VBS - Day 1

Today kicked off our week of VBS. The theme this year is Developing Godly Character. Today's character focus was righteousness. I am co-teaching the 5th and 6th graders with Julie M., a friend from high school whose family recently moved to the area.

Our lesson time is the last rotation of our day. This week we will be broadcasting out of Studio D.G.C. (Developing Godly Character) before a live studio audience at VBS News Network. Today's special guests were Joseph and the rich young man. My name this week is Mike Raphone (pretty cool, huh?) and I am the Field Reporter. I get the pleasure of interviewing special guests each day as I report from "the field."Megan is our Definition Expert. Every morning she will appear, along with her skeptic neighbor, Diana Doubt, and give us the meaning of the day's character trait. The mission project for the week is orphan awareness, so today they painted book bags that will be sent over to Zambia and distributed to the school children there. Here, Honor, Megan and Kayla express themselves creatively.And Grace and Abrey work very intently.For the 20 minutes before our lesson time, we spend it doing recreation. I have to admit that I was wondering how our class time would go following recreation. Would the students be ready to sit, listen and participate? I'm happy to report that it went great! All eyes were focused on our make-shift TV screen!I was able to wander around a bit to also capture pictures of Leah as she moved about her morning. Here she is listening to the Bible story......and enjoying snack with her class.I hope you stay tuned for "news" from tomorrow's broadcast.

~Wee

Grandma's Visit

Last week the girls and I went to Illinois for a few days. Leah and I drove back on Sunday, while Megan and Grace stayed a few extra days at my parents for the very first time by themselves! Their time there was filled with playing games, visiting Great Grandma, listening as Grandpa read stories, shopping at a local resale shop (where Grandma bought them each, even Leah, a few items), etc.

Then on Tuesday, Mom drove out and spent the rest of the week with us here. As always, the time goes way too fast!
Fun times with Grandma.

Thanks, Mom, for coming out! We love you!

~Wee

Memorial Day Weekend

Our Memorial Day weekend was full of good food, good friends, and good memories! Friday afternoon just after we got the back yard mowed, the girls set up our two tents all by themselves. They then slept out there all three nights. Megan slept in one tent, while Grace and Leah slept in the other. We spent the latter part of the afternoon and evening out at Joey and Holly's, enjoying time with them and holding that new little baby.

Sunday afternoon the girls went next door to A & S's and enjoyed this awesome water slide.
The Wiegands arrived and Erik set up this homemade water slide. Megan takes a try.

The little girls enjoyed the wading pool. Leah and Larissa enjoyed pouring buckets of the warm water over themselves.

While we sat and chatted, we enjoyed the entertainment of watching all the children playing and running back and forth between the two yards.

The men grilled out the hot dogs, brats and steaks. Here, sitting around the fire, the children waited patiently for their dinner.
A good game of "girls against boys" wiffle ball followed dinner. We even had our own cheerleader! Any guesses on who that was?!

When the darkness settled in, Erik pulled out his guitar, which topped off a fun day.

Megan loves holding TT. Such a sweet boy!

Leah and A. enjoy their s'mores.

Campfire conversations.....

The neighbor children also set up their tent and they slept out with the girls that night. O. joined Megan in her tent.

B. joined Leah and Grace in theirs.

Thankful for all the memories! With Memorial Day behind us, we welcome Summer!

~Wee

Fox in Socks

I had only read to Page 40 (which reads)......

Pig band! Boom band!

Big band! Broom band!

My poor mouth can't

say that. No, Sir.

My poor mouth

is much too slow, sir.

Well then .....

.....when Leah turned her head away and laid it on the pillow next to her. After a brief rest, she lifted her head, looked up at me, and sighed......... saying, "Oh, I can't look at it. It's giving me a headache."

So I guess Mr. Knox wasn't the only one suffering; Leah's little ears must have been suffering, too. Dr. Seuss' tongue twisting was just too much to listen to! :)

~Wee

Baby Boy Kline

Just a short while ago, the girls and I returned from a much-anticipated, exciting visit to the hospital. Our good friends, Joey and Holly Kline, were blessed with the safe arrival of their precious little boy. He is truly a miracle baby for them and was chosen and adopted into their family last summer when he was implanted as a frozen embryo. The Lord has molded him into a beautiful baby boy indeed!

