VBS Finale

Hi all. I'm literally writing this as my husband loads the car. VBS is always crazy like this. We end on Thursday night and I clean up my very trashed house and pack up to go. Then we hop in the car and drive to OH on Friday night. We are all looking forward to a relaxing weekend with grandma and grandpa in ohio. If I get a chance maybe I'll blog a little, but mostly I'll be out of reach. I had to add a couple of pictures from VBS. This year we had 259 kids involved with VBS in addition to well over a hundred volunteers. It was a fabulous week. This last picture is pretty lousy, but if you look close you can see how many kids were there for the evening program. The last two pictures are of me and my two helpers.

Alex really was good at helping. Dylan was too busy having fun to follow the music, but it was great that they could be there to help with the evening program and they certainly did provide the kids with a lot of entertainment. Have a great week and a great July 4th all!

VBS day 3

Well here it is Tuesday night and the end of the third day of bible school. We had a great day! It was busy as usual. Dylan was fighting about going and wearing the T-shirt, but once we got there he had a ton of fun.

This picture is of him laying on the floor protesting the t-shirt and announcing he wasn't going to VBS. He also really doesn't like the Chadder videos. In the morning one he watches, but in the evening he hides his head on my lap.

Alex also had a blast and is making some new friends. He was also helping me lead the evening group tonight. He wanted to practice before we started and was standing up right next to me to lead all of the songs.

This picture is of some of the kids in the morning group. They were waiting for me to start the music so they could sing what a great group of kids. This year I have a group of boys in the 6th grade that are really stepping up to help out and be real leaders. Bible school definitely brings out the best in the kids. I just finished blowing up my 250 balloons for tomorrow. I bought some bigger ones because I'm not sure if the little ones would have filled up the beaker. I hope these work, otherwise I'll have to put some bigger balloons in the middle to make it look more full.

This is our VBS periodical chart. Look close at the abreviations. Isn't that a clever idea. Anyways, I should go it's late and I have to be up early tomorrow.

VBS day 2

Well the second day of VBS is over. We're doing Power Lab this year and the kids are having a blast! Last night was the kick off and we had so many people that we completely ran out of chairs. I couldn't believe so many people were there. As of church yesterday we had 250 kids signed up and there are always last minute people that sign up so I don't know how many we wound up with. We have such a great time. It gets really loud and exciting. I do the music and opening and closing time. I love doing it, but after two days I'm already starting to lose my voice. I usually get more and more croaky as every day goes on. I wish I could take more pictures, but I'm busy leading music.

Tonight we had the biggest group ever for our evening VBS. It's really exciting to see that group growing too. Yes we have two times for our VBS so I get to do everything twice each day. It's exhausting, but I really love it.

Of course today I got home and slept for most of the afternoon. I was totally wiped out. Fortunately the kids were just as tired and were content to just relax around the house.

This evening Mark and I also got to blow up 250 tiny balloons for our challenges. Having the kids blow them up during music didn't really work for me so we sat and used a couple of pumps to blow them up. My fingers are really sore. The things we do for our kids.

Speaking of the kids thy are having a blast. They are doing cool science projects and learning the bible point and loving every minute of it. Alex is with the big kids for the first time and thinks it's "totally cool". Check out the couple of pictures I did get of Alex. The balloon had a nut in it and when you roll it, it makes a cool noise. Alex was clearly very excited. More VBS news tomorrow.

Weeds, weeds, and more weeds

Well, things have been a little busy around here. I feel like I have no time for blogging, reading blogs, commenting or any of those things these days. These pictures show the reason why I've been so busy. Our yard has a lot of trees and flower beds. The combination of the two means that I have a ton of seedlings right now. I cleaned them all out when I planted everything and now

they're all back with a vengeance. The first 2 pictures were 2 days ago and the second 2 were today. They're multiplying and growning faster than I can pull them out. I'm spending hours everyday pulling the dang things out.

