More Birthday Celebration!

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Our birthday celebration continued today! You can never have too much fun with friends! Today Richard, Blake, Ryan, Baylor and Roy came home with us from church for lunch and sun! The boys played basketball, while the girls checked out the splash park and waterfalls! Lots of SPF 45 and bottled water!

Happy 12th Birthday, Caleb!!!!

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Our birthday tradition is breakfast in bed of the birthday person. Caleb choose chocolate donuts, Dr. Pepper and bacon for his birthday breakfast. We all climbed in his bed, ate breakfast and opened gifts! I always disguise gifts, I hid a Nintendo DS game underneath two bags of Cheetos! tee hee! We started off the day with lots of fun! Tonight we will have cake and ice cream!

Bowling for Brownies

What a fun day! I have missed my girlfriends, but today we got to catch up!!! Our church homeschoolers met at the local bowling alley, and had a wonderful time! I brought brownies to share with everyone in honor of Caleb's birthday tomorrow! Frankie had several strikes, Caleb had a couple as well. There were fun gifts, great snacks and lots of chatting!!!!

The Art Museum

We have had a love affair with the Dallas Museum of Art since we moved here. Our visits there have been some of our favorite field trips. The kids have become fluent in distinguishing between Picasso, Monet and others. This trip we saw quite a few of Jackson Pollard's pieces. Abigail loves the idea of painting on the floor and flinging paint. I'm pretty sure he didn't do that while he still lived at home!

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The other thing that caught our eye was a stuffed bunny that held cymbals! Apparently it used to sit on Winston Churchill's desk. It was on display with quite a few of Mr. Churchill's artwork.

VBS Finale

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Our VBS ran Monday thru Wednesday during the day. On the final day, all parents and children are invited to our Wednesday evening services. At 5:00pm the congregation serves hot dogs and has a carnival for the children. The older kids (7th grade and up) run the carnival events for the younger kids. With the completion of our new education building, we were able to hold the carnival indoors. This year that was especially a blessing because tornado sirens went off during the 7:00pm service! Good times!!!

Vacation Bible School

This year's VBS theme was "Deal or No Deal" with the idea being take the deal that Jesus offers. Teaching children to rely on His strength, like Daniel; His promise, like Joseph; and God's safety like the lost lamb. Each day the kids began in the auditorium to hear the Bible Story thru our 'Deal or No Deal' program. Mr. Brad dressed like a 1960's version of Monte Hall from 'Let's Make a Deal', complete with one of Granddaddy's wide ties!

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One of the props I made for our Deal or No Deal theme was silver suitcase filled with gold shekels! When contestants guessed the correct answer they were shown their winnings! Frankie played the part each day of a suitcase holder! Too cute! Another perk of having your mom write the scripts, you get roped into a part!

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I love teaching the kids the Bible story! I hope one day my legacy will be all the children I've taught. This year we topped 330 kids!!!!

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One of the fun parts with VBS is the Scripture Thief. Each year a 'character' steals portions of the memory verse forcing the kids to memorize the scripture so they will always have it with them. This year the scripture was laid out on a series of silver suitcases. On the final day of VBS the thief is caught, and taught that God's word is available to them and they don't have to steal it, they too can hide His words in their heart. The kids love this game and just howl when pieces of their scripture are stolen!

Abigail got a kick out of seeing mom on stage. Frankie and Caleb are used to mom teaching Bible stories, but Abigail gets a kick out of, 'that's my mom!' She and her buddies, Cade & Roy were together most of VBS.

Caleb assisted with the Bible Story portion of VBS. One of the practical application exercises they did was Caleb laying down and all the little kids picking him up with just 2 fingers! He was a little nervous about this exercise!

Softball Awards

Abigail's softball team took first place in the 8 and under division. The Blue Crush received big trophies! They also took second place in the opening day parade so they will be having a party at the end of the season. These kids have been playing together for a couple of years and are really fun to watch. The difference in baseball and softball is in softball the girls yell from the dugout, "Nine is her number. . . . Abigail is her name . . . she's just one reason . . . we're gonna' win the game!" Boys don't do that!

Pizza Time

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Our homeschool group meets monthly for pizza. This month we joined them for lunch and fun at Cici's. Caleb and Abigail took photos of friends & themselves!