Hop On Board the Boomerang Express

We sure did! Last night was the first night of VBS at our church. This year's VBS theme is the Boomerang Express. This is the first year I've taken Gracie, and the first year I've helped out. Last year we didn't go because it's so far to drive five nights in a row, and it's from 7-9 pm, so it's pretty late by the time we get home. But this was the year! I really wanted Gracie to go, and I really felt like God wanted me to go!

See this smile?...

This is the "Helper Gracie" smile. Some of you know Helper Gracie (right, Marlene) and are familiar with this smile. Let me explain. We got to the church early because we'd been in Yankton all day running errands and waiting for VBS to start. Being the helper-by-nature that she is, Gracie offered her services to the VBS director, Erin. She put thank-yous in the church mailboxes, she delivered a VBS shirt, she held "important" things that Erin didn't want to misplace, and her big job of the night, she held the girls offering bucket as kids filed into the opening rally. My child LOVES to be a helper! She never smiles bigger than when she's busy being a helper. I'm not sure how, but I managed to cut out the offering bucket in the picture...but, you get the idea.

We were checking out the registration table, since we were so early, and Gracie noticed that the kids were broken into groups by the color of their name tag. So, of course, her natural reaction was to ask me if she was pink (well, not if she was pink, but if her name tag was pink). I said we'd have to wait and see. A few minutes later though, I found her name listed in the purple group. Hmmmm. How would she take the news?!

Mom: "Gracie, I have good news and bad news, which do you want to hear first?"

Gracie: "Good news."

Mom: "You're part of the purple group."

Gracie (probably thinking that sounded like the bad news): "What's the bad news?"

Mom: "You're not in the pink group."

Mom: "But that's okay, purple is good, you'll be purplicious!"

I had to make purple sound good.

Gracie was a little hesitant at first that she wouldn't be in the same room with me, but after some encouragement she did great. Here she is working with her group...

Have you ever wondered what a room full of 65 pre-schoolers looks like? It looks like this...

Can you believe there were 65 pre-schoolers. It will be interesting to find out how many kids there were total!

While Gracie was busy being purplicious, I was busy helping with elementary school crafts.

Honestly, I had a bit of a full circle moment last night.

I'll try not to be too mushy, but sometimes God makes you feel kind of mushy, you know.

I remember going to VBS when I was little. I remember a picture I used to have of me at about eight or nine years old, wearing a VBS t-shirt, with a Bible in one hand and a styrofoam cup of lemonade in the other. And then last night, with prompting from God, there I was wearing a VBS t-shirt again, but this time as an adult. Doing for these kids what someone had taken time to do for me many, many years ago.

You never know what seeds are planted. You never know what impact you are making.

At the staff devotional before VBS started, the leader spoke about God choosing each one of us first. We aren't somewhere down the line a little, he picks each one of us first every time. And each person was there because it was exactly where God wanted us to be.

Last night I felt so overwhelmed by God's loyalty, His faithfulness, His reliability. That he has brought me to this place in my life. That he never left my side, even when things were hard, even when circumstances were a lot less than ideal.

Here is Gracie when we got home last night. She's holding the Tucker Bag (for all those Aussie Outback essentials) that the pre-schoolers made at craft time...

In the car on the way home she kept calling it her Duggar bag. As in the Duggar's of TLC's 18 Kids and Counting. TUCK-ER bag, I told her.

Miss Ella didn't go to VBS. She stayed home with her daddy. But here she is this morning...

Happy baby in her Pooh jammies enjoying some grape juice and water in the morning!

Who's not so happy this morning? That'd be me. Well, it's not that I'm not happy, it's just that I'm tired.

Advil PM has kind of been my crutch since my dad died. It slows my brain down so I can fall asleep.

Yesterday, a report on FOX News crushed my dream that it was okay for me to be ingesting so much Advil PM over such a long period of time. The report? Oh, any kind of medicine with a PM in it's name increases your chances of dementia later in life. Yeah, apparently it neutralizes Acetylcholine. I'm not really sure what that means, but Hubby does, and apparently, it's not so good.

So I'm off the Advil PM. Bummer.

Dreams vs. Reality

Hubby has a dream. See this plot of land...

In hubby's dream, this plot of land is lush garden. A lush garden full of every vegetable/herb you can imagine.

In this same dream, hubby has a wife who is passionate about gathering all these vegetables and spends hour after hour canning/freezing their harvest.

Then there's a nasty little thing called reality.

In reality, hubby has a wife who cares for two small children 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and has no interest in gardening, or canning, or freezing. Actually, hubby has a wife who prefers ice cream in her freezer, not bags of veggies.

