Josiah's 9th Birthday

We celebrated Josiah's birthday this past weekend. His birthday was on Saturday so he wanted to do something for his class on Friday at school. I gave him a few suggestions and he decided on bringing fresh honeybuns. I try to change it up every year instead of cupcakes. For kindergarten he brought cake pops, 1st grade he brought a piñata and last year he brought snowcones. 

Friday after school Josiah had 2 friends come over for a sleepover. He wanted to invite more, but I didn't think I could handle more than that. Especially with Titus in the mix. 

We had pizza and cake and ice cream. 

He really liked his cake. Josiah has taken over my love of reading Archie comics now.

The boys had a blast playing basketball and football. They also played the Wii and play station a lot too. I'm glad they had a good time. I had to keep heading off the wrestling though. Why do boys do that?  I mean they go for blood and broken bones. I just can't handle it. 

Saturday was Josiah's actual birthday. I cooked a big breakfast for everyone. 

After breakfast Josiah couldn't wait any longer and asked to open his presents. After pretending he didn't get any for awhile, we finally gave in. 

"Christmas paper, Mom?  Really?!?!?

He finally got his beloved Minecraft game. He has begged for that game for about 6 months now. I downloaded it on his tablet and he got the Minecraft sword. 

So this was a BIRTHDAY FAIL..............

I bought him 2 special editions of Archie comic books. One is where Jughead gets married and the other one Archie gets shot and killed. I didn't expect him to cry when he read the caption, but he did. Lol. Oops. Way to go, Amy!!!  I was sure to tell him that he was the one who ate him the night before on his birthday cake. Ha

He started playing Minecraft almost immediately and his friend had to go on home. 

Maynard, me, and Millie took a cat nap from being up so late the night before. 

We woke up and Josiah was ready to go spend his birthday money. Our church takes up an offering for all the kids on their birthdays plus Tara had given him money. 

I dread going to the store with my kids when they have their own money. It's antagonizing. They don't understand the value of things and can't make up their minds. It's brutal!!!!

Maynard was with us and was able to help him make up his mind more quickly. He ended up buying a nerf gun with extra bullets, sketch pads, pencils, colored pencils, gum, and a face mask. He still has some money leftover, but he didn't see anything else he wanted so he's going to save it. 

As we were leaving Walmart we noticed a display out front offering a simulated boat ride. Well....  Why not?

They all 3 got to take turns driving. It had a big screen in front of them that they had to try to stay on a path in the water. They enjoyed it. 

Now it was time for Josiah's birthday dinner. 

He suggested:

"Mr. Gaitti's!!!"

"No way. We had pizza last night."

"Golden Corral!!!"

"Nope. Too expensive and y'all drive me crazy in there running back and forth while I try to finish my 1st plate."

"Shiloh's?  A salad sounds good to me."

"Well, if that's what you really want." Ha ha (because it's what Momma really wanted)

So we went to shilohs where we all shared salads and then the birthday boy got a free brownie. 

I used to make the kids share with each other, but I quit doing that. It's their special day so they should be able to eat the whole thing if they want. Then on their birthday they get to eat their own desert by themselves. 

Since we had all eaten too much sweets that day I suggested us going to the park to go on a hike through one of the trails. I hadn't ever been on one there before so we thought we would try it out. 

We all loved it. There were trails made in the middle of the woods. We had to walk over tiny bridges over little streams. The weather was cool and perfect. 

 We only walked a mile because the boys were chomping at the bit to go play basketball. I dropped them off down the road at the ball court with Maynard, and I went back to walk some more. It was a little bit more creepy walking by myself. I'm not sure what made me start thinking of Indians and Johnny Appleseed while I was going though the woods alone. Ha ha

We spent some time playing at the playground before heading home. 

Little daredevil. 

"Help me, Mom. I'm scared. For real. Help me get down. I can't move.  Quit laughing and help me down."

Poor Josiah. Lol. Just a few inches off the ground and he was freaking out. 

So another birthday down and another one next month. 

Birthdays are exciting around here. 

Josiah said it was his best birthday ever.  He says that every year and it makes me happy!!!

What?!?! Maynard had a 3 day weekend!

Hallelujar anyhow!!

Says the happy wife who's husband got off work not only on a Saturday, but Sunday and Monday too!  Whoo hoo!!

