Tourist Day at VBS

Choose to BELIEVE

Choose to ACT

Choose FORGIVENESS

Choose to OBEY

Choose JESUS!!!

The boys have had a great week at VBS. They have learned some great bible verses which Zech has been especially great about teaching us. His favorite is (1 John 4:14) "God sent His Son to be the Saviour of the world." They have made lots of fun stuff, eaten some great food, and had tons of FUN with their friends. Tomorrow we are invited to the end of week finale. I can't wait to hear them all sing the really GREAT songs that we have heard this week!!


Today, they dressed like tourists before heading off to Son World Aventure Theme Park!!! Of course, not being the photographer in the family, I cut off the flip flops:) Here they are decked out with their fanny packs, sunglasses, souvenirs and khaki shorts.

Another Lost Tooth:)

Our handsome Alexander lost another tooth today!!!

And here it is:)

My Speed Racing Asian Angel

Josiah loves "Speed Racer". I can't keep this shirt clean as often as he wants to wear it! He's showing off his new Bible in this picture and he's saying "CHEEEEEESE", without a cue:)

I Don't Like Spiders and Snakes

Too bad;) With three boys I must get over it! Alexander came downstairs last night with his favorite 2 books for this week and said, "Maaaamaaa, I'm gonna give you the heebie jeebies again tonight".

Yes, the books are educational and I'm learning more about snakes than I care to know, however, I love my son...so this is what we are reading this week. Sigh!

Zech's Confession

Zech confessed last night that he LOVES GIRLS! After his bath last night he spiked his hair (which is obviously too long for spiking right now), but anyway, he confessed that he "did it for the girls". Oh my;(

Norwegian Salmon

While I was out last night for a quick shopping adventure, Papa was watching the boys. When I got home Alexander couldn't wait to show me his beautiful nails. What??!! Yep, they got into my fingernail polish while Papa was cooking supper. I was a little miffed at first that they got into Mommy's things, but then I found myself wishing I had been a fly on the wall to see the instigation of the adventure:) They chose a good color don't ya think? Norwegian Salmon...



And, there was no fingernail polish remover in the house (at least I didn't think at first), so Alexander got really worried about having to go to church with his fingernails painted. We did find enough to get the fingernails clean, but the toes had to stay painted until later:)

Invaded by the Iguanas!!

Grandmom and Grand Dad brought home some of Aruba's IGUANAS for the boys:) They squeak (oops, I mean speak:) Alexander has a code language for his iguana. He tells him "I love You!" Awww! They are not all named yet, but I kinda like Iggy, Isaac, and Igor:)

We got some other goodies too, T-shirts for all the boys and mama got a new colorful Aruba bag. We'll have to deck ourselves out tonight and get a picture for you.

THANK YOU Grandmom and Grand Dad. We're glad you had fun in Aruba and we're especially glad you're back home safe and sound!!! We love you!!!

Sorry for the carrot in the mouth:)

I told Josiah, "look scared" - He did a good job:)

Pancakes Anyone?

Zech is the best pancake maker ever! I told him this morning since Papa wasn't home we would not double the recipe and he remembered the exact measurements of a "normal" batch. What a smart boy:)

Monster Mommy???

This morning was a rough morning, Z and J didn't want to get ready, we were running late, supposed to meet Ms. J at 8:45 and at 8:30 Z still didn't have his clothes on, J was fussy and wanted help with EVERYTHING from brushing his teeth to putting on his socks. I ended up in a frenzy and lost my temper with them. I despise mornings like that:(

So.... of course I'm feeling bad about our rough morning all day....Fast forward to the afternoon when the boys pick me up from work. Alexander had been drawing pictures and showed me a picture of a mama dog with her puppy. He began by saying, "look at the ANGRY mama dog", and I thought "oh no!! My child is expressing my anger in his drawings", but before I could finish my thoughts of us sitting on the psychiatrist couch working on my ANGRY behavior, Alexander finished his sentence...... "She's angry because someone is trying to hurt her baby". Awwwww:) Yep, that's me - DON'T MESS WITH MY BABIES!!!!

Here's the picture:

Delivered Into His Arms

My sister-in-law (though she has been divorced from my brother for many years she will always be my sister), has been battling breast cancer for over five years. She is the mother of two of the joys of my life and the grandmother of three of the joys of my life.

