Friday, July 31, 2009

frugal friday fun and vbs pictures

THIS is what they do when its looking to be a long day inside due to rain - and the girls need an activity....
(those are lentils and dry split peas)

Here's Hannah's VBS crafts - minus the Pharoah's Fly Flicker, which is currently unaccounted for.....
And here are some random VBS pictures:
In the craft cabin the first day making "burning bush" sand art jars....
Some of the kids in the sanctuary during the end-of-day session....I think the highest number we had was 140 a day and about 100 average a day.

Making fly flickers....

And Abigail was never without a friend...here she is with Perry Wiseman, who looked for her every day! For the first couple days she was cooped up with me in the craft cabin, but after that she went with the preschoolers and was fine.


Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Where did the last week go? V-B-S. Those kids wore me out (to quote Hannah). I'll have to post pictures of our crafts. For the most part they turned out alright, although I was sure the mamas were going to be muttering bad words about me under their breath when the "Pharaoh's Fly Flicker" went home. That was a fly swatter with a frog or a fly tied to it for the kids to whack on. I gave the instructions that they weren't to hit anyone...brothers, sister,s moms, dad, crew leaders....but they probably found a loophole (hmmmm, I see now that I didn't remember to say no hitting grandparents. Oh well, grannies are on their own!).

Saturday, Andy and I took the girls back to the blueberry patch over in Renick and got 3 more big Wal-Mart bags full of berries. I don't know how many we got, but I've put up 3 batches of jam and there's lots more frozen for later.

Sunday, we went to Colin's birthday party at the city pool. We were there for about an hour and a half before we got rained out. It was still a good time...Andy even got in the water! Poor ole' Abigail was shivering in the water but she didn't want to get out. Finally, when I pulled her out to get ready to leave, we looked down and her feet were - oh what a bad Mama I am - a deep shade of lavender up to her ankles. Oh, my. So we bundled her up tighter and cranked the heat up on the way home. None the worse for wear, although we did sleep with the windows shut that night.

Then, yesterday, I needed a day of rest from the weekend! We girls went to Food Lion and CVS and made a great score with the last of our grocery budget....oh, heck, here is what we got:
2 pencil cases
2 index card cases
2 pks binder clips
2 jugs A&H laundry detergent
fem hygiene product
2 composition books
2 pkgs sticky notes
bag chips
bag popcorn (unpopped for the air popper)
2 jars Ragu
2 boxes cereal
pkg pork chops
pkg beef ribs
2 pks pens
jug grape juice
snack bags
2lb peaches
3 hostess-style apple pies

ALL FOR $25.02 at 3 stores!!

We celebrated by going to Humpback Bridge for a swim after nap time. Hannah floated down the creek in the deep part, then raced up the shallow area for another float - over and over again. Abigail preferred to pretend she was a crayfish in the shallow area. I tried to keep my eye on two fun little girls who love to play in the water.....

Saturday, July 18, 2009

family update

Well, Hannah's better. After a scare with a fever of 103.5, she woke up perky the next morning saying only her stomach and her throat hurt. She was a little warm, but no real fever. Today, she's off with her Daddy-o to cut firewood, then to lunch and probably by Covington Farm & Fuel for chainsaw blades. MEANwhile, back home, Abba is burning up and poor ole' girl, her fingers and feet are freezing cold. She keeps telling me she's not sick, but she looks peaked and is back down for a nap after sleeping late this morning. I had a dream I couldn't get anyone to cover for me in the craft section of VBS next week. Hopefully by Monday she'll be on her way to better health.

Speaking of VBS, I'm blogging instead of finishing preparation. I have to spray paint lids for our sand art jars. I've had everyone and their brother and sister collecting jars for me and I think I have enough....I have 130 of various sizes, and I understand there's more waiting for us at church. We plan for 150 kids at VBS, and I think last year our busiest day was 140, so I'm about on track. I'll have to post pictures of the projects we do. I think the kids will get a kick out of each of them.

Some friends of ours from Chesapeake are coming to visit tomorrow. Scott & Kit will meet us at church....they are camping about an hour and a half south of Roanoke and will park their camper in our yard overnight and head out for West Virginia on Monday morning. I forgot to tell them I've got to leave early Monday morning to get set up for VBS, but I'm sure they'll understand. The good thing about having company right now is that since our house is on the market, we've been keeping it as spotless as possible. In fact, the laundry is even staying caught up. And thanks to my AMAZING Andy, the basement is organized and tidy....no thanks to me and my "dis"organization skills. But it is nice to not have to panic that we'll be having visitors :)

OK, down to that clean basement to fill it with spray paint fumes. If I post anything a little bizarre later, you'll understand its because I am high off of paint. All for the sake of VBS, you know X)

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Kids and dental health

Today we have Hannah's second dentist appointment. Wish us well. Last year she clamped down and screamed through clenched teeth and refused to allow access. This year we've had the appointment for 2 months and she's built up plenty of excitement. I hope they don't let her down.

As a mama I have to suppress my natural gag reflex sometimes more often than not. For example today she showed me her rinse cup after brushing for the second time. "No, no, look at it in the sunlight! See those things floating around in there? That's the dirt from my teeth!" Then she called me back into the bathroom to see "the river the mouthwash is making" as it made its way to the drain. Gross. Gross, gross, gross.

Sugar baby is nonplussed. Right on track, exactly one month after her second birthday she asks "Why?" in a ratio of 5:1 for everything I say.

Every clock in our house reads a different time, varying by 10-15 minutes either way. I'm depending on the computer clock which says we have 15 minutes before we have to leave. Rather than take the time to change them, I kind of have an idea of which is where relative to Real Time, but it leaves Andy guessing and altogether unimpressed. However, judging from the clock in the bottom right corner of the screen, its time to get ready to trek into town for Hannah's adventure!

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Pickin' Friends

I'm so tired. See, the day started off at 5:15Am with Abba deciding she was mad that she had been cut off from Mama's milk, so she was going to let me have it bright and early. Then Hannah woke with a bad dream that had resulted in her needing a change of sheets. All this before 5:25AM, as Andy was waking up. Needless to say, he grabbed the lunch I packed and scooted out the door without so much as a glance over his shoulder! I can't say I blame him!

So we rolled around in our semi-awake state until the girls decided at 7:45 they wanted to put on their dress up dresses that MeeMaw gave them and move the party outside to the carport. It was only 58 degrees and they lasted about 8 minutes. So, I put them to work until it was time to load up and go berry picking.

We met some friends up at Stonewall, a central location here in Callaghan, and then four vehicles - including 5 mamas and 11 kids trekked over to Rennick, West Virginia. Never heard of Rennick? Its about 40 minutes north of Lewisburg - the northernmost reaches of Greenbrier County. We had a great time - picked for about an hour and a half, and I think all of the kids just about made it that long. We settled our debts with the proprietors and enjoyed a picnic on blankets under the shade trees. It really was a lot of fun. I don't know how many lbs. of berries I got - three heavy WalMart bags, though. Hannah picked a surprising amount! (Although I tacked an extra few bucks onto our bill for the amount that didn't take the detour to the bag....) I'm chugging coffee and Mountain Dew so I can stay up and process them, but first things first, right?
Here's a picture of the kiddos from today....Sabrena took the rest of the pictures (daggone if I didn't forget to charge my camera battery), and she'll post them on Facebook, so I'll post a link here, I guess.
Hannah and Abba just came in here and laughed when they saw the picture, "That was fun, Mama...can I have some blueberries?" "Booberrys!"