With You Wherever You Go - Butterflies and Bible Stories

We were riding home from church in the car tonight when we heard something profound from the back seat. VBS starts in 3 weeks and today we got our free CD of the VBS music. So, home from church this morning, back to evening church, and then home again, we listened to the music. During a song called "With You Wherever You Go", based on Joshua 1:9 - "Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go." the lyrics say "God will be with you wherever you go". Katherine apparently remembered our trip to the Butterfly House on Saturday and the fact that when we went into the butterfly house (a large dome with tropical plants and butterflies flying EVERYWHERE) Elizabeth FREAKED OUT hysterically screaming - John couldn't get her out of the place fast enough. Anyway, from the back seat tonight we heard Katherine say "Elizabeth, God will be with you wherever you go - even at the Butterfly House. So you don't need to be afraid of the butterflies, because He is with you." Even us grownups need to remember that sometimes, don't we. Thanks for the reminder, Katherine.

Summer Laziness

I feel like we've been so lazy during summer vacation so far. Katherine's been out of school for 4 weeks now and we've been doing alot of staying home, which seems to be fine with her. We've done some things that I've talked about in previous posts, but for the most part, we've stayed home, watched some movies, and just hung out. I must admit it's nice to not be on a strict schedule of carpool and doing so much driving (especially with the price of gas!!). Here's a sampling of some of our "hang out" activities...

Katherine and Elizabeth doing a sticker book together

Elizabeth giving her American Girl doll "Kit" a cracker

Katherine making a store for me to buy things from A close up of her sign..

Having a picnic on the deck

A friendly cardinal came to visit one evening - I guess he was enjoying what John cooked on the grill that night.

And playing peek-a-boo with Christopher. He was in the girls room and I was in his room and he peeked around the corner. When I said "peek-a-boo", he got this big grin on his face and laughed and then disappeared again, only to peek around the corner again! We played this game probably 8 or 10 times and he got such a kick out of it! When I started taking pictures of him, that made it even more fun for him :)

We are enjoying summer so far and the seasonably "cool" weather - 80s. Katherine goes to a day camp next week, so it will be a bit more hectic, we've started swimming lessons, and VBS is in 3 weeks, so the next month will be busier.

Father's Day Weekend

We decided to do most of our celebrating on Saturday, since church activities fill up most of our Sunday - and it's pretty hard to do 'breakfast in bed' when you leave for church at 8:00 am!. We started the weekend with "making" and eating Breakfast in Bed with Daddy. You can see John's breakfast on the side table next to him (the girls helped me make him a smootie and cereal with strawberries and coffee) and the kids breakfast on the tray (cereal bars!) :). John's usually the first one up, so we had to tell him to go back to bed after we got up so that we could give him his breakfast in bed. FUN. Later on Saturday, we took John's Dad out to supper. We went to a Chinese buffet, and if you know my kids, they are pretty picky eaters, but we were able to find fresh fruit and ice cream - a special treat for a special day.

On Sunday, we went to church, then Katherine and John went to John's dad's place for a special Father's Day barbeque that they were having while the younger kids napped. Then John took Katherine swimming at the pool and we went to evening church. A very enjoyable weekend, weather and all!

The Lord has blessed me with a man that not only is a wonderful husband, but is a wonderful father to our kids. What more can I ask for in a man, that he love the Lord, love me, and love our kids? He loves to come home for lunch (and fortunately has a job that he can do that most days) and enjoys nothing more than spending time with us - whether it's watching a movie, swimming at the pool, running in the sprinkler, taking a nap, going to the zoo, or reading at bedtime (his personal favorite, I think). I love you, John, and the kids love you, too! Hope you had a Happy Father's Day!

Swiimming!

We got a swimming pool pass for the summer and went 3 nights this week - if only for an hour at a time. It's nice to be able to go after supper and spend a little bit of time in the pool. Katherine can touch the bottom for the first time this year and is ecstatic and loves swimming with her pool "noodle". Elizabeth is a little afraid, but is adjusting slowly, and Christopher seems to LOVE it! I think we'll have many fun evenings at the pool this summer - I'm not sure I'll ever try to take all three of them myself - it's a two person job! blowing bubbles..

Grant's Farm

Grant's Farm is a favorite place of ours. We don't live particularly close to it, but we do try to get there at least a few times each summer. For those who don't know, it's owned by Anheuser Busch and is kind of like a combination between a game park and a zoo. You board a tram and ride though a large area where animals roam freely. It just depends on the day whether you see many animals out or not, but this particular day we saw quite a few. Here we are on the tram (Christopher and I were taking the picture) getting ready to go! I didn't post all of the pictures of the animals, but here's just one... Then you exit the tram in an area that's kind of like a zoo. The first stop is feeding the goats, then on to the other animals. These turtles are HUGE! We had a great morning. The girls love the tram so much that they aren't too interested in the animals so much as getting a snack at the Tiergarten and then boarding the tram back to the parking lot. Lots of fun and lots of walking, though.

Memorial Day and Birthdays

In our family, there are 5 birthdays in the months of May and June. If you add Mother's Day and Father's Day to that (and you can also add 2 anniversaries), that's a lot of parties! So, we decided to get everyone together on Memorial Day for a joint birthday party. Pictured are Katherine, my Dad, John's Dad, and my Mom - all who had birthdays in May and June. My nephew, Kaiser, also has a birthday in May, but my brother and his family couldn't make it to the celebration. My brother and sister-in-law's anniversary and my mom and dad's anniversary are also in June - PHEW!!

Catching up

I've gotten WAY behind on the blogging - my apologies. We've been doing alot of just hanging out since school got out, but what happens is that I don't get much done during the day and have to do my chores in the evening - leaving no time for blogging. I have been taking pictures, though, so stay tuned for some blog posts that will try to get you caught up with what we've been doing the past few weeks.