backyard Bible club started today!

Tonight was our first night of Backyard Bible Clubs. This is our 4th year to have a team of teenagers from our church come and lead a club with our neighborhood kids. They play fun relay games, the team teaches them a lesson from the Bible, and shares the message of the gospel each night with kids. Our family looks forward to it every year!

She's two!

I have quite a bit of catching up to do on here.  I want to share trip pictures from our big roadtrip to Virginia + tons of other stuff.  There is one big thing that I need to do first.  We had a birthday over here recently!  Our "little bits" turned two on June 29th.  She's two!  That's crazy!

We celebrated with Adam's family...then some close friends...then my family.  It was just right.

panama city beach, florida :: june 2010

My sister and I traveled to Florida with the girls last month.  We got to tag along with our youth group's beach camp trip.  Adam was there with the junior high & senior high students acting as interim youth pastor.  (We didn't see him much that week actually).

It turned out to be a great week for us.  My girls loved playing with the teenagers.  They were all really sweet playing with them in the pool and on the beach.  I loved the time with my sister.  No joke, when we got back home...I went through Rachel withdrawals for a couple of days.  It was a blast being roommates for 5 days.

Our friend, Bobby, was the retreat speaker.  I really enjoyed the series he taught entitled Thirsty.  You can listen to the series here.  It was surreal going on the trip with Bobby & Amy because we went to beach camp with them many times when their kids were as young as ours.  This summer all their kids were on the trip & in the youth group.  It was such a visual to me of how fast these parenting years go!

One of our favorite memories from the trip...

Our 2 oldest girls got to go on a late night trip to a go-cart place with the teenagers (hanging with Dad a little in there too).  Everyone had glow sticks that night.  Our oldest daughter, the little entrepreneur, charms a bunch of the youth into giving her their bracelets.  On the ride back she attempts to sell them back to their original owners - "for a penny, quarter or dollar," she says.  She made over $3 in change...we were so proud.  Ha,ha.  She may be a bit of a swindler, but we praised her entrepreneurial sense.

Here is a glimpse of our trip.  No oil in sight at that point...we were elated.

Here are slide shows of how much fun the youth group had - here and here.

summer mornings

I think I may have been the one most excited about summer in my household!  Here we are all in our pajamas at 9:35am.  I look at this moment and think....I love their bed head in the morning, their mismatched pjs, and just a general goofball-ness they all have.  I'm grateful for the time together.  Time for them to be sisters and friends...and the time I've been blessed with, to be with them, as a constant observer.  I love what I do.

my "drink-stealer"

Toddlerhood is very honest. There are not a lot of words, but there is so much said.

I love it when you run outside to find dad, only to discover that it's raining...and you don't like that. Right now, you don't like any kind of falling water on you...as we discovered at the water park. :) But all day long you say, "I want Dad!" or "Dad home?"...so he's worth a little rain on your head.

Right now, you do a lot of things to try and get out of trouble. When you've hurt someone with your amazing strength, you kiss them before there's been any time for a reprimand.

You also do the cutest dance we have ever seen when you are caught playing with something that is on the "no-no" list.

Sometimes you rediscover a toy that you haven't played with for ages and you play like its brand new.

When you say "milk" it sounds like you are saying "gak!"

You ask for my Coke and iced tea all day long. Sounds like "Goke" and "Tea." I don't love it when you steal my drink, but you get away with it the most of everyone in the house. Because you are a toddler and you work really hard at being so cute that we let you get away with it.

little one + big sis.

Since I've last blogged we have been on a mega-roadtrip as a family. I'll overwhelm this blog with photos of our vacation soon. For now, they are all still sleeping files in my camera. I had these pics to share in the meantime. Little Peewee & her big sis...goofing off in the playroom. I've been taking tons of photos of my "baby". She'll be two in about a month. Their littleness is much too brief...and I know I'm not alone in my feelings on that.:)

tea for two

My daughter's school hosted a Mother & Daughter tea last Sunday afternoon. I jumped at the chance to have some one-on-one time with my oldest girl. We enjoyed tea & cookies for about 15 minutes and then I watched her play down in the creek for about 30 minutes (sigh). It's a little bit of a different era these days.  We can't keep the kids sitting too proper for too long and I'm kind of glad.  It was fun watching the kids be kids. I think she even thought I was a little fun that day...which is always a treat. :)

ah, that's my girl...