Vacation Bible School

One of my sisters told me that my last post and my "excuse" were lame.... so I thought I'd share with you one thing that has been taking up a whole big bunch of my time lately.

This week I am serving as a catechist at a Vacation Bible School program in a local parish. It's not our home parish, but it's one where many of my homeschool friends attend. I was asked to teach the "Faith Station" for three, four, and five year olds. I agreed. (More about that in the promised upcoming post about my recent reflections/discernment.)

The program we're using is from Cat Chat. It's called "Marvelous Mystery: The Mass Comes Alive". We're three days through the five day program. It's going well. Each day is like a sprint. I'm "dancing fast" and pulling out all my "tricks" to keep these little ones learning and having fun. I'm having fun too. I do feel like one of my basic gifts and callings is to teaching, especially catechesis. I am energized by the children and the lessons.

Fortunately, my boys are having a great time participating in this VBS. Lots of their friends are there. Each morning they are eager to get there and on the way home each afternoon they love telling me about everything they got to do. It's been a really hot week here and we just collapse in the afternoons. The boys have been watching movies and playing and I've been able to stretch out and read "Gone With the Wind." (I'm FINALLY nearing the end... Scarlett's on her third husband!) Not much else is getting done, but that's OK.

So, here are some pictures from the first three days of VBS:

Each morning the teenagers put on a skit for all the VBS children, presenting the theme of the day.

    



So this is my homemade church. I am embarrassed to say how many hours I spent making this, but I'm pleased that the kids love it and it's been a fun and important part of our lessons. It was all folded up on the first day and the children had to solve the "mystery" of what it was. We unfolded it and they had to hunt for the pieces to go in the church. The pieces (statues, windows, etc.) velcro onto the carboard church. We've used this to learn the parts of the church and the parts of the Mass. The children love putting "Little People" in the pews each day.



I love this shot taken by Ray.



 A few of the adult guides commented to me that they never knew about the "sacrarium" (the sink in the Sacristy that has a pipe leading straight into the ground fpr the disposal of blessed wine, water, ashes, etc. to keep them from going into the sewer system).

 Check out these BEAUTIFUL saint posters! My friend Tamara is my awesome classroom helper. Her wonderful daughter Rachel worked many, many hours (with some help from her brothers) to make these gorgeous "stained glass window" posters for our classroom. We learn about one saint each day by telling the story of the saint, hanging the poster, and dressing up one child to look like the saint.







Here's my little friend Nora dressed like Saint Joan of Arc!

Three year olds showing off their "gifts for Jesus." It's quite a trip keeping them "focused" for thirty minutes each day!



My friend Tamara teaching the five year olds about Mary.



The four year olds put on dress up clothes and talked about what is/isn't appropriate to wear to Mass.



We learned about unity by working together to keep the balloon on the blanket.

The Cat Chat program is based on a fictional cat named Moses and his family. I collected a whole bunch of stuffed cats which we use each day as part of our lesson. I usually have the children pick a cat and we play "chat with a cat" as we review what we've learned. Today, however, was Moses' birthday! The cats threw him a big birthday bash! (And we talked about the Mass as a CELEBRATION.... with lots of rituals similar to a birthday party.)

Another beautiful room decoration made by Paula, a VBS helper.

So there you have it.... that's part of what I've been up to. Building a church. Collecting cats. Planning lessons. Teaching children. All for Jesus! I can't wait for tomorrow and Friday! Better get to bed.

My Excuse

Ouch! About two weeks ago I broke my right pinky finger. It seems to be healing ok and it's not a major nuisance, but I'm going to use that as my "excuse" for not blogging recently. (Typing is a bit tricky and is taking me much longer than usual.)

In truth, though, there have been lots of things going on here --- good, bad, and ugly (but nothing really major, thankfully)--- and I've just been really busy. This busy-ness and also the reason/way I broke my finger will be part of an upcoming post that I've been working on... the fruit of much reflection and discernment.

So please pardon my absence and stay tuned. Over the next few days I hope to inundate you with lots of catch-up posts! In the meantime, don't let this summer heat get you down! Lemonade, water, iced tea, popsicles.... some of our best friends on these hot days.

Delicious!

Seriously. These cherries are SO YUMMY! And 0 Weight Watchers points! On sale this week at Kroger for $1.89 a pound. Thank you, God, for the sweet taste of summer.

Festive, Fun Fourth of July (Mostly)

Family. Friends. Fun. Food. Fireworks.

It was a crazy holiday weekend!

Columbus has a big 4th of July festival downtown called "Red White and Boom." It was held on Friday this year. We decided to go down to see the parade in the early evening. Jon had a great idea for us to take the city bus there and back. (It stops right in our neighborhood and the kids are always asking to ride it.) He had the route all mapped out.

The good news is that we had a really fun ride downtown and we enjoyed having a picnic dinner and watching the parade. The first bit of bad news is that my camera battery died after taking the bus stop picture. I would have loved to show you some shots of Jesus and Ronald McDonald, both of whom made appearances in the parade.

