A treat from our friends… and Marie leaves for camp…

July 20, 2014 | Stacy

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

July 17, 2014 | Stacy

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!

July 13, 2014 | Stacy

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.

July 12, 2014 | Stacy

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.

Let the creativity roll…

June 17, 2014 | Stacy

The new trampoline was not yet assembled

So they found other physical activities.

They each had their turns.

Pre-church baseball…

June 15, 2014 | Stacy

LifeSkills: Buttons 101

June 12, 2014 | Stacy

I shocked myself as much as them when Marie asked me today if I would teach her how to sew and I dropped everything to give them a lesson on the sewing machine. Hey, she asked in June, not November. This is a GOOD time of year.
I taught them how to thread the machine and sew a straight (or semi-straight) line. That was enough.

My mom suggested teaching them hand-sewing first. I’m not a huge fan of hand-sewing, but it dawned on me they should know how to sew on a button.

As soon as dinner was cleared I got out the stuff and away we went.

I called in to Stewart and asked him if he knew how to sew on a button. He readily admitted he did not and rapidly joined in the lesson. I brought him up to speed quickly and gave him a pair of his shorts to put the button on. He’s a pro.

Nigel already knows a bit of sewing.

OOOOoooooo – I just got an idea for them to raise money for another CRUISE!!!!!!

“No more pencils, no more books.”

May 27, 2014 | Stacy

See how happy we all are that it is summer?

Actually – we are still doing a little bit of school, and they have been more than agreeable to do yard work and building projects. Nigel has even drawn up building plans to turn the swing set into something of a water park. … to be continued, I am sure…

Easter 2014

April 26, 2014 | Stacy

Easter 2014 was a Good day.
Easter 2014 was a Full day.
Easter 2014 was a Good, Full day.

One of the kids said it was the best Easter ever. I’ve gotten used to these proclamations, however. The current *event* always seems to be recalled as the best. To me this doesn’t dismiss previous experiences as much as it means they felt joyful at this time.

My alarm rang at 5AM to remind me to start the crock pots. With a smallish oven and two 10 lb hams to cook, I resorted to doing my two potatoes dishes in crock pots. [I won’t keep you in suspense; they turned out fantastically.]

Some of the kids were up by 7AM itching to look for their baskets. I had a lot of pressure with this, let me tell you. Last year’s hiding places were superb and they remembered that. No pressure.

The girls donned their dresses, despite the fact some had to take baths AFTER the basket hunt…
It was fun to have them matching. ♥

They hunted high and low…

Johanna found hers in the hamper.

Tabitha found hers in the Play-Doh cupboard. (Doesn’t every one have a Play-Doh cupboard?]

Marie found hers in the bathroom vanity under a pile of towels. She was elated to receive a clip-the-clothes-on Princess. (Tab has 6 and Hanny has 4 already!) She hasn’t played with it a ton, but she was so pleased to get a princess the other girls didn’t have. They love to mix and match the clothing.

Stewart found his in the pantry. Eventually. Nigel found his in a dress that I had hanging in Daddy’s closet.

Swim goggles, a protractor, and a puzzle book. We are a fun crowd, aren’t we?

It was off to church for 10:30 AM. The kids couldn’t believe how packed the parking lot was. Just moments before someone had suggested that church would be empty because people were out of town, or busy, etc. Nope. The church smelled fantastic. Our friend snapped this picture.

After church we tried to grab some photos.
You know the old saying: “You can dress them up; but you can’t make them smile, tilt their heads just so, and look in the lens.”
Or something like that.

We had a lovely dinner; and although the food was delicious, it paled in comparison to the awesome fellowship. John’s parents, my mom and sister, and our dear friends the F’s joined us for the afternoon. [I did not make the adorable hatching chicks.]

Sunday was also John’s birthday. We opened gifts in the early afternoon.

Our family then left and we headed outside for an egg hunt. Stewart offered to help Daddy hide the eggs this year.

Johanna had a particularly awesome time finding eggs with J’s on them.

Katriel was super-cute. We’ve never had a baby at quite this age at Easter. She was tickled to find out the eggs weren’t just fun to hold, but you could open them up at eat a Teddy Graham. 🙂

She doesn’t like getting herself up from the grass!
And can you imagine how fantastic this picture would have been… if I didn’t have princess stickers on me? Good Grief.

And – the BEST photo of the kids I have had in years… in play clothes. *sigh* Of COURSE they took off their church clothes as soon as we said they could (after the mid-day meal). So when I spontaneously asked them all to sit in the yard I never could have anticipated that I was about to capture the first photo ever with all six of them smiling and looking at the camera. Smiling AND looking. No eyes closed, no hair in the eyes, no stray toy or cup in the corner. Best picture ever… orca whale shirt and all. ♥

The day ended with us watching a movie together. It was such a sweet, full day.

As I lay in bed that night I was reflecting on all the goodness we’d enjoyed. We aren’t a family that has a standing Easter tradition. We’ve celebrated it differently almost every year – different guests, different activities, different food. We even once were guests elsewhere. I’m not sure things will line up for us to replicate such a great day in Easters to come. But it was SUCH a wonderful, wonderful day, I just basked in the joy we all had felt.

And as I drifted off to sleep I startled awake as I remembered what we had done LAST Easter.
If you want a good laugh – check it out. http://dayspringdisciples122.blogspot.com/2013/04/easter-2013.html
Um, last year was R.O.U.G.H! – A day at the DMV would look like fun compared to LAST Easter.