VBS: Day 4

Our last day of VBS, Kaitlyn's whole family came with us!  Ava was the most excited b/c she had a buddy to go with her to her class.  Austin was not so sure of all of the excitement but he warmed up eventually.  He was my constant buddy all night.  :)  He would not hold anyone's hand but Ava's and had to know where she was at all times.  Pretty cute!

I stayed with the 2 yr old class all night but from all accounts Carli and Kaitlyn had a great night also.

Austin and Ava making necklaces.

Two little goofballs...

 

 

The kids were all pretty excited to get to watch a video full of pictures of them from VBS at the end of the night.  I thought it was pretty cool that they all found more than one picture of themselves in the video.  Our little part of VBS had about 40 kids - which is a pretty good turn out for 2-5 year olds!

 



VBS: Day 3

Day three of VBS was great.  When the girls I were getting ready to go, Carli and Ava headed over to Kaitlyn's house to see if she could come again.  I was not aware they did this until I could not find them!  Thankfully, no tears were shed b/c Kaitlyn had no plans and could come with us!  Shew!

Keith and I helped with snacks and wrangling all the 2 year olds.  We had forgotten how hard it was to get a 2 year old to sit still longer than 10 seconds!

Ava at the "beach" in Athens, Greece....

Carli & Kaitlyn's class

I can't say I remember much about this night expect I was tired!  ha!  All three girls finally started participating in the songs at the beginning and end of VBS.  Our favorite is still the Hip - Hip - Hip - Hippopotamus...

VBS: Day 2

Carli and Ava invited their friend and neighbor, Kaitlyn, to come to VBS with us on Monday night.  Carli and Kaitlyn were inseparable all night.  When we did big group activities, Ava joined their little crowd and stuck close by. 

Ava had awful allergies all day on Monday so I was not planning on her staying at VBS that night.  She was miserable all day.  But Keith had to work late and by the time we had dinner and Keith got there, Ava had no intentions to leave!

Kaitlyn & Carli

The three amigos listening to Paul's story

On Monday, Keith and I helped with the service project.  The kids helped to decorate cards to put in with the Magi boxes the church collects every year.  Lots of stickers and crayons...makes for happy kids!

I also remembered to get a group picture of each class while we had them for a few minutes.  This is Carli's class....

Sunday night, Ava's class only had 3 kids in it...so they decided to add the 2 year old from the nursery.  It made for one busy little class! 

 

Ava survived the night with her allergies and enjoyed VBS.  Carli was pretty stoked that Kaitlyn came with us!  Two days down...two more to go!

 



VBS: Day 1

Vacation Bible School at Shiloh Road was last week.  This year the Pre-K thru Kindergarten was in a different building from the other kids.  Since the girls both fell into this category Keith and I helped out at this level and the girls really enjoyed VBS.  It was much less intimidating for them that it had been when they were put with the older kids. 

VBS here we come!



Last year we had a really hard time getting Carli to participate (Ava was only 2 so she was in the nursery).  Carli wouldn't stray far from us and refused to dress in her Bible times costume.  But this year neither girls seemed to mind parting ways with us and dressing up!  Probably helped to be in familiar classrooms and settings.

Keith and I did the Olympic Shop on the first day.  We were suppose to act like we didn't believe in God or understand what Paul was talking about.  The kids were suppose to try to convince us that there was only one true God and tell us about Paul.  The 5 year olds did a good job but the four and three year olds thought we were crazy!

While we talked they kids made some discus and laurel wreaths.  

 

Carli's class ran out of time, but Ava's class had time to have a discus throwing contest.  Look at Ava's perfect Frisbee throwing form!

It also helped that our VBS ended at 8 pm instead of 8:30.  Who knew 30 minutes would make such a huge difference!  The girls enjoyed their first day of VBS and Keith and I were still more worn out than they were at the end of the night!

The blessings of Neighbors

We are blessed to live on a culd-a-sac with some pretty awesome neighbors.  The girls love to play outside and ride bikes with their buddy Kaitlyn...

 

Purple Hull Peas

Our little garden has had marginal success this year.  The birds love my tomatoes.  My okra just simply has not made.  The bush green beans turned out to be vine beans which really look beautiful as they grow up the trellis but have yet to make a bean.

Our purple hull peas on the other hand have done really well.  We have had enough to eat and they are very yummy!  The girls had great fun in helping me shell them for dinner one night.

Carli whistles while she works...

See our purple fingers and thumbs?!  It is a right of passage!

This was actually the first time since eating peas as an infant at Grandma's house, that Ava polished off her peas at dinner.  Memories made!

