VBS

It's vacation bible school this week.

We have a medieval theme.

With a lot of kids showing up.

We are learning about the armor of God.

In my class, we let the kids play with toy armor.

The girls dress up like princesses.

There are even armor of God relay races.

All the kids loved those.

On another day, we built castle walls out of shoe boxes.

And tried to knock down other team's walls.

We also enjoyed great snacks each day.

And arts and crafts.

We finished by going back to the assembly for final songs and prayers.

And testimonies with object lessons.

Even the youngest children had a great time.

As did the adults.  It's been a fantastic week and I hope we were successful in planting seeds in these children's hearts this year and I pray those seeds will grow and flourish in the years to come.

Conversation with Grace: A real princess needs to live in a castle.

Vacation Bible School this week has a medieval theme with knights and princesses.  On our way home from VBS today, Grace remarked, "I wish I were a real princess."

I thought for a moment and asked, "Who made you?"

Grace:  "God."

Me:  "Who is God?"

Grace:  "He's my Father in Heaven."

Me:  "Well, God is also King of Kings and Lord of Lords, right?"

Grace:  "Right."

Me:  "So if God is King of Kings and your Father in Heaven, that makes you a princess."

After a long moment, Grace responds, "Mom.  If I'm a real princess then I need to live in a real castle."

Beach

We love the beach.

So we took a trip there today.

It's wonderful living so close to the sand.

And surf.

Benjamin wasn't too sure about the sand between his toes though.

But he quickly warmed up to it after the girls started building a sandman.

Benjamin added the finishing touches of hair.

And was super proud of himself.

Then he decided to explore the sand a bit.

He tasted some of it, too, and decided he didn't like it.

After a while, we wore all the kids out and decided it was time to head home.

What another wonderful day together.

Scavenger hunt

We decided to have a scavenger hunt this afternoon.

I printed a list I found online.  No sense in reinventing the wheel...

Grace read the list and she and Faith were off!

They started in the front yard where they knew they would find pinecones and rocks.

Faith found a wild flower in the monkey grass.

Then Grace stumbled upon a hornets nest and got stung mutiple times thus ending our scavenger hunt.  We hope to finish it soon.  After the hornets are sprayed and gone.

Park

Today we went to the castle park.

Grace pushed her little brother on the swings.

Which Benjamin thoroughly enjoyed.

Faith swung next to him.

Then we explored the playground.

And Benjamin slid down the wooden ramp.  It's quite steep.

Grace went down the emergency exit.

Next Faith played on the tire swing.

And Grace rested up for a bit before we all headed home.

He's walking

Benjamin took his first steps just last week but until now I haven't been able to get it on camera.

So I caught a quick snapshot with my Nikon.

And I'm hoping to get a video while he's still in his wobbly stage...  Fingers crossed because as soon as he sees me with a camera, he stops walking and laughs as he plops down to the ground.  It's like he knows I want it on video and is refusing to cooperate.

Tea Time!

It was a rainy day today.

So we had a dress up tea party using fine china.

Grace was a gracious hostess.

She poured pink lemonade tea.

And served moon pies!

Chocolate moon pies.

And banana moon pies.  Banana happens to be my favorite.

Even Benjamin joined in the festivities.

And Chloe went so far as to dress up for the occasion.

We drank our tea and nibbled on our moon pies.

Little boys are so different from little girls.

Benjamin likes to dip his moon pie in his tea before taking bites.  The girls would never dream of making a mess like that.  But Benjamin seems to love messes.

Chloe really wanted a moon pie.

Which Faith thought was just silly.

So did Grace.

Cheers everyone!

Maybe next time we'll give Chloe a teacup with water and dog biscuit for her snack...