VBS Wrap Up...

Well our wonderful week of VBS has come to an end. I'm a little concerned about how boring next week will seem in comparison but I'll worry about that later!



Although they had a few minor temper fits, I am soooo glad I decided to register them for this event. I'm not sure who enjoyed it more, them or me! (or would that be I? I spent a couple minutes debating which was correct & gave up!) I was so proud of all the memorizing the girls did (ahhh what a yoyo can entice a kid to do!) and how they participated in the lessons & answering questions & even knowing some answers! One of the lessons was about miracles and how we can't accomplish these ourselves & need His help. I read the story about David & Goliath & then asked the kids if David did it all by himself. Honey piped up that God had helped him. Another little girl answered that Jesus had helped. Now this is in the Old Testament & plus it was our bible from home so she knew Jesus' name was nowhere in this particular story but I didn't want to make the other little girl feel bad. We'd been talking about Jesus all week so it would stand to reason he might have been involved right? I was just going to let it go but Honey KNEW it was wrong and wasn't going to let her slide. "No it was GOD" and the other little girl repeated that Jesus had helped too. Honey started to get visibly upset, NO! not Jesus, JUST GOD helped him!" Her voice actually took on a frantic note & her face was getting all scrunched up in frustration and tears were forming! She takes her bible stories seriously and this chick was screwing it all up!!! I was able to get by with "sometimes Jesus helps us and sometimes God helps us..." and moving on quickly to another topic!!



I think I enjoyed seeing the involvement that went into VBS. There were entire families that came to volunteer. I had one mom who helped us with our group of little ones, her son volunteered for the gym activities, & a couple of her daughters helped with other groups & her youngest daughter was an attendee I think. Even the guy whose mom "voluntold" him seemed to be really into it at the end of the week. The first day, the gym activities for our group were a little beyond their abilities and another day they brought in a bunch of the playgroup toys & let the kids just play on those rather than trying to organize a fancy game. Later that same day, he saw me & wondered if the change of activity had been an improvement. He had also noticed that the little girls were quite intimdated by the big teenage guys and he felt a bit bad about that & made sure not to crowd them or get too close to them after that. And let me not forget my co-leader Sarah who impresses the crap out of me! I was there because my kids were there & I wanted to help make their week fun. Would I have spent a week of my vacation on it if I had NO KIDS??? Hmmmmm, I guess I don't know but she did! Some days after VBS she went to the library and volunteered there too. One day I needed to make a stop at the grocery store & was going to give her a lift home and then run my errand and she decided that coming shopping with us would be more fun than hanging out at home & offered to come with us. Totally above and beyond the call of duty! I know Sarah's a regular reader here so Sarah, hats off to you for being a caring, helpful and generous young lady!




Something that I also found vey impressive was that some of the kids from our church invited their friends to come help them and we had several teens who don't even go to our church! They came, they helped, they memorized their verses and they enjoyed it. I thought it was awesome to see their enthusiasm & involvement.

By the end of the week, the girls had drawn a couple extra helpers who had them running and dancing and playing. It was wonderful to know they were being well attended to and entertained and looked after. On the last day, not only did I have my trusty Sarah by my side, two other young ladies were with me at the wrap up party in the afternoon. They took charge of the girls, helped me get them changed into their swimsuits and took them with them on the slip & slide so I didn't have to get wet. I hadn't thought about them not wanting to go by themselves. I figured they'd see everyone else having fun & just jump in. Sarah, Victoria, Anna & Alexandra took them by the hand, waited in line with them, probably a few times each, only to get to the front and have them chicken out & change their minds! They'd just go to the back of the line, wait for another turn and try again. They were soooo patient & determined to get those kids sliding. Sweetie was the first to give in to the temptation of the slippery slope but didn't last long before getting cold. I was in charge of making sure the bigger kids waited their turn so I didn't really get to see her sliding but did catch the other 2 a few times later on.

Anyway, I'm so happy we went to VBS, got to know some of the youth a bit better and let the girls get a glimpse of "school" & be involved in this amazing week. We got a CD of all the songs they danced to all week, plus another CD of pictures from the week. Great take aways!!!

Totally worn out! a good indication of a great day!

Heard in Conversation...