How horrible was the grammar in the above paragraph?  No, don't tell me. I'm too lazy to go back and fix it. 

So maynard got off for Labor Day weekend and we decided to go visit my family. I'm sure he couldn't possibly think of anything else better to do on his much needed days off. Ha ha

We hadn't been home to visit in almost 6 months. That's probably a record breaker for us. I was really missing my family. Once we got there and seen everyone, my heart just felt really happy. Sometimes I get lonely here and just want to be around my Mom and sisters. I can totally be myself around them and don't have to try to impress anyone. I mean I can burp at the dinner table and they will rate it instead of telling me that was rude. Ha ha. Which I may feel a tad insecure around my sister Christy. No one. I mean NO ONE can burp louder than her. 

What I'm saying is it was just time for me to be home and be around the people I love and they love me back. Not that no one loves me here, it's just different I guess. Or maybe not. Who knows?!?!

Maynard got off work Friday evening and we packed like mad and loaded the van. Being that he had already driven 10 hours that day, he called shotgun and it wasn't in the driver's seat. 

We took our time on the trip and even made some Goodwill stops. It was just like the old days!

Our kids drove us BATTY!

"What town are we in now?"

"We are still in London."

"Are we in Corbin yet?"

"No, that's in the other direction"

"Now what town are we in?"

"Mt. Vernon. Will y'all please go to sleep?"

"Are we almost there yet?"

"The next person who opens their mouth is gonna get knocked out in Jesus name!" Ha ha

We finally made it and apparently the choice of restaraunt that night was to be White Castles. Bless their hearts. We had pizza at 4 o'clock so I was still full. It was now 10 and you know my kids were starved to death. I asked Maynard if he was hungry and I thought he said, "No, I'm not hungry, are you?  So I went up front to order and got the kids a small snack and got me and Maynard a milkshake. They swiped my card and it declined. Made me nervous because here we are out of town and we had no money. I told them that last time we ate at White Castles they also declined my card. The manager came up and told me that for some reason their machine doesn't accept MasterCard debit cards. I didn't have any cash on me so she gave me our food. I passed out the food to the kids and gave Maynard his Shake. I told him about getting it all free. Then he asked where his food was. 

"You told me you wasn't hungry."

"I told you I was hungry."

Oops. Remember the part about not having any money and my debit card wouldn't work there. I mean I couldn't go back and order more food and get it free again, right?  Ha ha

Luckily, Maynard had a few dollars on him, but he couldn't help remind me that his food would have been free if only I had listened to him. 

To add more to the embarrassment already, my family's church folks came in and Josiah ran to them to announce that his Mom's card wouldn't work so we got all our food free. ☺️ Gotta love those kiddos. 

It was good to see my Dad walking around and talking. Last time I seen him he was laying in a hospital bed in ICU. He  had a stroke about 4 weeks ago. He is doing so much better now, but still needs  a complete healing. It's almost like he has aged so much more really fast. It has taken a toll on his body, but I believe he will get stronger. 

My sister Angela and her family invited us to stay with them at their house. We normally stay with my Mom and Dad, but they had a few things they were dealing with so we decided to take my sister up on her offer. 

My neice Abigail gave up her basement suite just for us. I'm telling you her bed was like sleeping on a cloud. 

Amelia slept with Ruth and Titus slept with Jack. We kept Josiah downstairs with us. Well, the first night anyway. I think they both ended up with Jack before it was all over. 

We woke up early Saturday morning. No, not by choice. My kids were still on school schedule and were excited to be at their cousin's house. 

Angela fed them cereal and then turned them loose outside to play while she fixed us biscuits and gravy. Yum yum. 

My nephew was having a birthday party at 1 so soon it was time to leave. 

Peyton was the big 7 and was so happy when we got there. I mean not just because we got there, but somehow he knew it was his special day. Apparently Elmo had retired and now Thomas the train is his newest passion. He was excited to show me his remote control Thomas train. It absolutely thrilled him as the train bumped into a wall or even better if it ran over your foot. I just love that kid!!

For some reason I didn't take many pictures while I was there at his party. I think I took 3 and they were all of this stinker:

My neice Emma likes very few people. Unfortunately, I'm not one of them, but she finally realized that whether she likes me or not I am going to play with her. 