The beautiful new family!
LEE JOSEPH KLINE (LJ) made his arrival into their lives at 9:18 p.m., on May 21, 2010, weighing 7 pounds 8 ounces and measuring in length at 20 inches. Mama and Baby are both doing great!
Leah likes the fact that Lee's name is in her name!
We received the call from Joey last night at 10 p.m. We were just getting the girls all tucked into bed, but when that phone rang and we had knowledge of who was calling, we jumped out of bed and ran downstairs to receive the news.

We, as a family, have been so looking forward to Baby Boy Kline's arrival. It has been fun even watching the girls' excitement build as we waited for this moment.

Upon arriving at Room 155, Lee had just eaten and was still awake, enabling us to enjoy his blue eyes as he checked out his surroundings.

Cheri Blunier and I were at a seminar all day today and were "chomping at the bit" during the final few minutes of it as we looked forward, with great anticipation, of meeting this little guy. We left as soon as it was over, stopped and picked up the girls, and headed on up to the hospital.Holly invited Leah up onto her bed, and whether the hospital bed was a bit intimidating to her, I don't know, but she would not allow herself to get "too close" to Holly. She was all smiles just the same.Congratulations, Klines! We are so excited for you!

~Wee

She's Graduated from 3 to 4....

On Monday Alex put the training wheels back onto Grace's old bike for Leah to ride. She was so excited, and after a brief lesson on how to stop the bike, she took right off. Thankfully the weather was nice, so we did our school reading outside while she rode her "new" 4-wheeled bike around and around.

Turning with great concentration (notice the tongue?)....

All afternoon Leah kept asking to go for a bike ride now that she could ride her own bike. So, as you can see, before it got completely dark, we headed out to the bike path.
Her first bike ride......all smiles!

To stay away from traffic as much as possible, we crossed over the road and went into the church parking lot and took advantage of the wide-open space. (Yes, I am taking these pictures while navigating my own bike. :)

Such a big girl!

She informed me that I could remove the "baby" seat from my bike now that she didn't need it anymore :) Looking forward to many more bike rides this summer!

~Wee

Fun on Wheels

Tonight, along with several families from church, we spent two hours at the Roller Dome celebrating for Leonda S.'s 50th "surprise" birthday party. Our group had the rink to ourselves. It was a blast rolling around with so many people we know!
The shiny, waxed floor just about sent me sprawling when I first skated out onto it! It sure wasn't like the cement that we're so used to rollerblading on! So, you can imagine that it was a bit of a challenge to keep our wheels from skidding away from us and to maintain the right amount of friction to remain upright! However, we all proceeded with caution and had a great time.I did have to chuckle at the girls' surprised reaction to the sight of those roller skates with the four orange wheels. I shared from my growing-up years that those are what I learned to skate with. (I'm sure glad to see that "that old kind" is still being used today 'cause now I don't feel so old!)Grace takes a break by the wall, trying to cool off. It was so hot in there!Oops...wipe out!Alex elected not to skate and kept Leah so the older two girls and I could skate.

~Wee

What's Black and White

and smells real bad? Finally, the culprit has been found and captured! That's what's been digging under our playhouse! We had our suspicions that the holes being dug were created by this smelly animal in the pictures below. Several weeks ago, Alex had seen a couple skunks messing around behind the playhouse, and just this week we noticed this big hole. Alex borrowed a trap from our neighbors across the street and had it set right outside the hole.

This morning before work our neighbors' dog was barking and when I looked out the window at him, he was looking towards our playhouse. From his vantage point, I knew he must have been witnessing some action over there. So, Alex quietly crept to where he could see what was happening on the other side of the playhouse. Sure enough, the skunk was just a diggin' away. While Alex again ran across the street to borrow what he needed to do away with the skunk, I, too, had to venture out to see the action. The skunk obviously had to push all the rock aside and dig relatively deep to get under the playhouse.

This is as far as the skunk got before his life was ended. At noon when Alex pulled the skunk out of the hole, its right front paw was caught in the trap, so it couldn't have gone too far under the structure anyway. We all watched as Alex drug it from the hole.....

Good thing its foot was attached to the trap. Sure made the removal from the hole much easier.

As we observed the beauty of its fur, we talked about how we could keep it, etc. But after asking around our little group and finding no takers to do the job, on to its final resting place it went.Now to close up the gaping hole. I really have no desire to touch those rocks that have been sprayed with the skunk's musk!

It was a stinky job, but someone had to do it! Thank you, Lord, that today was a day that Alex was home for lunch and could take care of the job!

~Wee