Ok these kids are really getting fancy with their talking! I've been throwing in a few French words, trying to get them to learn a few things "visage" "le nez" "la bouche" "les yeux" etc. Also, we inherited a book of fairy tales that is written in French & they choose this quite a bit for their bedtime story. I'm not sure if they're picking up much of the language from that but they're getting the sound of it anyway! One day I asked Sweetie if she could tell me a French word & she immediately piped up "Apagé!" now as far as I know, this doesn't really mean anything at all but it cracked me up! The other night at supper I asked her if she knew the French word for cherries and she hesitated for a minute, cocked her head to one side, wrinkled her brow and said questioningly "boucalé???" Also complete gibberish I think but omg she's a riot!

Earlier this week Lovey had gone to the bathroom and pooped on the toilet. Shortly after, Honey came along and made a similar addition. Lovey wandered back in & thought the new installment was her own original and Honey tried to set her straight as to the proper ownership. Apparently she didn't just let it go because later on, Honey said to me "Lovey sought it was her poop in the toilet but actually it was mine Mumma" It is so funny to hear words come out that you don't expect or that you don't realize that you use so often! but when I think about it, we do say "actually" quite alot around here. I still think that's a pretty impressive sentence for a 3 year old!

Multiple Madness

One of my friends from the multiples club has been coming with us to VBS this week & her daughters are in my group. Today, they came over for lunch & the girls all had a great time (well except for the sand throwing incident...)

On the way home in the car, my 3 were talking about sleepovers & suggesting that it'd be fun for C&J to sleepover! Aren't they a little young for sleepovers? or to even be planning one? I don't imagine THEY'D get very far sleeping over at a friend's house at this age. The grandparents house would probably work (*cough*cough*anniversary*cough*cough*) but I think that if they were at Teena's or something, they'd soon change their minds come bedtime! I thought it was funny that they were thinking about it already though!

After lunch we took them all out to the pool & Honey impressed us all with her little frogleg swimming technique! She throws herself facedown in the water and wiggles her arms and thrusts her legs out behind her and sort of runs along the bottom of the pool. I'm so impressed with how much her comfort level in the water has improved and she is SO proud of herself when she does it! "Mumma! I WENT RIGHT IN! Mumma! do you want ME to do it AGAIN???" and she does it over and over and asks if I want a repeat every single time. Lovey is also good at going "right in" but doesn't have much arm or leg action just yet. Sweetie would like to be able to do what they're doing but is really still pretty afraid to put her whole face right in the water. She's getting close though!

Between the pool, sandbox & swingset, the 5 three year olds were able to entertain themselves all afternoon. They needed a bit of help with pushing on the swings but Yvonne & I were able to watch them & chat most of the time. When it was time for them to go, all 5 were unwilling for the date to be over!

Vacation Bible School

What a week we're having! Quite a whirlwind of activity around here. The kids & I have been going to vacation bible school at our church.

I had initially thought of dropping them off so they could go to "school" & I could have a few mornings off. I'd heard great things about the team of kids that had come from Michigan last year to put on the VBS. Then I heard they weren't coming this year & they needed volunteers to work. I volunteered to lead the kinder/prekinder group. I was partnered with Sarah, a wonderful teenager from the church who volunteers in the toddler room & already knew my kids quite well so I was pretty happy about that.

Our group ended up being the largest and the first day was a little tricky, mostly because of MY OWN kids! There was another little girl there that got upset & wanted her mom so I held her for awhile and as soon as the girls spotted me with someone else, they jumped on the bandwagon, whining and asking to be picked up too etc. Sometimes I felt like I wasn't really helping lead the group at all, just looking after my own 3 & abandoning Sarah with the other 9 to fend for herself. I wondered if they'd made a mistake making me a leader! The next day was better, they recognized the challenges of so many young kids & assigned us a couple helpers which helped with bathroom breaks, getting them all from on station to another etc. My own girls seemed to be more comfortable the 2nd & 3rd day too. The first day I had to leave Sweetie in the middle of a fit on the floor so I could get the rest of the group their snack. I couldn't make out what she was saying & I'd already spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out what she wanted or didn't want & wasn't getting anywhere so I let her sort it out herself!

I'm not sure how much they're learning but they have been memorizing a new scripture each day. So far they've mastered:

"You are my mighty rock" Psalms 18:2
"For I know the plans I have for you says the Lord" Jeremiah 29:11

First thing in the morning, the entire VBS gathers for welcome & singing etc & if they get up and say their scripture at the front of the room, they get to pick a prize out of the box. The first day I got our whole group to recite it together. Today's was a little longer & not everyone knew it but Honey & Sweetie wanted to go do theirs. Honey got up there & with the microphone in her face, she started having 2nd thoughts so Nicolle put it away & told her to just say it in her ear. Honey looked up at her from under her lashes and managed to mumble it out and got her coveted "What Would Jesus Do?" bouncy ball! Lovey didn't want the prize bad enough but Sweetie followed Nicolle around, sticking her face right in there & even grabbed her arm so she could do hers! all that for a lollipop!