I love how my tongue is blue in this picture. There happened to be a snow cone machine at the party and well, snowcones!!!!! Need I say more?  The kids were making them faster than a person could consume them. 

Back to Emma...  I think she would want it this way. Ha ha. Anyway, she allowed me to swing her and I amazingly watched her walk up the slide. She didn't stumble or lose her balance. She walked right up it. It was so funny. 

I think I may have made a little a lead way with her when I gave her ketchup on her plate. She had a sad plate and ketchup made it a happy plate. 

I wasn't sure what to get Peyton for his birthday. I didn't know about his new found love for Thomas or that would have helped. I knew that he absolutely loved Reese Cups so I bought him a big pack of those. He also loves noises. He hears noises that you and I take for granted, but he gets pure joy out of it. I picked him up a whoopie cushion. I knew he would love it. Two simple gifts, but perfect for the Birthday Boy!!

Seriously love him!!!!

After the party we went back to Angela's and started baths for all these sweaty dirty kids. 

Sunday morning we went to church with my family and then Mamaw and Papaw treated us to lunch at no where else than Mexican!!!  Good news. Amelia is finally starting to get tired of eating Mexican food. I never thought I'd see the day. My kids were really wanting to eat at Texas Roadhouse, but everyone had eaten their just a few days prior for Dad's birthday. 

This was the only time I got to see my sister Melissa. She works 2 jobs and then she has to sleep sometime so I was sad that I didn't get to see her as much. 

We left there and Maynard had to go study because he was going to preach Sunday night. 

The bible says to enter into your closets........ In Maynard's case, a borrowed one. 

It doesn't do any good to shut the door around us. A closed door just begs to be opened to my family. Mainly, me. Ha ha

Hannah was Amelia's hair dresser all weekend. Amelia was thrilled with her hair do's!!

Curls for days!!

I spy twinsies!!  Amelia looked so much older with her hair all fixed up. That part, I didn't like. That part, she absolutely loved. 

Amelia loved staying with 3 girls. 

Barbies in bottom of closets?  Oh wow!!

We had a good church service Sunday night and they had a fellowship dinner afterwards. My kids love fellowship halls. They get so excited when they find out we are going to stay and eat at different churches. 

I brought sliced apples and Carmel dip to add to the dinner. It wasn't like I could bake anything being away from home and stuff. I just want to clarify that my apples were a big hit. (Even if they were consumed by one person and that's all I'm saying about that.) ha ha. 

We went back to Angela's and conked out. I had missed my Sunday nap and was winding down. 

Finally it was Labor Day. I have no idea why that is a major Holiday, but nonetheless, I'm not complaining. 

Real quick like, we decided to go see a Labor Day parade. It had been awhile since we had been to a parade so my kids were thrilled. 

As soon as we got out to watch the parade it started sprinkling. The rain would get heavier and then stop. Just enough to get us damp. 

 This parade wasn't stingy with the candy. 

This was only halfway through the parade. All of it was wet from the rain so everything was sticky. 

This is how Titus prepared for getting candy. Amelia was not amused. He dove for everything that was thrown except for tootsie rolls. Apparently those wasn't worth fighting over. 

We left the parade and I had to change Amelia's skirt because she had gotten knocked down by her brother in a candy dive. She was soaked. 

We met up with more family to go eat lunch before we left. 

Good news was Texas Roadhouse was open early, because of the holiday, and kid's meals were only 99 cents. 

Titus' mouth is crammed full of a roll. He loves bread!!!

We said our goodbyes and headed for home. 

As soon as we got home I unpacked and started laundry. Then it was time for baths, iron uniforms, and pack lunches. 

Back to the real world!!!

We really enjoyed time with my family and we were very thankful to have Maynard off a few days with us. 

Hope everyone had a great long weekend as well!!!

Rag curls and helpers

I have been intrigued by you-tube hair tutorials. I mean they make it look so easy. I just can't fix hair. I never have and it looks like I never will. 

Not sure if it was an inside joke or what, but God seemed to humor me with a daughter that was born with lots of hair. She is 4 1/2 and has hair past her behind already. 

Saturday morning I bribed her into playing games on my phone if she would let me play with her hair. She hates letting me fix her hair. She agreed and I went straight to work trying to recreate something I had seen on you-tube. 