I'm so tired of pulling weeds and dealing with all of it. I don't get to spend nearly enough time with the boys. Of course I also know that if I don't get them pulled by tomorrow VBS will start and then I won't have time to do it. Of course by the time I get back from vacation there will be a million more and they'll be much bigger. I feel like I'm never going to catch up. I love being outside and working in the garden, but this is getting ridiculous.

On the other side of it if we let the seedling go we would soon be living in a forest.

Alright, enough whining. One of these days I'll get it all done. Well I'm going to go and take a long hot bubble bath and have a cosmopolitan. I'm really sore and very sticky from sweating out in the sun.

Tackle it Tuesday #3

Well I finally had to break down and put the two boys in separate rooms. They've been asking off and on for the last month or so and I've been fighting it. The last few weeks one of the boys has been sleeping in the spare room for a variety of reasons and that has made me think about splitting them. I was just having a hard time giving up on having a guest room. I really enjoyed choosing the quilt and colors for the room and making curtains and I wasn't very excited about making it a bos room, although at least the colors work for a boys room. However, I've been debating it a lot the last few weeks. Having an empty room with a bed that gets used once in a blue moon didn't seem like a good use of the space. So, I spent all day yesterday moving all of Alex's clothes into his new room and rearanging Dylan's to make the best use of his space.

I had an antique dresser in the guest room so we had to find a place for it in the basement since we The cool roman shades that I made couldn't get rid of it. Family heirloom and all.

And then my brother was getting rid of the dresser they had been using so we brought it back from Chicago on Sunday so we didn't have to buy another dresser. That really helped out. Now I have everything moved I just have to get some shelves and things to put his stuff on and

figure out what I was going to do with all of his books and stuff. I'm going to hit goodwill today and see what I can find. I also had to find places for all of the blankets, sheets and towels I was keeping in his closet. I'm making progress, but still need to figure out some new places to put things. Although, that's the easy part. The worst is done, but I'll be glad when it's all over. THe boys however are enjoying sleeping in their own rooms and it's after 8:00 and Dylan is still sleeping which is a very good thing.

I love the colors in the room. The picture

above the bed is a picture of my grandparents old house.

A work in progress. I have a ton of stuf to deal with.

Weather fun?

Well if you've been watching the news the last few days WI has been mentioned a lot. We have tons of flooding in the area. OUr neighbor accross the street had a flooded basement. We have been so lucky that we haven't had water yet. Then if you missed the news in the Dells a whole Lake disappeared, yes disappeared. The shore gave way and it drained into the WI river taking several houses with it.
On Saturday night we were in the basement for a while with the tornado sirens going off. On Sunday we lost power for several hours.

So now what's happening you, you guessed it more rain. They said this morning if we get 1 more inch we would pass our record for rain in the whole summer, let alone June. This is vaguely reminiscent of our record levels of snow fall. Anyways, it's been raining for about the last 3 hours very hard, so I'm betting we've made yet another record. Hey the upside though is, it's filling our little pool for us for free. What a way to save money.

Well I'd better go. I want to shut the computer off since it's lightning right over head and we've already lost one computer to a lightning strike. Hope the weathers better where you are.

Thursday THirteen #3 WHy I love June

June is my favorite month, at least most of the time and here are 13 reasons why.

1. For those of us who live in the frozen tundra of WI things are finally consistently (mostly) warm and we can enjoy being outside. Of course today we were all in jeans and jackets again, but that's why I said mostly.

2. By the first weekend of June I can pretty much plant anything without worrying about frost. I love being out working and planting. Here are some of my gorgeous plants that finally bloomed

the first weekend in June. Of course I can't take credit for them they were there when we moved in, but boy have I enjoyed seeing them all come up and bloom this spring!

3. School and other activities are ending and we're busy getting ready for summer vacation.

4. Vacation Bible School (VBS) is the last week in June. I do the music and although it is totally exhausting I absolutely love every minute of it.

