Vacation Bible School 2013

Our church had Vacation Bible School the week of June 17-20.  It was a fun, crazy, wild, amazing, exhausting week!  The kids all heard the gospel and had a blast, so I would say that it was a major success.  :)

The theme was Colossal Coaster World and the kids studied the life of Paul.  They seemed to LOVE the theme and all of the activities.

My crew for the week - my three plus our sweet friend that lives across the street

They had so much fun!

I had signed up to be a teacher in 1st grade crafts a couple of months ago.  In an odd turn of events, I found out on the Saturday before VBS that I was the lead teacher for 1st grade crafts.  Hello, panic attack!  I had two days to do what the other lead teachers had worked on for months.  Thankfully, the crafts were planned out and the supplies had been purchased.  I had to decorate my room, sort/organize the crafts for each day (enough for 125 kids for each of the 4 days - 500 crafts total), make samples, and recruit the other teachers to help.  Yowsers!  It all came together, thankfully, and we had a great week.

Our crafts for the week

On Thursday night, we had a family night program.  The kids were adorable performing all of their songs from the week.  There's nothing sweeter than a sanctuary full of cute kids praising the Lord!

Owen's teachers made him a precious little scrapbook of his week.  Adorable!  I am so grateful to have such a fun keepsake.

We were all soooo tired by the end of the week!  Just totally exhausted...  It was so worth it, though!  I'm already planning for next year.  :)

Father's Day 2013

My poor Hubs got slighted a bit on Father's Day this year.  :(  I had planned to show him our gratitude by spoiling him rotten all weekend.  Unfortunately, my plans had to change a bit due to Vacation Bible School planning.  Luckily, my sweet Hubby feels very strongly about our family serving within our church.  He was happy to hold down the fort by himself (even on Father's Day weekend) so that I could spend the weekend at church prepping for VBS.  What a guy!

The best Daddy on the planet and the children who adore him  :)

We did get our Daddy a few tokens of our appreciation.

 Thank you Pinterest...

 Clayton bought Wade a card with his own money, made him a paracord keychain, and made him a lawnmower pencil holder (at a Home Depot kid's workshop).  He was soooo proud of his gifts, and Wade was thrilled to receive them.

 Drew made Wade a luggage tag for his suitcase.  I'm told that he has already gotten lots of compliments on it.  ;)

Wade is an amazing father, and my boys are so very blessed to have him as their Daddy.  He sets a great example for them and their future families.  We could never thank him enough for all that he gives to our family.  Happy Father's Day, Babe!  You are the best!

Canton Trip

I went to Canton for First Monday this month with some of the girls from our Sunday School class.  We had so much fun!  I saw soooo many cute things, but only bought some Scentsy bars and some old shutters (that I have plans for).  I kind of had reverse buyers' remorse afterwards - wishing that I had bought some of the things that I saw.

But... seeing all of those cute things did make me want to go home and knock out some fun projects that I hadn't gotten around to.  I was a bit of a compulsive crafter for a few days.  ;)

Yay for creative inspiration and fun girl time!

Men's Softball Championship

My hubby has played church softball with a really neat group of men from our church for several years.  This Spring they had another really great season - coming in second place in the league!  We are so proud of these guys!

I offered to do individual pics of each of them doing their batting stance, but they shot me down.  Ha!  ;)

A Day at the Farm

Our sweet church friends, the Jefferys, invited us to come to their blueberry & pecan farm in East Texas this year for Memorial Day weekend.  Our kids had soooo much fun last year, so we were excited to go back.

We spent the weekend at Grammie & Papaw's house and drove to the farm to spend the day on Sunday.  The other couples all camped out on Saturday night, but we just couldn't turn down the lovely air conditioning and plush mattresses at my in-laws house.  ;)   

The kids fished for several hours.  Our city kids were happy to be coutrified for the day.  ;)

Mr. Jefferys helped Clayton use the pellet gun to shoot some snapping turtles.

Then, the Jefferys took the ladies to the back of the property to go skeet shooting.  Y'all, the only guns that I had ever shot before were water guns and Nerf guns.  Ha!  I was a wee bit intimidated by the over/under 18 gauge shotgun.  Yowsers!

Luckily, Shane is a wonderful teacher and I had sweet pals that made it fun.  :)

I expected to hate skeet shooting, but I LOVED it!  I think that I am hooked.  I asked Wade to take me to the gun range for our next date night.  Ha!

After shooting and fishing, the kids cooled off with the slip n slide while the adults fixed dinner and packed up.

We had a great day at the farm!  We are so grateful for generous friends that host such a fun day.  :)

The boys fished quite a bit at Grammie & Papaw's house that weekend, too.  Drew, apparently, was totally lackadaisical about fishing but caught a ton of fish.  I'm told that he was casually holding his pole while he played and talked, but was getting bites left and right.  C-man had to work a little harder and was serious about his mission.  That's my boys - as different as night and day.  ;)

We had a super fun weekend out in East Texas.  :)

Zoo Day

On May 22nd, Leah and I loaded up our troops and headed for a day at the zoo.  We figured that we would go before it got too hot and before school got out for everyone else.  It ended up being such a fun day!  Our kids were all soooooo good and we were able to stay until the zoo closed at 5pm.  We shut the joint down!  No one melted down - even Sadie and Owen, who had missed their naps.  Leah and I were both shocked, amazed, and super impressed.  ;)

Our sweet little monkeys watching the monkeys

 "Wook!  Wook!"  I bet that we heard that a hundred times throughout the day from my O.  I love that he is old enough to notice the animals and get into the experience.  :)

 These three had the same favorite animal - the roly polys!  They spent a good 20 minutes digging in the dirt to find them.  Ha!

 

 I had to get O's picture with this little elephant statue.  I have the same picture of Clayton and Drew.

 Baby Clayton and Baby Drew

 Love this girl!  She is my partner is crime and the best friend I could ever dream of.  

I'm so grateful that I get to do life with her.

 Owen kicked back in the stroller, and I thought that he had fallen asleep.  When I went to take his picture, he flashed a big ole grin.  Playing possum...  ;)

 The birds are always a big hit with our kids.

 A sweet lady had coaxed a bird onto her hand, and she was kind to share him with Clayton.

 We decided to take the kids on a train ride, and they were all pumped.  Unfortunately, we made it about 10 yards before the train broke down on the tracks.  Wah-wah!  :(  We were worried that the kids would be super bummed.  But... they took it like champs and no one complained a bit.  Yay!

 We traded our train tickets for a merry go round ride.  This guy was happy as a clam!

 One last stop at the flamingos (Mags had been asking about them - she was so patient to wait til the last 10 minutes of the day) then we left just as they were shutting the zoo down.

We had such a fun day with the Hunt chicas!  It made me so excited for all of the adventures that this summer holds.  Bring it on!  :)