As you can tell from the picture I nailed it. Peice of cake. 

Ok, that's not true at all. Ha ha. 

Later that night I talked Amelia into letting me put rags in hair to make Rag Curls. 

For some reason she completely agreed. 

 She looked like a giant pink mop. 

I figured she would fight me over sleeping in it, but she fell asleep on the couch so I didn't bother waking her up. 

Sunday morning she had some pretty curls after the rags were removed. 

This is a pic as soon as the rags were removed. 

Then I fixed her hair into a big girl do. 

 Amelia was in LOVE!!!

She was so excited over her hair that she literally could not be still at church. She was constantly flipping her hair around or looking in a pocket mirror. She even applied several coats of Chapstick while checking her looks in her mirror.

Amelia's hair is super straight so the curls didn't last long. By Sunday night her curls were gone, but she still had some waves. 

 

Here's what my boys have been up to. 

Maynard preached on a Thursday night and asked Josiah to help him read his scripture. Josiah was thrilled to help. He actually read the wrong verses at first, but somehow they went right along with Maynard's message anyway. 

I also have started cleaning the kitchen at LCA this year. Titus makes a break for the kitchen as soon as he is dismissed from class. He loves to help me mop. 

 It's a big job so sometimes I look forward to his help. Josiah has decided he likes to mop too so now they try to beat each other to the kitchen. I've been trying to get done a little earlier to head off a fight over the mop. 

If Jesus had a SLAMBOOK.

I don't normally write blog posts like this and I'm not exactly sure how this one will turn out. 

I felt like The Lord laid something on my heart a few weeks ago. 

Do you all remember having Slam books in school?  I think the fad started when SweetValley High published a book about it in their series. 

  It become a craze and soon everyone had their own slam book. 

What is a slam book?

1. A slam book in United States schools is a notebook (commonly the spiral-bound type) which is passed among junior high school students. The keeper of the book starts by posing a question (which may be on any subject) and thebook is then passed round for each contributor to fill in their own answer to the question.

   
   

   

   
   

   
   

A slam book sounds well enough and kind of fun. 

That's not what always happens though. It usually turns up hurting someone's feelings. For example, some of the subjects were:

*Best Dressed

*Prettiest Hair

*Most Prettiest

*Snobbiest

*Meanest

*Most Ugliest

*Most Dumbest

You would write your subject on the top of each page. Then you would pass it around to your classmates and they would write someone's name under each subject whom they thought was most fitting to that subject. 

This was usually done anonymously so no one would know who wrote what. 

Imagine how happy a person would be when they seen their name under the subjects such as Best dressed or Most Prettiest. 

Then imagine how the other people felt when they seen their name listed under Most Ugly or Most dumb. I'm sure it didn't feel very good. 

Pretty soon most schools banned Slam books because it was causing so many problems. 

All this came to my mind one morning when my pastor was up preaching. His sermon was about meekness. Meekness is one of the fruits of the spirit. I got to thinking about if I was a meek person or not.  I wasn't happy with the results. Probably no one I knew thought of me as meek. I'm sure abnoxious or loud came to mind before meekness ever would. For some reason that message got to me. Like it should of course, but it's really been eating at me. 

During that message the "Slam book" came to my mind. 

I imagined the different fruits of the spirit listed as a subject on each page of a Slam book. 

Love

Joy

Peace

Long suffering

Gentleness

Goodness

Faith 

Meekness

Temperance

Would any of my friends, family, church members, or neighbors think to put my name under any of those subjects???

Then I thought about the 17 works of the flesh. The subjects would be:

Adultery

Fornication

Uncleanness

Lasciviousness

Idolatry

Witchcraft

Hatred

Variance

Emulations

Wrath

Strife

Seditions

Heresies

Envying 

Murders

Drunkeness

Revellings 

 

Of course some I'm pretty sure my name wouldn't be there. I'm mean I've never tasted alcohol or murdered anyone. But what about hatred or envying?  What about wrath or strife?  I'm pretty sure we are all guilty at some point in our lives. I don't want to find my name in anyone's slambook for any of the works of flesh. I'd feel a lot better seeing my name on the fruit of the spirit subjects though. 

Well we all know that Jesus doesn't have a slam book. He does have the Book of Life though. That's a book I want to know my name is written in. That's the only way I'll make Heaven my home is to have my name written in God's special book. 