When studying the book of Daniel by Beth Moore, there were three scenarios listed when people of God face a fiery trial:

• We can be delivered from the fire and our faith is built.



• We can be delivered through the fire and our faith is refined.



• We can be delivered by the fire and into His arms - our faith is PERFECTED!

Many have prayed for her to be delivered through this fiery trial she has been battling for years, but today, my dear sister in Christ was delivered into His arms. I have had visions all week of her body perfected, her long raven hair restored, and no more suffering. Praise God!!!

"Beloved, in all honesty we just do not know why God physically heals some and not others. We can know without a shadow of doubt that the issue is not a lack of divine love or kindness. Many eternal factors are involved that we won't understand until we see Christ face-to-face. Until then we must not lack faith for the healing of many because we don't see the healing of all." Beth Moore - Believing God

I will miss you Kaye:)

Forts

The boys could not get settled down last night. Our air conditioner decided to QUIT on a record breaking 100 degree day - Yikes! So, Zech was kind enough to let his brothers share his room last night since he has the bunk beds, AND it was the coolest room in the house. They were supposed to be asleep, but here is what I found when I checked on them around 9:30 last night:)

Lumpy Chairs

We have this silly game we play with the boys, it's one of Zech's favorite! John will act out the part of being soooooo incredibly tired and can't wait to sit in his favorite COMFY chair. So, he goes to sit on his comfy chair and finds a LUMP in his comfy chair. He will wiggle and squirm and say, "Hey, what happened to my SOFT, COMFY chair??? It's now a LUMPY, BUMPY chair:) Then Zech will act out the part:) As you can see, Zech loves this game.

Fun Day with Alexander!!!

Yesterday was Alexander's end of year party with his Kindergarten class. He was so excited the night before telling us all that was planned for the day. I LOVE it when my children are so excited about an event coming up that my heart just about explodes with joy!!

The events started at 9:00 am in the Kindergarten classroom. Alexander received his diploma and a special recognition for always "Finishing First" with his classwork and more importantly always being correct:) We are so proud of him. Here is a picture of him receiving his diploma and special recognition. Even though his face is partially covered in the first picture you can just see those precious cheeks glowing!!











Here are a few pictures of Alexander with some of his best buds and his best gal, Sadie. She is so precious:)





The shirt he is wearing he made himself. He only put Alex instead of Alexander because he said the "ANDER" would have been under his armpit:) Ha! In some of the other pictures you will see a fish that he made with his handprint. Too cute.


His teacher, Ms. Velez, read a beautiful poem (which I hope to publish here later) which made us all cry. She is such a wonderful teacher ( as well as her assistant Ms. Jones) and we are so blessed and thankful that Alexander's Kindergarten year was so successful. He had so much FUN learning!!



After the graduation ceremony we all went outside for the fun activities. I worked the face painting (stamping) station so I didn't get to see all of the fun stations but John took lots of pictures for me. There was a blowup slide, sack race, water balloon tossing (Alexander's favorite which he wrote his end of day essay about), other races, a station to stop and paint a huge thank you banner to the Kindergarten teachers, jump roping.... tons of FUN!!








After the morning activities we went inside for pizza, chips, cupcakes, and chocolate chip cookie!! We let Alexander take some pictures and of course his classmates wanted to take some also. They did a great job so I'll post a few here.







After the pizza we went back outside in the HEAT and played some more at the different stations. All the children had a blast. Back inside, Ms. Velez asked the class to write a paragraph about their favorite part of their day and draw a picture. Alexander wrote that he liked the water balloons and his friend Gunner getting him wet.



Now, there is this precious little boy in Alexander's class that wrote his favorite part of the day was playing with Alexander's Dad! Sniff! Sniff! How precious is that!!!! What's not to love about my adorable, kindhearted husband!! We found out later that it meant so much to this child - it meant alot to us too just knowing that John made such a significant difference in this child's life, even if it was just for a couple of hours.



We left school about an hour early, went to pick up Z and J and headed to the beach!!! Woo Hoo!, I just LOVE living on the coast. The water was a little rough, but oh did it feel good!! I was so proud of how well all our boys are progressing in the water. It is so amazing to see how well they are swimming and heartwarming to see how far Josiah has come since that blood curling scream we first heard from him just 7 months ago when we attempted to put him anywhere near the water. I'll post some beach pictures later - gotta go for now:)