VBS day 5

Pin It ... and everyone around here is dragging around like we've been running some kind of marathon. What is it about VBS that just wipes everybody out? I'm really not working all that hard this year. I'm not needing to prepare things at home and get them up there, and I'm not having to run around doing a lot while I'm there. It lasts three and a half hours, and of that, I spend about an hour and a half with the kids. Not much. Still I'm dragging around. Crazy.

I've had fun this year though. I've enjoyed the people I'm working with, I've enjoyed the curriculum, and I've enjoyed what I'm doing. My kids have enjoyed it as well.

I desperately need them to go to a VBS at another church though, so I can enjoy the VACATION part of VBS!

The Sleepover Solution

Pin It No, I'm not marketing a new book or anything like that. I have discovered the solution to sleepovers though, and what kind of person would I be if I kept this information to myself?

Here's the story: My youngest daughter has been pleading for her friend to spend the night. The problem is that her friend's house is about 30 minutes away from ours, so getting girls back and forth with gas prices being what they are has been an issue. Well, we're having VBS this week, so the girls have been together every day. So, it would seem that during VBS might be a good time for a sleepover. My younger daughter's best friend has a sister the same age as my oldest daughter, so it's really a fabulous thing. They travel in pairs, so neither of my girls feels left out, they both have a friend to play with. So Tuesday of VBS we decide it would be a good thing to have two extra girls come over for a sleepover. Everyone is so excited! Then on the way home from church with a car full of children it hits me how very tired my children are. (Why is it that VBS just wipes us all out anyway?) I started to think "hm, this sleepover might not be the best idea I've ever had." Four exhausted little girls, two sets of sisters ... hm, what could possibly go wrong here? LOL They did GREAT, btw. They played together and separately and spent most of the time outside.

Oh yeah, the solution part. *EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM WAS IN BED ASLEEP BY 9:30!* They even ASKED if they could go to bed. *shock* I'm way used to going in at 9:30 and saying "okay, it's time for bed." And again at 10:00, and at 10:30, and at 11:00 ... 11:30 (starting to feel a little less charitable at this point) ... midnight ... "STOP THAT GIGGLING AND GO TO SLEEP!" (I'm the mom who doesn't really like to be asleep with kids awake.)

So here it is, the sleepover solution. Get the kids good and tired before the sleepover begins, let them play outside the rest of the day, and then they'll actually ASK if they can go to bed!

Awesome Video

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Wow, this is so fabulous! This is one of my favorite songs: "Who Am I" by Casting Crowns.

My favorite scrapbook page ever

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Just thought I'd share.

Friends

Pin It The sweetest thing happened today. We went to the park and my son saw his best friend. My son is 2. It's awesome to think about my 2 year old even having a best friend! These two boys saw each other and RAN to greet one another. It was so sweet! What an enormous blessing! My daughter stayed at church all afternoon to play with her friend. My other daughter had a phone call from her friend. AND, I got to visit with my friends today too.

Several years ago, before we moved here, I prayed and prayed and literally BEGGED God to give me a friend. My husband was so sweet, but I desperately needed some friends. He probably prayed as much for me to find a friend as I did. We moved here, and almost instantly friends appeared in my life. God not only answered my prayers, He answered them abundantly! I'm so blessed.

I love my friends. I love my kids' friends. Thank you Lord for friends!

Recent kid pics

Pin It Loving the splash park:















Post haircut sassiness:















Armed and dangerous with a water gun:

Hm ... define wasting time ...

Pin It Is it wasting time to spend about two hours making my blog look just the way I want? I'm just askin ...

Wasting time and making changes

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I have been really convicted lately about the amount of time I waste, and the amount of time I spend in things that don't matter. Ouch. Not only that, but the time I spend doing things that are "good" instead of the things that are "better" or even "best". Double ouch.

Some things said at the homeschool conference (both in conversations with friends and in workshops), combined with a book I'm reading (Family Driven Faith by Voddie Baucham), combined with some other things going on in life ... well, I'm shaken up. I'm tired of putting so much effort into things that don't really matter, and putting off the things that do. When my kids are grown, will it really matter that I got the stain out of that shirt, or that I cleaned the counters for the seventh time in a day? Or any other of the myriad things I feel like I must do in a day, that really are chasing after the wind? I'm trying to make an effort to ask myself "does this matter?" when I start to do something. I'm not liking it a whole lot at this moment, because a lot of things really don't. This book - Family Driven Faith - talks about how many parents have abdicated their responsibility to their children, passing them off to various professionals to do a job that is ours to do. Ouch, that hurt. How many times have I left their spiritual training to their Sunday school teachers and their AWANA teachers? They have fabulous teachers, and I am so thankful for them, but the main people training them should be my husband and me, at home. How on earth are they going to be equipped to handle what life throws at them without a much more solid foundation than praying before meals and learning the Bible in Sunday School? (Yes, our homeschool curriculum is Bible based, but I don't think that's enough either.) I've heard Dr. Baucham talk about parents of youth passing them off to youth pastors but it's just hitting me that by NOT teaching them to study their Bibles at home, and by not reading the Bible to them at home, and by not encouraging them to ask spiritual questions and attempting to answer them at home, I'm doing the exact same thing. I think I've been hoping that they'd see me reading my Bible and would just pick up by osmosis that it's important. I don't think it works that way. I need to be more actively involved in their spiritual upbringing.In light of that, we're changing some things. The girls LOVE for me to read to them. Why would I not do that? Good wholesome books that enrich them, and me. Also, why would I not read the Bible to them? Why haven't we been doing that? Last night we started the book of Ruth. We just read one chapter, and the girls are very familiar with the story. It was awesome reading it to them and hearing their questions, and realizing how well they already know the story. They have made a list of stories they want to hear, what a treasure I've been missing with them!

Let me state - I'm not speaking negatively about the Sunday school teachers and other church workers. They do a great job, and I really appreciate they way they love and teach my children. I've just been doing it wrong. I've kind of been a supplement to what they're doing, and actually that's probably a reach to even say. It should be the other way around - what they're learning at church supplementing what we're teaching them at home.

Lord, keep me convicted about this!

Wow ... neglected for an entire year!

Pin It Not sure what it says about me to neglect my blog for an entire year! I think it says that I'm a busy mom who forgot this was out here. Oops!! Kind of embarrassing to go to start a blog and have it pull up one already out there. I'll try to do better. Don't expect much though. LOL