I will continue to pray and ask god to help me acquire the Fruit of the Spirit and resist the works of the flesh. 

Galatians 5:16-17King James Version (KJV)

16 This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.

17 For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.

I hope y'all enjoyed this post. Hopefully it made some sense. If it didn't help you, it's helped me. 

Feel free to leave a comment. 

Breakfast is the most important meal!!

I am not a breakfast person. If I eat breakfast foods then I prefer it at supper time. 

Maynard and the kids love breakfast. 

This summer the kids and I slept in a lot. It took awhile to get them to sleep past 7, but they finally broke the routine. Late nights finally took it's toll and sometimes they slept past 10 a.m.

More times than not, we had somewhere we needed to be by 11 so I usually rushed them out the door with promises that I would feed them lunch ASAP. 

Sometimes if we were just home I would put them off an hour and say "it's almost lunchtime so I'll fix ya some lunch here in a minute."

Then at the end of the day I would get quizzed on, "Did we eat lunch". I would reply, "Yes, we had such and such."  

"No. That was breakfast."

"No, we didn't eat breakfast, that was lunch."

<Insert whining and tears>

I can't help it. I would rather eat lunch than breakfast any day. 

So apparently since over the summer and actually a little last school year, Amelia has developed a "not eating breakfast phobia". 

She will not leave the house without eating. Even on school days I promise her we will come right back and eat. She will have no part of it. 

Check her breakfast out. Honey Puff cereal, PB crackers, nutria grain bar, and 2 waters.   

Heaven forbid this child not get her breakfast. 

I do make sure the boys eat breakfast on school mornings. It's just the summer got us all out of wack. 

I went from worrying about Amelia not eating to worrying that she won't ever stop!!!

Back to school

Well before we knew it our summer was over. 

Our late nights and late mornings was officially a thing of the past. 

Back to reality.....

Back to a normal routine. 

My boys couldn't wait for school to start back. They were ready to go back after their first week of summer vacation. I for one loved the break of not having to iron uniforms or pack lunches. I rather liked not worrying if they had done their homework or staying up way too late studying scriptures. But then they start fighting continuously and are just bored to tears. If I went a day or two without doing something exciting with them, then they would be just so bored. I'll be honest. I have spoiled them. I always try to do things with them and keep them busy. Somedays I just need to be home and they think I have forsaken them if I don't have anything planned for them. 

Monday morning, Aug 11, 2014 came early. Really early. Like before 6 a.m. early. Josiah and Titus came barging in my room wanting to know if it was time to get ready yet. I sent them back to bed. I have a strong belief in not getting up before my alarm clock tells me to do so. I kid you not. They came back to my room  every 10 minutes from 5:50 to 7:00 a.m.  Finally, it was time to get ready. Titus was so proud of himself because he completely dressed himself without any help. I think Josiah finally completed that sometime last year in the second grade. Ha ha. He was my first baby so he was babied a lot. I still catch myself doing things for him that he should be doing himself. 

Titus refused to eat breakfast. He said his belly was thumping. (Butterflies, I guess). 

We took a few pictures and then headed for school. 

Josiah has recently decided to act like he is in pain in every picture I try to take. 

Titus has the cheesey fake grin downpat. 

And Amelia. Well...  She's all about posing. 

 I had them recreate their same pose from last year. I can't believe how much taller they have grown. 

Aww. Look at Josiah. I just can't believe how fast time flies. 

 Titus is losing that baby face all too soon as well. I like doing these collages to see how much they have grown. 

We got to school and I got out to walk with the boys to their classrooms. And yes, Titus asked why I had to go in with them. Because isn't that like a law or something that you have to walk in with your child on the  first day of school?!?!  Titus ran inside on ahead of us. Then he put his brakes on. I told him to go ahead to his classroom and I would be there with him in a minute. I went in to help Josiah get settled first. I left his classroom 10 minutes later to go help Titus. Titus was still standing in the hallway with his backpack still on. He was so nervous. You see, 1st grade is a big deal. Kindergarten was only half days, but 1st grade was the real thing. I coaxed him into his classroom and helped him put his things away. I explained to his teacher that his belly was thumping. 