More Slip N Slide

Some days you just need to play in the water...on a homemade slip-n-slide with bubbles and a play set. 

Family Day Saturday

Last Saturday, Carli climbed into our bed and said, "Momma, Daddy do you remember our elf - Shauntea?  Well, I really liked her breakfast she brought us and I think we should have that today."

And so it was that our family day Saturday began.  Keith and Carli went to the store and came home with our breakfast.  Carli walked into the kitchen and promptly asked, "Momma, you didn't decorate the table!"  I told her I was no elf!  :)

I am not a milk drinker.  Never have really liked it.  But if I did drink milk it was usually at my Grandma's house from a tin glass.  I now have four - they are treasured.  We drank our chocolate milk from our tin glasses that morning and it was cold and wonderful.  :)

After breakfast the girls and Keith played a while I finished mowing the back yard.  Then we headed out for lunch and a movie.  This was the girls first official movie.  Their daddy spoiled them rotten and let them each pick a treat.  Ava picked M&Ms...a King Size bag.  Carli picked gummy life savers.  Both ate them all...can you say sugar high?!

We went to see Despicable Me 2.  It was really good.  The girls did well.  Although the sugar high may have had Ava bouncing off her seat, literally about half way through the movie.  :)

After the movie, why not add a little more sugar to the mix and have some ice cream from Marble Slab...why not!  :)

We headed home where the girls rode off the sugar on their bikes.  We had peas and cornbread for supper.  It was the perfect day.  :)

Watermelon Fruit Roll Up

Turns out the watermelon Pa got for the 4th of July celebration at the lake was pretty big!  And really good too!  We got to bring half of the watermelon home and could not finish it all so we decided to try watermelon fruit roll ups.  My helpers were all about eating watermelon and watching...

We cut up the watermelon, took the seeds out and put it in the blender. Then we got a sieve and lined it with a double layer of paper towels and poured the blended watermelon in it to separate the water from the pulp. (We put the watermelon juice in ice cubes for future use.) We added a little honey and a tbsp or two of lemon juice so it wouldn't brown. Lined the cookie sheets with wax paper (should have sprayed with non stick spray) and poured our mixture on top of our wax paper and tried to smooth it out evenly and thin. We got two cookie sheets from a half of a very large watermelon. Put it in the oven at 170 for a very long time! Apparently strawberries and other mixtures are ready in 6 hrs but we kept checking and it took more like 12 hrs.  And here is the final result...

Ava loved them - Carli wrinkled up her nose and asked why I ruined the watermelon.  Ha! 

I think it would be fun to try some other fruit mixtures too.  Not sure Carli will ever try them bc of the texture.  She is not a fan of the store bought ones either.  Ava is pretty game to try things these days, so I could probably win her over!

July 4th Celebration at the Lake

On the actual July 4th we enjoyed a simple day at home.  The girls played outside almost all day and Keith worked in the garage.  I think I mowed.  :)  It was a perfect day to be outside.  We tried to go to a fireworks show at one of the local churches but when we drove by the amount of ppl turned Keith away so we opted to go visit some friends at the hospital who had just had a beautiful baby girl.  We pulled over in the Trane parking lot so the girls could see some of the fireworks from the show on our way home.  Since we live so close to the lake, we sit out on the back porch and watched more fireworks. 

On that Saturday we planned a day at the lake.  We were pretty bummed that Grammy got sick and couldn't come with us.  We had a great day and enjoyed the company of Aunt Sarah and Uncle Doyle.  The girls were so excited that Logan was there and enjoyed spending time with Grandma and Pa too.

First thing first the kids had to go swimming.  They had a blast playing with Uncle Tone and Uncle Andy!

There was a lot of jumping off the dock...

And even some dog swim races...

 

Cato might not have been a fan.

 

And some simple joy of playing...

 

And then Ava watched the Uncles throw Logan high in the air and decided she wanted to do that too! 

After they exhausted themselves swimming, we stuffed them full of yummy burgers.  For dessert Grammy had sent directions on how to make ice cream in a bag.   It was pretty yummy stuff!

 

It finally got dark and the kids were so excited to eat some watermelon and watch fireworks...

 

We were pretty lucky to get to see the marina fireworks show as well as a neighbors show across the lake.  Pretty sure the neighbor spend a minor fortune on fireworks! 

 

We thought ahead and gave the girls baths and dressed them for bed before we headed home.  We had to wake them 15 minutes before it was time to leave for church Sunday morning.  To say they enjoyed their day at the lake would be an understatement!