Pheww! We finally finished VBS! When you're VBS director and your husband is the pastor of a small church, there's a lot of responsibility involved with VBS, but it is always so worth it! We had a space-themed VBS this year and we had a lot of fun with it. I don't have a picture right now of the entire stage, but I have to say it was pretty awesome! We had the whole church blacked out with black plastic (which 3 different Wal-Marts were out of stock after I hit them) and we had black lights, a rocket, a space station, the whole works! Jonah is still wishing he could go back to "BBS" as he calls it! The above picture is of the Sunday morning presentation. There were about 20 kids in his preschool group, but this is all that showed up for the Sunday School presentation! We're all still singing the "BBS" songs!
Here's our "satellite" launch on Sunday after church! Each balloon had a salvation message attached, in hopes that someone who didn't know Jesus would find it! Overall, the kids really absorbed so much at VBS and almost every kid learned our memory verse! We even had one kid get saved because of it all! Praise the Lord!
On Fourth of July Weekend we went to Addison, Texas with some friends of ours to the Kaboomtown festival. This is their little family: Michael, Elizabeth, Cameron and little Olivia. We had one catastrophe happen after another, but the funny thing was we still had such a great time! We even sat in traffic for 2 1/2 hours as they blocked off every road to our hotel to "help" with traffic after the festival. It was after midnight before we all got back to the hotel - we were some weary travelers that night! 
We had a much-needed relaxing playtime at the Galleria playground on Friday morning! It's so nice just to let the kids run their little hearts out without having to run after them!!
Friday afternoon the kids and I had some desperately needed naps while Daddy picked up Tootsie and visited with her a little. She's been pretty sick lately, so it was nice to be able to be all together again! Afterward we enjoyed a little family swim while Tootsie took pictures. Notice the giant shirt I'm wearing - sorry I could not find a good picture taken that showed my pregnant belly - so sorry I'll have to work on that one! After all, that's the beauty of having your own blog - it's under my control ha-ha!!
Here's a picture of the flag cake, Jonah and I made for Fourth of July! I had originally made it to eat while we watched fireworks the night before, but our plans just did not work out that night!! I had imagined a picturesque setting of our friends and us sitting on a blanket at the hotel, wearing these festive headbands I'd bought for the kids, while munching a yummy flag cake and celebrating to patriotic music and beautiful fireworks!! Instead we were all sweaty, stuck in traffic, while people yelled at us to get out of the way and kids yelled in the background that they were hungry and tired, and the pregnant mom tells Dad to stop laughing because none of it is funny anymore!! Isn't it great how you just never know what is going to happen in life! I love it though, because now I have a great blog story! 
Today I had one of those great days where I got in the "pioneer woman" mode. We had been given a whole lot of squash and other vegetables by many generous people that I had to do something with before they went bad. I spent the whole day chopping, cooking, making casseroles, making zucchini bread, marinating fresh catfish caught by a friend, and shucking corn! There's nothing that makes you feel more like a real woman than putting away all of this fresh food! There's also nothing that poops you out more!! We ended the night by eating fresh grilled catfish, squash/redpotatoes/ and onions, and grilled corn! It felt so good to know that all of that food was fresh from someone's garden. I wish we could eat like that everyday! The boys played in the water while we grilled, well Jonah actually played in the mud digging holes and covering himself in sticky mud! Caleb ran around chasing the "bees" which were actually wasps with his bat! I'm trying to break him of this one - that could be dangerous!
3 comments:
Love the pictures, Mandy and the memories when I was only sitting but loving my time there. How wonderful to celebrate each day of life the way you all so eloquently do each day. The power of the love that comes from your family is awesome, to say the very, very least. There are no words to express how thankful I am for each of you. I cannot wait to hold my granddaughter, the first little girl we have had since I was a little girl. Is there a chance in the world that you could make her have dark hair/dark eyes/olive skin to look a little like her Tootsie? I don't care if she is as tall as Collin and has green hair, she will be adorable. Love you so much.
Isn't it the GREATEST feeling when VBS is OVER! ALthough, I have no where near the responsibility you have at yours....still it's nice to work towards something and accomplish it and not have to start over in 2 hours like the dishes. Ha! Glad it went well!
Mandy, I was thinking about Adam laughing in the midst of your plans falling apart. It reminded me of when I was raising the boys and how we would laugh at adversity. One time Collin's car blew a head gasket, which basically put it out of commission. We laughed so hard, there were tears in our eyes. We knew the problem it presented to us, but we just laughed.
Over the past seven months, I allowed my circumstances and the actions of others to take that joy away from me. I am so thankful for all the prayers and for Adam's love for God in helping me give it all to Him. All of you are a true inspiration in my life. Love you always,
Tootsie/Barb
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