last golf lesson of the summer

and i got to enjoy the company of this cute boy.

the gift of vbs

this week all four (repeat "all four") kids went to a morning vbs where i dropped them off and came back three, glorious, hours later. i was a little nervous about manning actually being willing to stay since he wouldn't leave me during our vbs last week and was just three days into potty training, but he did great! the first day he went to his class very willingly with a volunteer.

the hosting church is where madelyn's friend, sarah (who came to ours last week) attends and the lady running the vbs week is an acquaintance of mine, so i felt good about leaving the kids. it was such a gift to have some mornings to myself. i wasn't able to quite do everything i would have liked because we had some work crews drywalling two bedrooms in our basement and i had to be home most of the time. but it was still glorious.

the kids had a wonderful time too. they had a science theme - which madelyn loved - to go along with the creation story. each child was given a t-shirt and a backpack and a cd of the music for each family at no cost to us which was an unexpected bonus. madelyn was so into the science theme, that she wore her safety glasses for the last day (we had to miss friday).

this has given me a little taste at how my life will be once the school year begins. i am excited. love.

minions, minions everywhere

rockin' it old school

matt and i spent sunday night going through some of the many storage containers that have moved with us every time but we haven't sorted through in a while. we thought that i needed to pull this shirt from his childhood into rotation... i was dressed to walk with a friend whose boys were at vbs with my kids. love.

more derek and ashley wedding pictures - the 'official' ones

we were able to access the 'official' wedding pictures - and there are some great ones! love.

storm waters made for some great photos.

i lucked out by being dressed when i went to pick madelyn up from getting ready with the wedding party and got a few pictures with her.

i thanked the photographer for getting nice a close up on my squinty eyes.

water balloons

during our kick off to summer dollar store shopping spree, i picked up a package of water balloons, but we didn't bust them out until today. daddy couldn't keep up with the demand! the kids had so much fun though. and they picked up every single piece of balloon from the driveway/yard. love.

morning surprise

the kids have all been sleeping in the boys' room all summer, but this morning i was surprised to find all four in madelyn's room. love.

shampoo mohawks

potting training for the last time!

i am excited to say that we have NO. MORE. DIAPERS. in our house!  well, there may or may not be some nighttime use - just because i HATE stripping the bed in the night. manning was not at all excited about it when i told him this morning that we were all done with diapers. in fact, he told me to go to bjs and buy him some more diapers. 

even though he was very angry at the idea of not wearing a diaper, matt took the big kids out for the morning and i toughed it out. he can't go to preschool in a few weeks if he isn't potty trained. once he calmed down and we got down to it, he learned very quickly and had very few accidents. (manning does insist wearing his underwear backwards though - and it is adorable.) 

after potty training all four, i must pass on the recommendation that was given to us - "Toilet Training in Less Than a Day" (http://www.amazon.com/Toilet-Training-Less-Tha…/…/0671693808). it focuses on keeping their underwear dry and it has worked in 4 hours will all of the kids (when they were ready of course). love.

mason 6-year-old well-check

matt had taken the day off and since our pediatrician just switched to a practice owned by his hospital, matt took mason to his well check this morning. and that means i don't have a ton of information... (grin)

we didn't really have too many concerns/questions about mason. i guess there was some question about his vision and we might explore a proper exam if he has any trouble at school. there was just a slight variance and mason said he just couldn't remember the names of the letters. in short, we aren't really all that worried.

here are his growing boy stats:

height: 4'1" (96th percentile)

weight: 54 lb. 14.3 oz (88th percentile)

bmi: 68th percentile

we are so fortunate to have such healthy kids! love.

sliding summer fun

i picked up a 'slip-n-slide' type slide on clearance at bjs for under $10. (i don't know how i didn't get a picture with mason...) it took the kids a while to figure out how to slide, but they LOVED it! totally $10 well spent. well, until we realized that it killed the grass under it in about 30 minutes. love.

vbs week in review

another week of vbs complete! and i must say that this is the least exhausted i have been at the end of volunteering all week - ever. things just ran super smoothly and our own kids didn't get too cranky from the late nights. i think it is just because they are getting older. here are some of the pictures showing all of the fun! a few of the pictures (aka the good ones) were taken by the church photographer/videographer. we had 377 kids the first night! and averaged around 340 all week. this was a record year for us. the slogan this year was do, be, give love with a 'back in time' theme.

being silly in the photo booth on our way to the volunteer dinner (they fed us for free every night which is part of the reason this year wasn't stressful).

my class found a small toad during an outside game and took turns holding/frightening it.

my class of 4- and 5-year-olds - and manning (he refused to go to the nursery - vbs starts at age 4))

volunteer meeting before starting one night - there were more than 240+ volunteers who made vbs happen before, during and after!

mason and maddux' class led by some friends from our bible study.

madelyn and her good school friend, sarah, who she called to invite.

mason (sitting front row) listening to the night's story.

selfie of us all in our shirts

 more photo booth silliness...

every night there were costumes and reenactments of bible stories for the preschoolers.

one of my girls who won for most watches on 'watch night' - get it? back in "time."

we were raising money for our mission in ichmul, mexico this week (for rice packing meals, school supplies, medical supplies, etc.). as a part of that, sweet frog gave 15% of sales to the church for mexico. we were more than happy to support the cause in such a tasty way! we went after vbs one night and it was packed! nothing like some sugar at 9:30pm!

they boys with "miss kaitlin" - we love her!

the keeping still while waiting selfie. manning loves just snapping away!

more with miss kaitlin

the older kids wrote how they can be/give/do love.

madelyn's idea.

madelyn was SO excited about this picture! she told us all about how she had posed before she ever saw the picture.

most of the classroom leaders.

madelyn's class.

all the preschoolers.

matt has to work too late to join us, if you noticed he wasn't in the pictures (although he did build us that awesome time machine). the goal was to raise $2500 for mexico. the kids brought in $2901.69! isn't that awesome? such a great week. love.