Thursday, August 13, 2009

What's Going On Around Here

Let's see...

Aaron's Mom, sister, our five nieces, and an aunt were here with us from last Wednesday through Sunday afternoon. We had quite a time with 9 kids 8 and under! Chloe's 8th birthday was last Thursday. We had a small party here at home. Barbie seemed to be the theme this year. I do have some pics to post from our time with them all, but for some reason I can't get them to upload right now. I will post them later.

Saturday night Abbie got sick and was throwing up until Tuesday morning. I do hope that the bug is gone and no one else gets it.

Monday night we had parent orientation at our new school. The kids, except Abbie, got to see their classroom and meet their teachers. I got to meet some of my students.

Tuesday I had more teachers' meetings. Wednesday I spent time getting my classroom ready and then King's Kids that night.

Today, we went to an IBF preacher's fellowship.

Tomorrow, I have got to get some major cleaning done around this house. Also, Bryant and Heather Harvey from Indiana are down here visiting family. They are from Blackford Baptist where I taught and the kids went to school in Indiana. Their little girl is Savannah, Abbie's best friend from Indiana. We are going to meet up with them sometime so the girls can play. Abbie is soooooooooooooooo excited. She hasn't really made any close friends like Savannah down here yet. Hopefully this next school year she will find a close buddy.

Monday is the first day of school. We are all excited! The kids can't wait to make new friends, and I can't wait to have a routine back in this house. We need it! I need it!

Teen Camp

We had Teen Camp the last week in July. We took 15 teens with us. We didn't go to an organized camp with other churches this year. We just did our own little camp for three days. We went to Flint Creek in Wiggins, MS. Pray for our teens. They need to open up their hearts to God's will in their lives. Praise the Lord, we had one teen boy saved!

We stayed in cabins. This was the girls' cabin.
We had three services a day. This was one of the illustrations for Aaron's sermon. We had our services inside of Aaron's cabin. We had to have a make shift altar. Here the kids are gathered around a table to pray. (sorry it is small--I resized it wrong)
We roasted marsh mellows.

One day we had a swimming day--yes separately. Then we all met up in the pavilion for grilled hamburgers and hot dogs.
One night we went out for pizza and bowling.
Chloe went with us, but the other kids stayed behind.



Well, It's About Time!

Finally, some pics from Vacation Bible School! We had VBS the second week in July. As some of you know, due to some differences and changes that had to be made our VBS director dropped out on us the Wednesday before VBS. Aaron and I were determined to not let Satan get the best of us. It was all for the best. We all pulled together. Our church people stood behind us and helped us out tremendously. It was short noticed, but with the Lord's help we did it! God blessed, and we had a great VBS! Praise the Lord, seven little souls were saved. We had 63 kids in attendance.


We had a bayou/swamp theme.
Rally Time
The kids earned tickets for attendance, bringing their Bibles, memory verses, visitors, etc..... Then if their number was called they got to pick a prize from the table.
The girls won the weighted offering. Yes, Aaron wore these waders every night. He even preached in them the Sunday a.m. before in order to promote VBS.
Pharoah stopped in for a few visits during the week. Most of the lessons had to do with Moses leading God's people out of Egypt.
Perfect Attendance
Most Bible Memory Verses
Top Prize Winners
Thank you to my new friend, Dani Contreras, for giving me this Creative Blogger award.


Now, the hard part.... I am suppose to post 7 things about me that you may not already know. Let me think........

1. I can touch my nose with my tongue. I am not too proud of this, but boy do my kids think that it is neat.

2. I love old time diners. I really should have lived in the 50's.

3. Cherry-Vanilla Dr. Pepper is my all time favorite drink. I can't find it in the can anymore. However, take me to one of those old time diners and I'll have them make it. :)

4. "It Is Well" is my favorite hymn. I want to be able to say...."No matter what, it is well with my soul." That is hard to do, but with the Lord's help and realizing His hand in everything no matter how terrible it may seem, it can be done. What a testimony the author of this song has!

5. I like old houses with a lot of character and a story to them. I don't want a brand new house. Give me the old country house with lots of interesting woodwork and a big front porch.

6. I must have my toe nails painted at all times. They really are just ugly if they are plain! :0

7. I really like crazy sunglasses: polka dots, flowers, big, fun prints, etc.... My favorite pair that I have ever had were baby blue 60's style with white polka dots. However, right now I can't wear my contacts, so..... I am stuck wearing my boring prescription glasses. One day.....

Monday, August 10, 2009

Back to School Ladies' Meeting

Yes, I know that I still haven't loaded the VBS or Teen Camp pictures and here I am adding ladies' meeting pics. These were a quick and easy add. There are sooooo many of the others to sort through and resize; I just still haven't taken or had the time to do them. I will though. Anyway....

Last Tuesday, we had our Back to School ladies' meeting. I decorated the fellowship hall just like a classroom. I spoke on some basic school rules that can also apply to our daily Christian life and walk with the greatest Teacher of all-the Lord.

