Where has the week gone??

So my brother did a VBS post this week so I guess I will join him.  This week is VBS at my home church.  It is a blast but oh so much work.  For the past few years I have coordinated the opening skits and this year I have taken over the whole opening program.  I have not been the biggest fan of the curriculum that we have used the past few years but perhaps I can have some input next year.  Our theme this year is "God's Big Backyard".  It is a theme with potential and the kids seem to be having fun.  Our girls are really liking VBS.  I don't know what they will think next week where there is no more VBS to go to.  

Our mission Alaska team also does a hot dog lunch as a fundraiser at the end of VBS so between directing puppets and cooking hot dogs it has been a busy couple of days.  Not to mention that we had a flamingo triage set up today to fix a number of broken legs of our plastic gold mines.  These birds have brought in over $2200 so far!  If you are not sure what I am talking about you might want to scroll down and read the post about flamingos.  Anyway it was quite a site with over 30 plastic birds lying on the stage in the gym.  After about an hour they all got a clean bill of health and are off to infest more yards tonight.  

Our mission trip to Alaska is coming up soon as well.  We have been feverishly working on fundraising and we only need about $2000 more to make our goal.  We leave on July 11th and return home on the 20th.  It will be round two of VBS for many of us since that is the main thing we do in Alaska.  

Tomorrow is a court date for the girls.  We are cautiously optimistic that we may see the light at the end of the tunnel.  We ask for your prayers so that this long and drawn out procedure comes to a close and everything will be final.  I will keep you posted.

Well, I am going to cut it short tonight so good night and have a great week here in God's Big Backyard (sorry had a VBS flashback.......)

Summertime!!

Summer has begun in our house and our schedules have been turned upside-down.  This week the girls are going to Vacation Bible School with their cousins in Orange.  So far it has been good but it is a drive in the AM and Jill and I have been juggling our work schedules to make it happen.  The girls have been singing the songs and loving their time at VBS.  Next week all the girls will be at VBS in Long Beach so the fun continues.  The girls also started swim lessons today.  This is their second year in swim lessons and they did not miss a beat.  Our oldest was back at it floating on her back and jumping in the water.  Our youngest was simply a fish...she was awesome and jumped in from the side on multiple occasions.  We hope that by the end of the summer they will both be able to take some breaths and make it to the side of the pool without help.

With the end of the school year came a great surprise for me.  When we picked up the girls last week we received a portfolio of the girls work for the year.  It was a blast seeing the difference between what they did back in September compared to what they can do today.  One thing that was neat to me was a sheet called "all about me".  I found it fascinating how things have changed.   Here is what our youngest said back in September:

Where do I live? (no answer)

My family is...mommy

My favorite animal is...a giraffe

My favorite food is...pizza

My favorite toy is... (no answer)

Here is what she said at the end of May:

Where do I live? A red house (well our door is red)

My family is... mommy, daddy, nanna, sister

My favorite animal is...an elephant

My favorite food is...bananas

My favorite toy is...cars

But the thing the really amazed me was her measurements.  In September our youngest weighed 31 lbs and was 2 feet 3 inches.  In May she weighed 36 lbs and was 3 feet tall.  She grew NINE inches in one school year!!!! I knew she was growing but that is amazing.

Our oldest also had an "All About Me" page and here are her answers from September.  It is a bit different because she had a different teacher.

My favorite color is...Red.

I like to eat...chicken nuggets

My favorite toy is...colors

My favorite story is...Mulan

I like to play...Teddy Bears

I like to wear...a skirt

When I am at school I like to...play on the swing

When I am at home I like to...play with toys

For those of you who know our oldest you can see that there are a few differences in this list today.  Our oldest is not shy in telling you that her favorite color is most definitely blue, her favorite food is just about anything but she loves fruit, she still loves to color.  Her favorite story is anything from Veggie Tales.  She likes to play Barbies and still loves skirts.  She loves to swing and at home she likes to sing and play with the housekeeping corner.

Well if you know me, you know that I like to keep stuff.  I have a few boxes of treasures in the garage and in a few minutes the girls preschool portfolios will be added to the collection.  I can't wait to pull them out in a few years and reminisce.  Talk to you next week, until then....

Pedometers

As I was strolling the dollar aisle a few weeks back with my girls, looking for celebration prizes I saw that there was a pedometer for just a buck. What a deal! (What does the Moorman bird say? Cheap, Cheap, Cheap!) I had always thought that having a pedometer would be cool. It would be neat to see how far one walks each day. I also thought that it would be a good motivational tool for me to stay active. So on May 23 I started wearing my new pedometer and did so every day for over a week. It was a good gage as to how active I was during the day. I started logging my steps every day as well. All was going well until on June 4th the darn thing broke. What can you expect from the dollar aisle? The thing did have a fatal flaw. The reset button was right up front and I unintentionally hit it on many occasions (see below). So now I am committed. I have gotten into a good habit and now the cheap step counter was not working. So off to Sports Chalet I go. After a bit of searching I found the pedometers and "walked" away with a new one (see picture) for a bit more than a buck. So my counting of steps continues and my goal is 10,000 a day. I will say I have made it only twice this past week but I did have two days of 9000+ so I am on my way. Today was 14,610 which included time at the gym and a walk to the grocery store. I guess my encouragement to you is to find something that works as stick with it. Until next week....

Flamingo Season

I know, I know, two more weeks have gone by and no post from me. It seems that in all of my spare time since school has been out I have found ways to stay busy. Right now I am in the middle of flamingo season. What is flamingo season you may ask? Let me tell you...better yet, let me show you:



So I have been knee deep in flamingos and the season closes the end of the month. I hope that in the end we will have raised a good amount of money for our mission trip to Alaska. Well I am off to spread another flock to another yard. See ya!!