Oh let me add here that Titus has Miss Bowman for his teacher this year. He had her mother, Mrs. Bowman last year for kindergarten. The good thing was that Mrs. Bowman helps out in the afternoons in his class and that made him feel better when I reminded him of that. 

Josiah's teacher is Sis Schooley. He had her in Kindergarten and now will have her again for 3rd and 4th grade. She is a great teacher and will be good for Josiah.

The bell rang and Amelia and I headed for home. She wanted to stop for breakfast or at least go get her a slush. Ha ha. She loves being the only child. Last year we thought she would be sad when both boys were at school. We pulled up to Speedway and she leaned up to Maynard and said, "I'll take a coke slush, Dad."  So I guess she thought I was gonna keep the tradition going, but I refrained. Once u do something like that she will never forget about it and bug the fire out of me everyday. 

She was excited about starting her school too. I decided to do the Abeka k-4 curriculum with her. She is 4 1/2 and really doesn't know as much as she should. To be honest, every day I'm noticing she's a tad bit ditzy like her mommy. Lord help her!!!!

Amelia hard at work. 

Prayer time

She's not real fond of coloring. She says her hand cramps. I think she's concentrating so hard on not getting out of the lines that she's holding the crayon too tight. 

Guess what is her least favorite class so far?

BIBLE!!!

I just can't even believe it. 

My boys love Bible class. They always have. It's their favorite thing ever. 

She's all like.........

"When's bible class over?  It takes too long!!!!"

So my boys have always won the bible awards at school. Amelia may never own one of those awards. Ha ha

Today is Friday and we have survived the first week of school. 

Everyone has woke up every morning and excited to get the day started. 

I was worried about Titus because earlier this week he wasn't interested at all in saying his memory verses. Some of the words were hard to say and he declared he didn't know Spanish. Finally he decided he was ready and now has memorized 2 verses already. Josiah is doing great on his as well. They are memorizing 1st Peter this year. 

Josiah is doing great in his class and loves everything about it. He even made it a whole week without any demerits. 

Titus has done well too. I only got one note about him talking too much. Titus is usually pretty quiet, but I think he's just happy to be around his old friends. Hopefully he'll hush soon or maybe move his seat around. 

Titus comes home from school in a near panic. He is literally starving. I can't fix supper fast enough. He has been shoveling food in his mouth so fast. The whole time he's eating he has his hand on the serving dishes ready to get seconds. We have to make him slow down and take his time. I guess it's where he eats a lot earlier than usual at school. Even if I give him a snack to hold him over he still will keep asking when supper is about ready. 

The weekend is here and we plan on enjoying it. All too soon it will be Monday morning again. Amelia starts cursive writing Monday and I'm curious to how she will do. 

Thanks for reading. 

Best VBS ever!!!!

I love Vacation Bible School. I'd let my kids go to one every week of the summer if I could. We went to one vbs this summer and my kids didn't want to go back. It was so modernized. Everything was done on big screen by DVD. Dancing to songs was their priority. My boys were embarrassed and Amelia..... Well, Amelia didn't care to boogie. We all know that. Lol

For craft time they were handed a plastic toy. Their lesson consisted of literature being passed out. There was no imagination or creativity to it whatsoever. So my kids, who beg to so something ALL the time, did not want to go back the next night. 

I remember VBS being amazing when I was a kid. We had our lesson, done a get your hands dirty craft, and then had 2 cookies and red koolaide. What was more to love than that? Lol

We were invited to another VBS here locally, but that very week our schedule was crazy and we didn't get to attend. 

It looked like the kids wouldn't get to attend a VBS this year after all. 

Then I seen on IG where Liberty Pentecostal was going to have VBS. I made a mental note to remember to take the kids. I could tell by the pictures they were posting that they were putting a lot of work into it. I knew that was the VBS we were looking for. 

We arrived on Wednesday evening and dropped the kids off. I knew most of the people there and knew my kids were in safe hands.  My IG friend Heather had already reassured me that her mother had a First Aide "backpack" with her and that she herself knew how to use an Epi Penn. The reason for all this is because my kids had 2 head injuries that same week. They had seen enough of my IG pictures to know that danger follows my children around. (Or vice versa)

I did a little happy dance when the kids were safely inside and Maynard and I had a few hours to ourselves. We went school shopping and had a nice dinner at a Mexican restaraunt we had never been to before. I did get a phone call while we were out. I won't lie. My heart did a flip flop when I seen Sister Wavelene's number across the screen. All sorts of things were running through my mind as to what in the world had happened already. 