The party favors were in the little lunch sacks.




I used school supplies for the center pieces. I also took Jennifer Bender's idea of carving out a real apple and putting a tea candle inside. I collected school photos from our ladies and copied them on the front and back of place mats. We played a "Guess Who?" game with the photos.






We had a small crowd for this meeting, but we had no lack of fun and fellowship.

Monday, August 3, 2009

What's On the Agenda?

Alrighty, so I was going to put up some more pics yesterday afternoon in between services.... Well...we have had some WILD storms around here lately. Our phone and our satellite box were struck by lightning on Saturday. Then yesterday while we were eating our Sunday lunch the power went out and stayed off until about 5 minutes before we left for choir practice and church. (It was a blessing in disguise, because all of the kids took a nap!) Anyway, I MAY have some time LATE tonight to get those loaded on the blog.

I have a busy week. Tomorrow night I have a ladies' meeting at church. It is a back to school theme. I am looking forward to it. I have collected school pictures from several of the ladies. I am going to make placemats with all of the pics on them. Then we are going to play a "Guess Who" game. Today and tomorrow I will mostly preparing for that meeting. On Wednesday and Thursday I have teacher's meetings at school. Also on Wednesday Aaron's mom, sister, our 5 nieces, and an aunt will be coming to visit with us until Sunday night. I am looking forward to having them down here.

Thursday is Chloe's 8th birthday. After my meetings, I am going to make homemade pizza and we will have a party for her and go swimming in the pool, which has been very hard to keep clear with all of this rain. (I will get it clean and clear; then it will rain and pour buckets for several days, and then the pool will turn green again. ) On Friday, we are going to go eat lunch at Lambert's--very fun and yummy! We have rented a beach house for that night. After lunch we will head over there and relax and enjoy the beach. It is tax free weekend for back to school, so on Saturday Corey and I are going to hit the stores kid free that afternoon.

Have a great week!

Saturday, August 1, 2009

I'M BACK -- Now let's start catching up!

As you already know by my prolonged absence from the blogging world, we have been CRAZY busy around here this summer. Well, now I am back and have a TON of pictures and things to get you caught up on. I may have to skip a few events, because there are so many between just our everyday lives and church activities. When I last uploaded my pics from my camera to the computer there were almost 500.


This is just a cute picture of the kids playing in the gym at church. They got some rope and tied all of these little scooter seats together to make a train. Then they convinced a daddy to pull them around. Abbie is on the first seat, then Chloe, then Justus, then Asher, then a blank seat, and then a dump truck tied on as the caboose has another baby sitting in the back.
On Wednesday nights we have a King's Kids Bible Club. One Wednesday night we had a Water Works Wednesday. We told the kids to wear dark clothing. The local fire department came to provide the water for our GIANT water slide made out of plastic.








We served watermelon.




And...we had a water balloon fight. Asher is getting ready to get Chloe in the pic below.


Chloe with her friend Mikayla. I don't know what this look is for.

The night ended with the youth pastor getting egged by everyone that brought a visitor.


In our everyday life, I can't keep Justus out of the bathtub. He LOVES all water. He climbed into my bathtub shoes and all and turned on the water all by himself. I have to keep all bathroom doors shut. However, sometimes he is just so fast and sneaky.




For the 4th of July weekend we went to Pensecola, FL. We stayed at the PCC Campus House. We went to the Aviation Museum on the 4th. It was amazing!! I recommend it to anyone going to the Pensecola area. It is the home of the Blue Angels. The museum is filled with so much American history. It also has several interesting things from the current war. You can see pieces from Saddam Hussein's palaces and airport. Oh yeah, and the best part..... IT IS FREE!! I would show you pictures from the museum, but..... I forgot my camera. The only ones we have are on Aaron's phone.

We spent the days before and the 4th of July morning in Florida. We spent the afternoon at home in Alabama. Then for the evening we drove to Pascagoula, MS to watch the fireworks over the Gulf. In Pascagoula they shoot the fireworks off of a barge that is out in the water. It was BEAUTIFUL!

The sunset over the water.


All of us waiting for the fireworks to begin.




The beginning of the fireworks scared Justus sooooooooooooooo much. He cried and cried.


He went to Aaron's lap.


He went to my lap.


Finally, he realized that the noises were the pretty lights in the sky, and he was fine.


Asher
Abbie

Chloe


We had some visitors from Lighthouse Baptist Church in Indy, the church that Aaron grew up in. They took us out to eat after church at The Original Oyster House. The kids loved the big shark hanging outside!



Our Homebuilder's Sunday school class had a game night. Here is some of our class playing Balderdash. We had laughed so hard that night! Seriously....Ihad coke squirting out of my nose from laughing so hard!!




Well, that's all that I have time for right now. I will hopefully get back on here this afternoon or tomorrow to put up some more. I have Vacation Bible School and Teen Camp to tell you about.