Miracle Gro in His Shoes??

I noticed today that there is a bigger gap between Danny and Tamara's height. They were really close just a month ago.....so we brought out the measuring tape and made new marks on their bedroom doors!

Danny has grown 1/2" since the 13th of this month!!!! :O That was only 17 days ago!!

He grew 1 1/4" since March and Tamara grew 3/4" since March!!

I knew something was happening! :) Danny is quite excited about the fact that he will be caught up to me in height in just 6 more inches!! I wonder how tall he will be till his 13th birthday, which is 4 months away yet.

How tall were your kids or siblings at 13?

VBS 2011

Another week of VBS is history! It was such a good week! Our average attendance of kids was around 50. We had some new faces and then a few that have been coming year after year!

It was a hot week, but everyone still had fun!

Registration~

Dan and I were the assembly leaders. We got to do some fun lesson illustrations! :)

Dan wanted to be different, but I told him that God already made him unique....he didn't have to wear a plunger on his head to be unique!! :)

**picture credit goes to Beth Drawbond

Glennys and Jim making sure the class attendance charts match up the first night! :) I loved seeing the older folks involved!!

Jeremy's class hearing the Bible lesson in the pyramid....

...and here are the rest of them! He had the biggest class! :)

Caroline and Jodi were his helpers....

Anslie Y. enjoying watermelon!

Dave's class in the pyramid. We had 3 classes that rotated to the different stations, and then the youngest class (ages 3-4) had their own schedule.

Getting watermelon cut for the next class~

Bear did great with the games for the kids!!

Crafts~

Some of the parents brought their kids and then stayed and visited all evening. :)

Beth & Joanna under the rainbow~

Corn hole!!

The little girls love Sam! I love Jenna's face! :)

Miss Alma talking about our eyes before snack time one night.

The double rainbow was just lovely!! One little girl out back at the playground heard some of us talking about it and she said, "And guess what? There's one out front too!!" :) She didn't realize it was the same one!! :)

Ms. JoAnn's class in the pyramid.

Snack time again! Mmmmm!

Two sweet young ladies ~Robin and Christianna

Alfred getting his makeup ready for the skit! :)

Crafts with Ms. Ruth ~

Snacks and games were held outside when the weather cooperated, which was every night but one!

Russell :)

Robin~

Two boys waiting patiently for further instructions at craft time~

Percy gave Alfred a face full of silly string!! (Can I say, we just have the best skit crew ever!!) :)

Filling those jars with hope for a little girl in Haiti who has a disease in her leg bone and many medical bills!!

Tamara, Kiersten and Nathalie~

Our total offering.....we raised over $1,000!! :) That will go a long way in Haiti! I am so proud of the kids. Many brought their entire piggy banks. Tamara got tears in her eyes when I told her how much we raised! I am so glad to see kids in this generation caring about others!!

VBS ~ Pandamania

Tamara's friend Anna invited her to their church's VBS last week. It was held Sunday thru Thursday. Tamara was not able to go Sunday night since we already had other plans, but she went the rest of the week. I only took her one night. The rest of the week she rode with Michelle Y. and her girls. That was so nice for me!!

Thursday night was "Family night", so we all went. It was neat to see what all they had been learning and also to see how other churches do VBS! :)

The "big kids" watching from the balcony. Anna, Danny and Dy

lan....and I think you can see a little of Nathalie through the rails :)

Anna's Mom, Emily was the VBS director. She did a great job! Emily is a good friend of mine, too. She is one of the leaders of our homeschool group ever since we started (6 years ago!) I appreciate her leadership skills, so I was not surprised that she did an excellent job! :)

We got to go along to Tamara's Bible lesson room. What a fun, noisy room! :) They told the story of Hannah and Penninah, Elkanah's two wives. The parents stood on one side of the room and the kids sat on the other side, then a helper passed out a piece of candy to each parent (we were Penninah and were being blessed ...not with children, but with candy) Then the helper gave all the parents stickers, being blessed again, while the kids (Hannah) sat with empty arms.

