VBS and Swim Lessons… so far.

This week is Vacation Bible School at the church.  Joanna is old enough to be dropped off without having a parent on-site volunteering.  The littles aren’t as lucky, so they’re stuck at home with me.  I’m just not up for volunteering this year.  :(  I miss it though.  I thought about seeing if there was a super-easy job I could do, but then I thought about just getting everyone up and out the door, being gone from home (draining for an introvert like myself) for a few hours, then coming home hungry and having to fix lunch five days in a row would be much more than I should do.  So we’re not.  :)

I am sooooooooooooo super thankful that Lisa is taking and bringing home Joanna every day!  It is HARD just getting everyone out of the car, walking inside, and then getting them back in the car!

Monday was orange day, and Joanna came up with this shirt that has some orange hearts on it.  We’re not really orange people, so it’s not something we buy much.  :)  I put the bow in her hair to help with the over all orange effect.

The girls also have swim lessons every afternoon this week at the YMCA.  That’s another good reason I shouldn’t tire myself out in the mornings!  They are at 4:15, which is prime “fall asleep in the car” time for Mr. James.  Yesterday I pulled him out of the car, and he stayed crashed on me.  Then we walked inside and into one of the family change rooms.  I laid him down on the bench in there because I really can’t go 20 minutes without visiting the facilities.

He stayed asleep, even after I picked him back up and put him on my shoulder.  We walked back outside, signed in, waited for lessons to start, then went in to the pool area, and the girls were about halfway through with lessons before he woke up!  It messes with his nighttime sleep and overall grumpiness when I let him nap, but it was much easier to keep a sleeping James entertained than an awake one who would have wanted to hop in with the girls.

Joanna:

Natalie:

I deeply deeply deeply love the family change rooms at the Y.  We can all go in, lock the door, shower, dry off, go to the bathroom, and get dressed.  It is AMAZING.

My clean babies:

I didn’t bring our showering gear yesterday, so we just rinsed off and then brushed hair at home, but today we full-on showered everyone.  I figure it’s late enough in the day that we might as well! 

Today James and I wore our suits and got in the water while the girls were having their lessons.  SO MUCH BETTER!  It felt amazing in the water, and James had a blast!  And with my swimsuit on, I could shower everyone off in the change room while sitting on the bench in there.  Hallelujah!  And while I’m doing that, Matt is at home fixing dinner.  So even though I’m pretty sure I could go to sleep right now and sleep until some time on Thursday, it’s doable.  :)

Ice Cream and VBS and Dressing Up

My favorite ice cream from the store is Ben and Jerry’s “Everything but the…”  It’s heavenly, and I’ve been craving it for a while.  I gave in last night even though it was not on sale.  Mmmmmmm…

This morning, knowing full-well what would happen, I let James feed himself oatmeal.

It made him so happy.  :)  And it really wasn’t the worst mess I’ve ever seen.

Josh dropped Ray off and took our picture for green day today.  {Ocean insight: “Change the World”}

It’s amazing how many shades of green there are.

I saw Miss Natalie on the playground today and had to stop and snap a few pictures.

She was having so much fun swinging!

Another pic of Joanna and her bud Hannah that Hannah’s mom posted on FB.  So sweet!

Hannah is taller than Joanna, but I think the perspective of the picture exaggerates it a bit.  :) 

Mr. James when I picked him up today.  :)

We didn’t make it home until 1:00 today, and we discovered the power was out.  :(  Fortunately it only lasted a few more minutes.  I was already thinking of what my game-plan would be for a no A/C afternoon.  Ick!

The 4th and 5th graders did a puppet show today, and Joanna was inspired to have one of her own at home.  Love her!

We rotated a few dress-up things this afternoon, and I found these Superman PJs I had forgotten about!