5. VBS ends Thursday night and by Friday night we'll be on our way to OH for vacation with my folks at the lake.

6. The kids still love playing outside and haven't started with the whole I'm bored business.

7. Have I mentioned being outside and enjoying the warm weather yet.

8. Soon it may even be warm enough to eat dinner on the deck.

9. All of my plants and flowers are starting to grow and bloom. What a joy to see.

10. Of course so are the weeds so many hours are spent pulling and digging and cutting thousands of weeds and baby trees (see #11)

11. We have a wooded lot so there is shade to rest in when the work gets too hot.

12. The kids are enjoying their bikes and the trampoline and helping mommy work in the flower beds. They're turning into quite the little gardeners.

13. Sitting on my porch swing relaxing after a long day of working in the yard and reading a good book! THat would be my idea of a perfect afternoon and in June it's still cool enough to enjoy the time outside.

I do love spring but I think I've decided that June is my favorite month of the year, at least until next month when July will be my favorite month. I guess i'm one of those people who enjoys whatever time of year I'm in the middle of. I hope all of you are having a great spring as we go into the early summer.

WW #7 Graduation

A bit of everything

How does time get away from me so fast? It seems like just yesterday that I did my last post and it's been almost a whole week. Things have been crazy here. Alex graduated from Kindergarten with a ceremony and everything. More on that when I can figure out how to get the video onto this computer. Hopefully tomorrow. Today was his last day of school. I'm busy getting ready for VBS which starts in a couple of weeks.

Then there was the fun weather this weekend. We had storms on Friday through Sunday. On Friday night the sirens went off for about a 1/2 hour so we got to spend some quality family time in the basement. Then on Sunday we had no power for most of the afternoon. What a fun way to spend the day. Actually it was nice to be forced to read instead of stare at the computer. Of course that also meant I'm even farther behind on everything in this house. I feel like I'm never going to get caught up. I'm also supposed to have chore charts and a schedule for the boys to start tomorrow now that Alex is out of school.

Hopefully life will start to settle down soon. Hope all of you are doing well.

Helper boys!

We got 5 yds of dirt delivered to make my garden and a base for last year's pool. The boys enjoyed helping dad to move the dirt. Alex got to use the big shovel to fill the wheelbarrow.




















Dylan loved helping mom fill the pots with plants and then add the soil to cover them. Notice I said soil, not dirt. Dylan insists that we call it soil. He's turning into quite the little gardener.





Yesterday I was planting in all of the flower beds and Dylan was helping me quite a bit. He was planting some of the plants all by himself. He's even pretty gentle with the plants. And he's taking great pride in knowing that he helped to plant them.



















Here is another lovely picture of mom and Dylan planting pots. I love to try different things in all of my pots. In a few weeks I'll post some pictures of how they look when they get a little bigger. Right now they look a little puny. I'm a big fan of buying the smallest size as possible so I can watch them grow.





























Check out the little shovel and gloves. We're seriously decked out to work.



The funniest part of the work is that while he was resting in his room yesterday he kept yelling out his window. "Mommy, you're not planting all of the plants yet. Mommy, are there still plants for me to plant? Mommy, wait for me, I want to help."






Look at the difference in shovel size. I think Dylan's getting the short end of the stick with that tiny shovel. Or maybe it's Alex since he had to work harder with his. Either way they both were a big help and enjoyed a little bit of the planting.

Tackle it Tuesday #2

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Well it's been quite a weekend. I've been busy trying to get all of our plants in the ground and the pots filled. I've been spending hours each day digging in the dirt. Something I love to do, but man am I sore!! Here are some pics of my pots on the front porch. I planted until minutes before I had to start teaching piano so I didn't get pictures of the flower beds I planted. Maybe that'll be a TT follow up for next week.

Of course there are a whole pile of projects just waiting to be tackled. Who knows what will happen next.