Month: July 2014
“camp”fire–butler style…
Inspired by Marie’s week at camp we decided to welcome her home by making s’mores. Marie also taught us camp songs. And then we told stories about when the kids were babies. They love to hear those. We waited until after Katriel went to bed. The fire makes me nervous.
Pictures from Marie at camp
Here are some photos from camp. Marie was able to buy a photo CD of the week for $5. It was worth it to see some of what she did while she was gone. The thing is: when we picked her up, she gave camp only a 5/10. She cried a lot the first day home. She said that each day, while she was in free time and quiet time, she cried. She said it felt like a waste to be at camp when she could be home playing with Nigel and Stewart, and Tabitha. She said she felt lonely and kept praying that God would give us a dream to come and get her. Her sadness at camp was exacerbated by the fact that she had not grasped what I was explaining as I deposited $10 into her camp store account. While other girls bought daily treats, she did not think we’d left money in her name. She went the week without snacks, but instead watched other buy treats. She said some did offer, but she declined. We had a few other bits we weren’t overjoyed with. Not entirely sure how to process all of it. A few days later, she was open to the possibility of going again. What’s a mom to think?
Well, these pictures show she did have some fun…
I’ll let you know if she tries again next year. 🙂
Seabreeze day…
Tabitha won two free tickets to Seabreeze. Which is great. But that still leaves a lot of tickets to purchase, know what I mean? But, with the rest of us sort of moping around without Marie, it seemed like as good a time as any to use those tickets.
I had planned on taking all the kids, and we all hoped Nan could come. She had some repair person scheduled to come by her house, however, so she passed on the invite and instead offered to have Katriel hang out with her. She told us to bring some milk for the baby. Katriel took care of that. (Oh! She’s so cute!!)
Seabreeze is one of my most favorite places ever. We had a great time. The weather was incredible and the crowds were very modest. They’ve updated the Kiddie area and Johanna had a grand time there. We spent a long time on the water activities and even did water attractions two separate times of the day. Johanna was too small for any water slides (first time in a long time I’ve had a 4-year-old too small for water slides!) but she loved the lazy river. I think we did that 5 times over all. Maybe more?
We stayed until after 9 PM. Something we wouldn’t have done with Katriel with us. So THANKS NAN!
We had some treats…
And enjoyed ourselves as best we could without Marie.
I did something totally crazy, too… see my stroller in the back of that picture? I took the stroller even without a kid to push in it!! YES! I did!!! How else would I cart around all the food? We like to eat on the go. I. LOVE. STROLLERS!
A treat from our friends… and Marie leaves for camp…
How do these things go together? They happened on the same day.
On July 19th, I got an email from our friends, the Maxfields, with a gift certificate for the Olive Garden attached! They sent it for our kids’ summer birthdays. Now… normally, I “save things for a rainy day.” Like a day in November where it is cold rain and I have done way more math than a forty-year-old woman should, and I just can’t make myself make dinner. But… this time I was as wacky as I can be (you can keep your seatbelts off) and decided we’d use it the very next day. 😉
We went Sunday right after church. We had a blast. Yum!!
Then we drove about 70 minutes to drop Marie off at camp. After asking to go for almost two years and Mommy & Daddy finally feeling peace at sending her (a ton of prayer, folks), she got cold feet when it was time for us to leave. I did get one picture. And we drove out praying she’d be blessed and grow closer to Jesus during her time at camp.
to be continued…
VBS at Pittsford CC
This year I had three beautiful girls attend VBS at Pittsford CC, and I had two young men help out with the ministry.
Firstly – both boys helped in the two Bible classrooms. This was Stewart’s third year serving this way and Nigel’s first. Nigel also helped out performing in the VBS drama. He had FORTY-SIX hours of rehearsal!!! (This was more than we met for the Passion Play at church a few years ago!!) He played Max Devlin, Chancellor of International City and all around bad guy.
This was Johanna’s first year to attend. She had a blast. AND she didn’t realize she was going to go more than one day! 🙂 After the first day, when we were tucking her into bed that night, I mentioned returning the following day. She was SO excited.
This is me and my “Chancellor” on Thursday night during the parents’ assembly.
Nigel with the other bad guy…
See Tab peeking out in the row? This was just before Nigel ran to get away. He went tearing down the aisle with a member of the Truth force right behind him.
It was a great week. All the kids had so much fun. I was exhausted driving them all back and forth. Baby and I ran some errands and met some friends one day at Panera. In a few years it will be her turn to go. Maybe I will volunteer then!
Marie is TEN!
Marie started her second decade with the opportunity to be part of the praise team at church. It meant an early morning, and an abbreviation to our normal birthday festivities, but it was pretty cool.
(It also meant running around because the dress she wanted to wear was no where to be found, and the other two options both needed ironing. We got one ironed, but then realized the first-choice dress was likely AT the church, having been quickly discarded on church-picnic-day for play clothes. Sure enough, once she got there I found the dress crumpled in a Wegman’s bag in the coat room. I dashed to my mother’s house, down the street, to iron it. So she got to wear dress A, after all. And that – friends- is my life in the NUT shell.)
It was a cool, drippy day, like most of summer 2014, so we just hung around the house. Tabitha and Marie did some face painting.
For dinner we had pasta Alfredo, and Ba, Poppy, Nan, & Nene joined us.
Gifts were fun, as always…
The boys bought her Wall•E Wii game.
Tab did some fancy artwork.
And bestowed upon her the movie, “Cinderella.” The kids had never seen it, and I had not seen it in well over 30 (35?) years. Turns out – it is a FABULOUS movie! Wish I’d watched it long ago!
Ba took her out to lunch a few days prior for some one-on-one birthday fun.
Nan and Nene got together to give her a nice red camera.
Nan also got her a charm bracelet with lots of charms from our vacation.
Dad and Mama didn’t give her any gifts as she was heading to camp the following week. Well – we HAD bought her a bunch of art supplies and a carrier for them… but we forgot them!! Daddy called me the next day to remind me, and we did give her that. (Welcome to Stacy’s brain.)
But – I DID deliver on the cherry crumble pie. It was amazing.
Just like my beautiful birthday girl. ♥
The Father’s Heart ministry at Pines of Per.
We’ve had the chance once or twice to help out in a small way with an AMAZING ministry here in town. Once a year they host a picnic for a community within our community and this year John, Stewart, Marie, Tabitha and I were able to lend some hands.
This ministry is a mobile soup kitchen which also hands out food and clothing. Our part was just to paint some faces, man an info. table and lead a kids’ game for a few hours. It was a gorgeous day and we met lots of beautiful people who came out to partake of the donations and hear the Truth as it was preached by a local pastor.
I’m so glad we could do something small with this awesome ministry. I hope we can do more with the mobile kitchen as the kids get older.
Candyland with Riffy
While we haven’t done much swimming as yet, this summer, we have had fun other ways.
Dayspring Disciples 