She ended up only wanting to make sure Amelia was allowed to eat the snack they had given her. Wasn't that sweet??? Amelia has a few food allergies and they knew about that from IG. Amelia had 2 pink iced cookies with sprinkles. I guess to make sure they didn't take them away she quickly took a bite out of each one. Lol. I assured them that she would be just fine. 

When we stopped by to pick up the kids I was greeted by everyone and they were all so kind and welcoming. 

My kids talked nonstop on the way home about how much fun they had. 

The next night they were supposed to dress up in western gear. So instead of waiting until the next day, they all went straight to their rooms and began dragging out their western outfits. It took me forever to settle them down and into bed. It may have been a mixture of excitement and the iced cookies. Ha ha

From the time they woke up Thursday morning until it was time to go back to VBS that night, all I heard was, "is it almost time for VBS? "When are we going to VBS?  How many hours until VBS?"  They were driving me bonkers. 

Thank goodness. It was finally time to go to VBS. 

Here they are all ready to go in their Western outfits. 

Thursday night is actually a regular church service for us. We decided to go ahead and allow the kids to go to vbs because they are too young to go to youth camps and this was geared more for their age. 

After church was over we went to pick them up. A boy named Isaac walked Josiah to our car. He told Josiah, "I sure have had a good time with you this week."

My heart just about melted. They stood there all decked out looking like cowboys just talking and playing until it was time for us to leave. 

They had made slime that night, but I was quick to conviscate it. They've made that before and I know what it does to carpet. Just saying. Ha ha

Once again they had a blast and I heard all about it. I even heard how the boys were winning in the offering and how it was my fault because I didn't give Amelia enough money. 

On the way home Titus said he had left his handcuffs back at the church. I asked him where he left them and he said, "Last I seen them was down in the basement where I handcuffed a little boy to the table."

So to be on the safe side, I text Shawna to make sure she checked the basement before everyone went home. Ha ha

Friday night was going to be a special night. A fire truck was coming to let the kids play in the water sprayer and there was going to be a dunking booth. Oh, and there was going to be pizza. It was just a win win situation. 

It was family night so Maynard and I both got to attend. 

Welcome to Discovery City. 

 It was decorated so neat and their backdrop work was very nice. They had to have spent a lot of time on this. 

The kiddos turned in their offerings and sang their theme song. All I know is I finally figured out where "Searching Searching" was coming from. That's all the kids kept singing for 3 days. Apparently that was the only part they could remember. Ha ha

They went to class for awhile and then came back up for a skit and awards. 

The skit was hilarious and we even got see someone get a pie in the face. It was great. 

My award pics are dark and blurry, but oh well.  

Amelia was so proud of her "trophy". I think that was the first time she had ever been called up for an award and she was extremely proud. 

Here's Josiah and Titus with theirs. Sorry the pic is so dark. I was too embarrassed to stand up and get a good picture. Ha ha

Pizza time!!!!

After their pizza it was time to turn the water on. There was also a dunking booth, but my kids stayed right with the fire truck the whole time about it. 

I love love love this picture of Josiah. You can see the pure joy on his face. 

How cool is it to get sprayed from a fire truck?!?!?

They played for along time and loved every minute of it. 

Here's a pic of me and Heather. Heather posted on IG that my kids were even more dangerous than her own. I had to clarify that the fire truck was called before my kids even got there. Ha ha

Amelia's little class. She made lots of friends. Look how big she is compared to all the other littles. 

*We went to Steak and Shake Sunday night after church and Amelia went right over and set with that little girl she's sitting by in this picture. I loved it. Amelia doesn't have many friends her own age.*

We left VBS Friday night with three tired kiddos. Josiah cried and boo-hooed all the way home. He said he was going to miss Isaac and he just didn't want VBS to be over because he had a lot of fun. 

It reminded me of being sad when youth camp was over and you knew you wouldn't to get to see all your new friends for a long time. So I knew how he felt and tried my best to console him. 

So a big thanks goes to Liberty Pentecostal for not only inviting us to VBS, but also for making us feel so welcome.