Yesterday, after the group recited their piece, they decided to just give everyone the same thing, a scratch and sniff sticker. Honey was really upset since it was supposed to be their choice & she wanted a yoyo! "Mumma, its supposed to pick from the box! YOU SAID." Holy ol guilt! I did tell them & had hyped up the prize box to get them to practice their scripture over and over. I got permission to switch the prize so then they were all happy.

I'm really enjoying the whole thing. It was great this morning when the little girl who was so upset on the 1st day, came running in with a huge smile & threw herself into my arms! It's also awesome to see the youth in our church be involved, to see the parents bringing their kids to attend & to see the teens volunteer their time to make the VBS run so much more smoothly. I think that's pretty impressive when there are so many other things that they could be doing. One guy did admit that his mother had "voluntold" him though, but he's still there & doesn't really seem to mind it. I feel pretty lucky to be able to do this sort of thing, even if it wasn't what I orginally had in mind. If I was was working, I wouldn't be able to take part & see all the great work our church is doing with the youth.

Camping Test Run

We've been toying with the idea of going camping, other families do it and seem to love it. Murray & I did some camping pre-kids & really enjoyed it but we couldn't quite picture getting these 3 in a tent and it being much fun... especially if someone wets their sleeping bag!

Murray thought we should practice first & see how that went. He set up the tent in the backyard on Saturday afternoon while I was over at A&M's helping them do some packing for their upcoming move. He said the girls had a great time running in and out & playing in there so we were hoping they'd get all that foolishness out of the way well before bedtime.

After supper we took them out in their pj's and had a little campfire. They were very interested in roasting marshmallows but not in eating them so we had a few too many of those to polish off. The 'smores weren't a big hit either so Murray & I took care of those too. Once we got in the tent, Murray read them their stories and by the time we actually tried to get them settled in their sleeping bags, it must have been 9 o'clock already. We didn't figure there was much point in trying earlier than that. Sweetie wasn't interested in sleeping though. She wanted to sit & read Green Eggs and Ham some more and was flipping through the book, reciting the bits she knows or rolling around on the sleeping bag, or dancing around the tent, laughing & getting her sisters talking.... and so on and so on. We gave her a few minutes, hoping she'd unwind, settle down... nope. She was TOO BUSY! After awhile Murray got frustrated and decided to go for his run. It was almost 10:00 & Sweetie still wasn't showing much sign of settling down so I hauled her into my sleeping bag with me & told her to GO TO SLEEP NOW! She whimpered her disagreement for a few minutes and but fell asleep quickly.





They did well in the tent overnight but we still had a couple potty runs but no accidents in the night! AND they all slept til almost 8:30 which is pretty much unheard of around here. I figured they'd be awake as soon as the sun was up but we caught a break. They quite enjoyed their night of camping but since I went to bed when they did, I felt my evening had been hijacked a bit. Then again, an early night once in awhile doesn't hurt!





We went down to one of the walking trails in the morning & they enjoyed a stroller ride and a brief stint at a playground and then we loaded up and went home for lunch. It was a really nice day so we thought we'd squeeze in some swimming & went to the river near M&D's & they met us over there.





Lovey was quite comfortable, almost too much so. She was walking around in chest deep water and occasionally decided to float face down but wasn't always able to get her feet underneath her quickly & almost gave my father several heart attacks I'm sure! She did swallow more water than one would consider refreshing but other than that didn't really suffer any ill effects. They all practiced their swimming a bit but no one's ready to paddle off on their own yet!





Sweetie was the first one out of the water & went to cuddle with Grammie on the towel & watch everyone else. Grammie said she talked and talked and talked the whole time. It's not often Sweetie stays in one spot long enough to have a conversation. Honey was the next one out & she quickly grabbed a spot on the towel too. Lovey took her sweet time "swimming" and playing and had a blast as Murray & I pushed her back & forth under the water. She's getting really good at holding her breath for longer periods & gliding along. They're still asking about the big pool every time I say we're going swimming. It apparently made quite an impression!

Friday night barbeque

Cheeseburgers, here we come! The girls must have been pretty hungry because they put away quite a lot of burger! Daddy's girls!

I asked Sweetie to sit down for a minute for "one more" and she said "all done Mumma!" and marched right off the job! LOL