The really bad news is that the buses were all delayed after the parade and we ended up stranded in a really bad neighborhood at dusk! The short version of the story is that we got a cab to take us home. (The boys were thrilled they got to ride a bus AND a cab.) The longer version of the story includes a trip to a very seedy "Quik Mart", me praying "Hail Mary" and the Act of Contrition over and over in my head since I was sure we were about to be killed, me seriously considering stealing an empty SUV that was blaring the most obscene music I've ever heard, and me not speaking to Jon for about 18 hours. (This was the part of the weekend that prompted me to put "mostly" fun in the title of this post!)

We made it home from this adventure just in time to get into the van and go see the fireworks. It seems that we started a tradition last year when we decided at the last minute to go to the airport parking garage to see the fireworks display. This year ray dubbed it "Red White and Shhhhh!" (since we can't hear the booms at that distance.)

We spent Saturday chilling out and calming down. It was mostly a pajama day, with an afternoon trip to the pool.

On Sunday we attended the Baptism of our friends' beautiful new baby Kateri.

(Baptism pictures by Ray. You should see the other 40 he took... mostly close ups of various family members and friends. Quite amusing! But it kept him quiet.)

We enjoyed a cookout with baby Kateri's family and then later in the day we had the privilege of attending another fun cookout celebrating Adam's friend Ryan's birthday! (Woo hoo! I didn't have to cook all day!)

Ryan's grandma made the boys these cool Batman masks and arm bands. I love this shot with baby Noah reading a book in the background.

On Monday we attended the parade in our suburb.

The boys' favorite part was running to grab candy. They came home with a huge bag full of it!

On Monday evening we hosted yet another cookout with some family and friends.

Festive dessert

Card playing

Dress-up

Sparklers!

Check out this outfit!

Ray modeling his 4th of July hat and his Halloween costume.
You can tell this picture was taken way past his bedtime!

We finished the weekend by watching our suburb's fireworks display!

Ray made me hold his ears during the "booms".... yet Noah (7 months old) loved every minute of it. He was shaking his head and laughing and kicking... so cute!

God Bless America!

More Snapshots of Summertime Fun!

Here are some snippets from another fun week of summer. Enjoy! (Regarding the picture above.... Yes, that's me on the raft. Weight Watchers is really going great! Actually.... it's my friend Sara and I don't care if she's mad at me for putting her backside here. Someday she'll look back at this picture and "remember when!" )

On Monday at the grocery store Adam declared that he "simply had to have one of those beautiful lemons." As I was unloading groceries, he was very busy in the kitchen. He made homemade lemonade! (I had to emphatically insist on being the one to cut up the lemon, but I followed his directions exactly.)

He took a long, discerning sip of the finished product and exclaimed, "Now I just feel so grown up." He drank a few more sips and then gave the rest to Jon. It was very cute.

(Note the slice of lemon on the edge of the glass. That was a "must have.")

 On Tuesday we went to the downtown library to attend a magic presentation by "Fireman Dave" (our local superhero that we know from Safety Town). My sister Reenie was off work and she went along, as did Jon who had just returned from North Carolina. We really enjoyed the magic tricks, which were all based on the "Super Hero" theme of our summer reading program.

 Jon even got drafted to be part of one trick!

 (I doubt he'll ever go with us to any of these things again!)

Check out these crazy reading superheroes! One definitely looks more enthusiastic than the other!

On Wednesday we met up with some of our homeschool friends for a creeking adventure. It was a fantastic day and we enjoyed splashing around and looking for critters. One of the dads found this ----

 and this ----

Ray loved catching little minnows and tadpoles.

 It was great to see my friend Sylvia and her ADORABLE new baby boy!

 As we were getting ready to leave the park, Adam lost his second tooth!

 The fun afternoon was capped off with a yummy treat!

2 ice cream cones from McDonald's: $1.18
Being declared the best mom in the world AND being able to duck into the farm market tent alone: PRICELESS!

This afternoon we had the privilege of babysitting for my four year old God-daughter Cassandra. We decided to begin to get into the 4th of July spirit with some crafts and snacks (all inspired by Family Fun Magazine).

We made hats....

and glittery fireworks art...

 and yummy ice cream bar treats!

This evening was the perfect summer evening! The weather was great and we were invited to visit some dear family friends for a dip in their pool and a cookout! We had SO MUCH FUN!!! (Thank you Wells family!) The boys swam and swam and swam and swam. And I didn't have to cook dinner. And I got to visit with some of my favorite people. My only regret is that I didn't get good pictures of these friends! I guess we need to go back. Their yard is a summer paradise!

 And finally.... would you be offended if a friend gave your children a gift of soap? Does she think your children are dirty? What if it's "holey" soap? My awesome friend Mary Lou ALWAYS has interesting, wonderful gifts for the boys. Tonight it was "holey, environmentally friendly soap." They loved it! And I'm sure we'll use it! :)

I hope you enjoy a wonderful 4th of July weekend!