date week (aka vbs as a guest)

tonight the kids have their last night of vbs at the church where they have attended preschool. matt and i have enjoyed a dinner date every night this week as a result! heaven. but my "date" tonight is nana! she and papa got here this afternoon for a visit and, of course, papa and daddy are golfing.

we snapped a few pictures of the kids in their shirts they made during vbs before heading off for their last night. they were feeling a little silly...

manning spent the week with his buddy graham so we had to get some pictures. they are both quite the little hams.

we are so fortunate to have so many opportunities to have God's word reinforced with our kids. the time with matt was such a blessing too. love.

vbs final night

we made it! the craziest week flew by and i can't believe all of the months of preparation are over. completely worth it when you see the smiles leaving every single night. God has done some wonderful things this week.

there were lots of fun picture moments in the lobby so the kids and i checked them out before everything is put away tonight. (yes, we have to tear it all down tonight so that everything is back to 'normal' for church on sunday.) since tonight would be another very late night, i stopped by starbucks to get myself a treat. and guess what? the person in the car in front of me paid for my coffee! that gesture pepped me up more for tonight than the coffee! kindness never grows old, even as it grows more rare.

i love how maddux fogs up the lens with his breathing!

manning wanted to take some pictures with me in them. it's too bad that he can't hold still!

manning can not stop singing the music.

we finished strong. matt came to help with tear-down. he was actually coming to take the kids home and put them into bed but there was so much work that he just stayed to help. we tore it all down and salvaged as much as possible to hand-down to one of our smaller campuses to use next year. it is going to take me a long time to break it all down and put supplies away but i don't have to do it tonight. i just have to get it done my september when we need the classroom i am storing it in for now.

i love that the church is willing to invest in future generations. and now for a nap. love.

lots to get into

our kids can always find lots of fun things to get into while mommy is busy setting up for vbs. love.

pool refresh

the kids are tired and crazy (read: fighting and crying) so we took a relaxing day at the pool. and we were even the only ones! we needed some fresh air to get us over the mid-week hump.

and back to the church we go! tonight we didn't have as much to prepare so we spent some time at the photo booth before dinner.

the kids were all super excited for the "sweet frogs" to visit with us tonight. and i was happy to get a 20% off coupon for us to use sometime.

vbs is running so smoothly. two more nights to go! love.

pumped and ready to go for day 2

manning about sums it up.

i have to be at church so early to set-up that i had to take the two sickies with me. they were feeling better but i didn't want to put them in with the other kids. matt is coming to pick up mason and take him home, but madelyn wants to stay with me. since she stayed, we got a sweet picture of us worshiping together.

another fun evening of vbs! love.

the longest/best day ever

it is "go" day - vbs starts tonight! the kids and i arrived at the church loaded up with food, movies, supplies and a change of clothes for vbs. the kids were amazing! i set them up with movies and food in one of the rooms and they let me make it happen.

notice the sea turtles in the ceiling? the netting i ordered did not have the visual impact intended.

volunteers came and went throughout the day to get their individual classrooms set up (there are 9 rooms under my age group - "preschool"). the kids and i had a little lull to get changed and ready in our vbs gear before dinner (the church feeds the volunteers every night which is a HUGE help and they also provided us a light lunch today).

vbs ready!

we had prepped for 400 kids (we had 350 on average last year) - we had 405 kids! there was a little panic during snacks and crafts and some behind the scenes registration issues to start the night, but overall, the evening went very smoothly.

mason and maddux during opening worship.

all of the "coaches" were asked to wear silly sealife hats. i got off easy compared with some of the other options (like a tie-dyed giant squid!).

madelyn working on a rainbow in her group.

to say that i was exhausted when we got home would be an understatement. we were at church for 14 hours today and i put in 18,000 steps inside the building! crazy, right?!

once we got the kids settled, the vbs shirts into the washing machine for tomorrow and i finally got a shower, i collapsed into a deep sleep.

and then madelyn came in to wake me up. i could not make myself wake up. she had to come back again. why? because she had thrown up! ahhh! so tired. i was finally able to drag myself from bed and limp (my feet were crazy sore) to madelyn's room to take care of the mess and get her back into bed. poor kid.

asleep.

but then mason came in! he had thrown up! noooooooo! on my pitiful sleepwalk to take care of mason's mess and get him set up with a 'bed' on the floor of my bathroom.

please, God. let this be the end of the sickness. this is not the week. good night. love.

final vbs home prep - sea turtles

this year, i tried to pick decorations that the kids could easily help me prepare. today we worked on making sea turtles as our final prep at home before our long day at church tomorrow before the first night of vbs. love.

vbs work day(s)

yesterday we were at church for about 4 hours and today we put in 7-8. and i say "we" because the kids have been troopers. granted, they get to just sit and watch movies while i work, but it is still a long day for them. today i put them to work on some paper chain for the entry.

we weren't the only ones working either. look at the gorgeous glass painting a college student did for us!

my workload today was getting all of the "essentials" together for all 8 preschool (plus one small 2- and 3-year-old class of volunteers' kids). i was sorting worksheets and supplies by day for each classroom (i should have taken a picture). there was also table moving, chair finding and lots of grunt work.

i was also able to assemble some of our paper plate sea creatures that the kids painted for me (mason did most of these).

here is what the kids accomplished today.

one of the sweet ladies who serves in the kids ministry, and sort of mentors me, gave all four kids a dollar to get ice cream on the way home. she praised their good behavior and patience to let me work. they were very, very excited to stop for ice cream! and to pay with their "own" money.

they were so good today (and i am dealing with guilt for parking them in front of a movie all day because i can't have them breaking things) so i let them play in the playplace to burn off a little energy before taking the drive home.

vbs is not for the weak. love.

vbs production

i've got my production team working on sea turtles for vbs. they are very enthusiastic to help too. love.

did someone mention "snacks"?

our kids love to eat. like, LOVE to eat. so when they had to go to a 2-hour vbs training meeting with me on matt's golf night, they were happy to hear that there were snacks. they had already had dinner before we got there. and had lots of snacks that we brought from home. but i still think they ate more as a foursome than the rest of the room combined (like 40-50 people).

it was a little embarrassing.

when i apologized to the director, she said that she was glad they ate all of the fruit since it couldn't be saved. well, at least there is that. love.

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.

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.