This is hubby's reality...

A single tomato plant, given to him by a friend, that his wife planted for him in this cute little pot.

Not that you needed me to tell you that sometimes reality stinks.

Here's what I'm passionate about. These cute things...

And, in case you were wondering, hubby doesn't think this post is very funny.

An Early Birthday Present

Grandma Genie sent Ella this really cute frog for her birthday. The frog's really cute, Ella's bed-head, not so much. Here she is checking him out, he sings "If you're happy and you know it."

Gracie and Ella also each got a new dress, hat and purse. Aren't these so beautiful! I wish you could see the detail better. Genie told me where she got them this morning and I already can't remember. I think it was the Long Beach Farmer's Market. A lady with a booth there made all of it by hand.

In unrelated news, the weather stinks. It's been so hot and humid. It storms every so often. Humidity is not my friend.

Father's Day 2009

Happy Father's Day to my husband, and to all the other dads we know and love!

Black Hills Vacation 2009

Here it is. A video of our vacation to the Black Hills, courtesy of my Hubby. Thanks, Hubby!

The kids did great in the van. A funny story from the trek up...

Dad: "Gracie, we're almost at the Badlands."

Gracie: "What???"

Dad: "The Badlands."

Gracie: "What???"

Dad: "The Badlands."

Gracie: "The Batmans?"

Dad: "No, the Bad-lands."

Gracie: "The Badlands? Our land's not bad, I love this land."

After we arrived at the lodge on Saturday we spent some time exploring the campground. Wow! What a place. The girls had to jump on the jumping pillow right away, and expend some energy at the playground.

On Sunday we visited Old Mc Donald's Farm. The girls fed the goats, pigs and fish, bottle fed the baby goats, held the baby chicks, took a train ride around the farm, and Gracie enjoyed two pony rides. Sunday night we headed down to the campfire to roast marshmallows. The girls decided they didn't like their marshmallows roasted. They asked the activity leaders to give them theirs cold.

Monday we headed out to Hot Springs. We stopped at Crazy Horse before continuing on to Evan's Plunge. The girls both went down the big water slide with us, but only wanted to go the one time. They didn't like that you went under the water when you landed in the pool at the bottom of the slide. While in Hot Springs we ate at Pizza Works, very yummy!

Tuesday we spent a big chunk of the day at the Reptile Gardens. We saw the snake, alligator and bird shows, had lunch and checked out all of the exhibits. Tuesday night we went to our much-anticipated Chuck Wagon Dinner. It was SO great. I can't say enough good things about it. The menu consisted of steak, spicy beans, and kettle cooked potatoes. For dessert, peach cobbler. The music that the video is set to is sung by the cowboy who sang for us at the Chuck Wagon Dinner. He was amazing, such an awesome voice.

Wednesday we journeyed home. Home sweet home.

So for your viewing and listening pleasure...

She Channels My Dad

Today I noticed that Gracie was wearing her keys just like my dad used to. 'Cept her carabiner is pink of course. Don't you wish you had a silver rock star jacket like this one? A $2.00 find from Once Upon a Child...

I'm certain my dad didn't have a sparkly, faux-crystal butterfly key chain...

And finally, the result of my hair cut and eye-brow wax today. I tell you the truth, I hadn't had my eye-brows waxed since I stopped having a paying job...

As if getting a hair cut I actually like and an eye-brow wax I really needed wasn't enough, the gas station also had the movie I wanted to rent. It's just been that kind of day.

Okay, I promise this is my last pre-vacation post. See you all next week!

T-18 hours

The snacks are packed, and the extra batteries too. We are ready to go on vacation tomorrow!

I have us as packed as we can be before tomorrow morning. I'm looking forward to not cooking or cleaning for a whole 5 days, and of course doing all kinds of fun stuff with Hubby and the girls.

The biggest nightmare of getting ready for this vacation you ask? The dog. Yeah, not so easy to go on vacation for 5 days when you have a dog that can't go with you. The place we wanted to kennel him at was going to cost almost a hundred bucks. Yeah, like I'm going to pay someone a hundred bucks to feed my dog and take him potty while I'm gone. Normally, this wouldn't have been a problem, but my mom decided to go on vacation right before us. She gets back late the night before we leave.

Hubby's sister said we could leave him at their house but it's not like they need another project. Drake and one of their dogs don't "get along." I didn't want to subject them to refereeing dog "fights" for a week. It's kind of funny actually, Drake is a small Shih-Poo and Maxi is a huge Alaskan Malamute. Can you just picture it. There would have been a positive side. Less of an empty nest. Two of our three nieces are gone right now. One is working at a camp not too far away, and one is in Korea...uh, very far away. Love you both!