THEN, the helper handed out candy to the kids (Hannah being blessed with Samuel) but they weren't supposed to eat it. Then they made all the kids give their candy back (as Hannah gave Samuel back to God)....except the few that quick ate theirs! :)

As they left the classroom, each child was given a piece of candy. :) It was a good lesson for them!!

Now next week we look forward to our church's VBS....."The Egypt Files" :) Dan and I are the Assembly Leaders....should be fun. I get to tell the kids some gross, but cool things about the way our bodies are designed! :) :) :)

And just for VBS, this has been built in the front yard at church....... The Great Pyramid of Altha! :) Heehee!

Red Oak VBS will be held July 25-29 from 6-8:30 PM. You are invited!! :)

For Life....

It's been 15 wonderful years!! :)

Home Educating Family Publishing

Check out this giveaway....parents with middle school and older kids!! :)

Home Educating Family Publishing

New Experiences

Have you ever heard of restaurant.com? You can get meal voucher's for a steal!

Well, back in March I got an offer to buy a $25 meal voucher for $2 to a Pizza joint in Chipley. The only catch was that you needed to spend at least $35! I wasn't sure we could rack up that much at a pizza place with just our family {found out we could have}, so last night we invited a few friends to go with us to try the place out! :)

After the 4th try, we finally found someone who was home and didn't have evening plans! :)

So off to Chipley we went to K.C.'s Pizza and Grille. From the time we stepped in the door till we exited, our experience was excellent! Friendly service, great family-friendly atmosphere and yummy food. Their menu included some steak/chicken entrees, burgers, subs (cold or hot) and pizza. We chose to get pizza....

1- Taco pizza

1-All-the-Way (supreme)

Since us two families both live 40 minutes away in slightly different directions, it wasn't really convenient to continue the evening at one of our houses, so when we walked outside, we decided to explore the town a bit.

There was a train track running right through town just past the parking lot. A man, who sounded very Elvis-ish, was singing down the street at a cute 50's ice cream shop (where I want to go sometime), there was a large grass lot housing an old caboose.

Barrett on the caboose

Tamara said she would catch Danny if he fell (what a kind sister!) :)

Downtown Chipley....I'd love to go back and spend more time browsing that town someday.

Our family

Scott & Amy Cloud and Barrett...and baby Audrey ;)

As we were walking by the tracks, I said "I think I heard a train", but no one else seemed to hear it so I laughed. I am kind of known for my "bad hearing" so it seemed like a joke. But then!! I DID hear a train....so maybe I'm not so deaf after all. If I'm not, then what IS my problem?? Haha!

Of course, since it was coming through town, the whistle was blaring....it was quite loud. Dan was videoing it with his Flip camera and as the train came by, his hat went flying! :) Thankfully, it just blew along on the sidewalk. That might have been one smashed hat if it had went down to the tracks! :)

Tamara

Barrett watching replays of the video Dan shot. We had to laugh. He was a little scared when the train first came blaring through, but once the whistle stopped, he loved watching it.

Well, on the video, during the part when the train was coming, he would back way up, but as soon as the engine was past, he would run up to the camera and watch the rest of it. When the video was over, he would say "again"!! :) Silly boy!

Love how he got so close! :)

Danny & Barrett (saying choo-choo)

It was a lovely evening with friends!! :)

July 4th

After unloading the truck and doing the necessary unpacking when we got home, Dan saw we had an invite by email to join anyone from our homeschool group at the Pickron's to watch the Blountstown fireworks from their backyard.

They also had some fireworks to put off and so we took the few we had to add to it, as well as sparklers.

The kids enjoyed swimming till it was dark and time for the fireworks. We could barely see the ones from town and were kind of surprised they weren't higher in the sky. Come to find out that the company putting them off did a poor job! :( They say next year will be better!

Tamara (not disgusted, as she looks) :)

Kayla, Dylan, Danny and Preston lit a bunch of bottle rockets and some Roman candles. Roy took care of the bigger ones.

The crew of onlookers.....

Anna and Tamara enjoying some watermelon...

Preston, Dylan and Danny setting off the twirling spinners Danny took along.

It was a fun night after a fun filled weekend, but I was SO ready to sleep in my soft comfy bed that night....ahhhh!!