I wanted to write something about Wednesday that I forgot to put in yesterday’s post.  When I pulled into the garage after VBS at 12:30 or so, I discovered James was fast asleep!  It did not even occur to me that that was a possibility or I would have worked at keeping him awake!  I just knew that was going to be it for naps for the day, and I was sad.  But I carefully pulled him out of his car seat and he actually transferred to my shoulder asleep!!!  This is very uncharacteristic behavior for my children, so I took advantage.  I looooooooooove snuggle naps.  I had just talked to my mom so I knew she was coming over on her way home from the store to bring me some onions.  So I pulled sandwich stuff out of the fridge one-handed before settling into the rocking chair to snuggle my sleeping James.  Thankfully the girls played very sweetly until my mom got there and made them sandwiches.  Yay for perfect timing!  He ended up sleeping about an hour total which isn’t a fantastic nap, but it sure was better than eight minutes in the car!

I actually laid down for a nap today, and I haven’t done that in forever.  I was on the couch and the girls were being noisy in their room, so I didn’t get much sleep, but I did actually manage to fall asleep for a few minutes.  It really helped my afternoon.  Thank goodness!  My house has been (still is) a wreck for going on two weeks.  I’m just so tired in the afternoons!  But I managed to put every single toy away in it’s proper room today, and I feel so much better!  Tomorrow I will tackle laundry and vacuuming, and I will be well on my way to feeling normal.  I hate a messy house.  Sadly I also hate cleaning it.  :)  Maybe the cleaning fairy will come while I’m sleeping and take care of the kitchen and bathroom.

A girl can dream.

VBS, Days 1-4, in a very large nutshell

In a perfect world, I would have done a post everyday after VBS with all the cuteness of the day like last year.  But this is not a perfect world (ha!), and my computer has DIED.

I’m very sad.  I don’t know what I’m going to do about it.

But today my mother offered me hers for 24 hours, so I’m blogging!!  I also finally got around to going through all the pictures I took last week at our Musikgarten “photo shoot.”  I’m not going to install and take the time to play with Photoshop Elements on my mom’s computer.  I really don’t have the time and I’m exhausted!  So I just used Picasa to do some cropping and maybe a teeny bit of color correcting.  I’ll share my favorites here at some point.

For now, though, I want to write about our fun week at Vacation Bible School!

Monday was yellow day, and our “ocean insight” was Depend on God.

James would not stand by the girls.  BUT, he would run around and around them, so it kind of looks like he’s standing next to Natalie.

Then I looked around for something to set my camera on for a timer shot, and decided on the giant trash bin – sturdy and just the right height.  Smelly though.

James gets such a kick out of me sprinting across the driveway with him that he’s always smiling in these shots.  :)

I learned that I own exactly one yellow shirt, and it’s from my first year of teaching.  Awww…

I helped in the 1st grade again this year (love that age!), but I got to do lots of spying on Joanna.  She was in the main part of VBS this year (as opposed to the preschool or nursery), and we did all the same activities, just at different times.

Tuesday was red day – “Dare to Care.”  The trashcan was in the street that morning, so we were too.  :)

We must have been running early that day because I took a lot of pictures of the kiddos.  They’re so cute!

James and Natalie have the same face on in this picture:

I think Natalie looks so pretty here.

Wednesday was blue day – “Claim the Name.”

The theme this week was something along the lines of diving into God’s word (Operation Overboard!) and the stories each day had something to do with water.

Hence the boat:

Apparently when I registered online, I ordered a shirt for myself but not Joanna.  I must have been sleepy or something because that was backwards.  :)  I’ve gotten Joanna a shirt every year for VBS I think.  So on Wednesday morning we checked to see if they had extra bitty ones, and they did.  It made her happy.  :)

I’m sure next year I’ll have to get one for Natalie too.  Right now she’s just happy that she gets to be the first one to sleep in it after it’s washed.  That’s what we use our VBS shirts for.  :)

Joanna with one of her buds this week, Hannah.  She was in Joanna’s preschool class two years ago but moved away I think.  They came back for a visit or something (clearly I’m set on the details here), and Joanna has really enjoyed playing with her this week!

