party at their house yesterday. Of course, John was the biggest kid in attendance - but everyone had a great time. We played badminton but couldn't beat little Evan the 6 year old badminton king. We launched rockets, played in the pool, went down a zip line, and ate lots of yummy food. Then, after being completely wiped out - we came home and John & I were asleep by 9pm. John also finally finished cleaning out the garage yesterday while I showed houses so he can finally get his car back in there. Hooray!! Joshua's teething pain seems to be a little better and he continues to learn more and more. He tries to repeat everything we say lately - or at least the key words - although they don't always sound completely right. He likes to say the word blueberry now - which is his new favorite fruit but it comes out 'boo-bear'. He has also been really interested in trying new foods which is fantastic because it's really hard to go anywhere when he is so limited on food choices. But he seems to always want to try what we are eating now even if he ends up spitting it out...I'm glad he is trying.

Zoo/Museum Pics

Joshua & his buddy Zach at the Natural Science Museum where they just added a new fancy zoo. Aren't the tigers cool?

Kindermusik Pictures

Every Wednesday Joshua and I go to Kindermusik. He absolutely loves it and I HIGHLY recommend it! Here are some pictures of one of our classes. As you can see in the one picture, we were trying to get all our kids to sit with our teacher Ms. Julie - but it was quite a task.