That's okay. I want to drive an hour out of the way tomorrow morning to drop off the dog to my mom at our designated meeting spot. Really, I do.

Oh, the joys of being a dog owner.

This morning I made a dent in the hot mess called our playroom. I tossed all the toys from around the house that I was tired of looking at/picking up/putting away down there and today was the day when I finally got to deal with it. I should have done some before and after pictures for all of you who don't believe me when I say it was a mess. [Insert your OCD joke here]

The other hot mess I need to deal with today. My hair. Fortunately, I was able to get an appointment for this afternoon.

Last night I went for a walk by myself after I got the girls in bed. I was headed down Main street when a huge, silver, Diesel Dodge Ram came driving my direction. It's what my dad drove. I started crying right there on Main street. It happens quite often actually, seeing the silver Diesel Dodge Ram in town that is, not crying about it. I think it might be harder than I'm expecting to have Genie and Daniel pull into town without my dad with them. It will be the first time we've been together since the funeral, and I just know it will be hard, but very, very good too.

Today Gracie wanted to pack a bag for the trip. For her baby, of course. A good mommy has to pack plenty of diapers and toys for her baby. She was so frustrated that she could find this certain bag she was looking for. So I tried to get a description from her.

Me: "What does it look like?"

Gracie: "You know, the bag with the chick on it!"

Me to myself: WHAT???

After a few moments of silent thinking it finally came to me.

Me: "You mean the Tweety backpack?"

Gracie: "Yeah, the Tweety backpack that Poppy gave me!"

If she would have said, "Mom, I want the Tweety backpack Poppy gave me," it would have been so much easier.

Me: "Keep looking. It's somewhere around here."

Gracie: "I did look everywhere."

Me: "If you had looked everywhere you would have found the backpack, because I know it's in our house."

Gracie: "I'm going upstairs to look for it."

Me: "Gracie, it wouldn't be upstairs."

Gracie [holding the backpack she'd just found upstairs where I said it wouldn't be]: "Na-na-na-boo-boo!"

Uh, where did that come from?

Rachel-I think it must have come from the same place that Emma got "lame" from.

After she packed her "chick" bag, she looked over at me and told me about how much she still misses Poppy since he died.

Yeah, me too girl. Gracie and I are both feeling sentimental today. Here's Gracie holding her Tweety backpack and a picture of her, Poppy, me and Ella on his last visit to our house...

Stay tuned, vacation pictures coming soon!

August Visitors

It's official, plane tickets have been purchased. My step-mom and brother are coming to visit August 19-23. We are so excited. Gracie is a happy, happy camper. She's planning a So. Dakota hoe-down as we speak, or so she says. She just can't wait! None of us can really.

A Sunday of Snapshots

First of all, 3 days, 0 bottles. Oh, yeah! She's even asking for them less. In fact, I don't think she asked for one at all tonight.

We had a great Sunday. Church was awesome, a great sermon.

After church we headed to McDonald's (I know, can you believe Hubby would agree to such a thing, what is happening to him in his old age) with some friends. The kids had a blast playing on the playland.

My friend, Julie, and I burned off all the calories from lunch by climbing around inside, searching for and helping many small children (ha, do you read MckMama's blog, you should).

Of course, we had to do our mandatory, weekly grocery shopping.

When we got home, Hubby decided we should have a balloon war. You know, when you tie balloons around your ankles and try to pop everyone else's balloons while not letting them pop yours. Hubby, Gracie and I thought it was loads of fun, Drake (yes, we did tie a balloon on our dog and let him...or should I say made him...play balloon war with us) and Ella, not so much.

Check it out...

Drake getting his balloon tied on...

Yes, my daughter has a bruise right in the middle of her forehead. Yes, I was asked about it at church. No, I don't know how it got there, not surprisingly, neither does she...

Come on, Dad, don't mess up a girl's hair...

Okay, so I didn't capture Ella crying and Drake going nuts (because I was too busy poppin' balloons), but trust me, they did not enjoy the balloon war.

As if that weren't enough pictures for one post...

Thanks to Rachel, here are the pictures of Emma, Gracie and Ella at Wagner Lake. Pretty girls...

"Catch me if you can!"

Can you see me in the background yelling "get over here, off that bridge!"

Hand in hand...

Swingin' your cares away...

Have you ever taken part in a three-way hug? No? You should try it sometime. Doesn't it look like a good time?!