Hannah has definitely helped with the Anna withdrawal since she couldn’t come to VBS.

I spied on Joanna in games on Wednesday, and she was playing intently with the parachute.

In fact, I stood right in front of her for several minutes and said her name a few times before she noticed me.

I overheard Natalie’s teacher {LOVE the preschool teachers this year, btw} saying they were going to go over to drama with the Pre-K’s so I got to spy on both my girls while my kiddos were down the hall in science.

How cute is she?!!

Joanna’s head is at the bottom right of this next one.  :)

Today was purple day – “Follow Jesus”

Oh, it was so very very hard to get out of bed this morning.  The children, even though they’re exhausted, have been waking up a bit earlier each day this week.  Yuck.

This morning James tried to wake up at about 6:30, but due to my extreme inability to get out of bed, he eventually fell back asleep, and I had to wake him up at 8.

That’s why he has on his jammies in our purple picture.  He doesn’t have any purple clothes though, so it works.

I wandered around my kitchen while James was still sleeping, trying to come up with a good breakfast to send for him to eat at VBS without it being too much trouble.  I settled on a PJ&J and strawberries, since he LOVES himself a sandwich and can eat it pretty neatly.  Sadly, it was not until I went to drop him off that I realized/remembered that he can’t have peanut butter in the nursery.  So he got to come with me to the 1st grade room while he devoured an entire sandwich and a couple of strawberries.  It was pretty cute to hear several 7 year olds tell me James looks just like me.  :)

And I took him into the gym for a bit for music before taking him back to the nursery.

They brought the preschoolers in today!  Natalie is soooo cute with her moves!

I was planning on being good and going home for lunch, but my mom called and made me meet her at Wendy’s. 

I swear.

I lost track of exactly how many chicken nuggets everybody ate, but the four children polished off 25 all together.

That seems like a lot to me.  :)

I’ve never seen this boy eat like that!

And after all of that, Joanna at a junior deluxe cheeseburger.

James also ate some of the fruit off my mom’s salad.  And Natalie had some fries, her absolute favorite food.  I didn’t eat anything.  But that’s only because an hour and a half before I ate bbq meatballs and tater tots in the snack room.  Yuuuuuuuuuuumm.

Well, if you made it to the end of this enormous post, I applaud you!  Hopefully I’ll be able to come back soon.  I miss blogging regularly.  I have so many thoughts.  :)

VBS Singers

I have about a weeks worth of pictures to catch up with on the blog.  I don’t know why I do this to myself.  It’d be so much more simple and fun to blog as I go.  :)

Last Sunday (after Vacation Bible School), the kiddos sang one of their songs as the call to worship.  I took a video, which I posted on Facebook, but I think it’s too big for here.  I took a couple of pictures as well.

I totally spaced on the “wear red” thing, but I’m glad you can easily spot my girls in yellow in the front!

A little closer…

I’m pretty sure Natalie was the only two year old up there, but she really wanted to do it too, and I think she held her own!

VBS Friday: Blue–“Celebrate Forever!”

It seems fitting that for the last day of VBS, we’d end up with a good shot of all the children!

But there were a couple of funny ones too.  I love James’ face here.  :)

And in this one it looks like James and Natalie are doing the same thing – I love it!  And Joanna has such a sweet face!

Friday morning Lisa grabbed my camera and took pictures of the kiddos.  I’m posting just the ones with Joanna right now, but I’ll put them all up in another post (maybe below this one, in fact) so anyone who wants ‘em can grab ‘em.

I’m ignoring the fact that Joanna is not doing the motions in any of this pictures.  I’m thinking motions might not be her thing.  :)

Isn’t she so pretty?!

She sat with me for the last music session and the slide show.

She did a little dancing but was kind of done by the time I whipped out the camera.  :)  She loved watching the videos and singing along.

The goofy face is because she knew I was taking pictures of her.

I love that kid… all of ‘em actually.  :)  We all had such a fun week at VBS, and I’m so glad we did it!