Final Session of Kindermusik

Dad just blogged about the end of Kindermusik and it made me realize that I never put up my pictures and videos from Bri's last day of Kindermusik for the semester.

Gettin' Dizzy!
 




Story Time!




 Playing with sticks!

The Girl's Still Got It Review

When I was given the opportunity to review "The Girl's Still Got It" by Liz Curtis Higgs, I jumped at the chance. I have read multiple books by Higgs in the past and she has never disappointed me.

This book is the story of Ruth. Higgs uses several translations of the Bible to go through each individual verse of the book of Ruth in the Bible. She methodically goes through each verse (and sometimes every single word in the verse) to make this book very plain to the reader. I personally love the book of Ruth, and so I loved delving a bit deeper into it. The only problem I had with this book is that Higgs uses a lot of poetic license. She sometimes puts words into the mouths of the characters.

All in all, I really enjoyed this book. Higgs has such a way of drawing you into her books, making scriptures fun and easy to understand. I would definitely recommend this book (and Bible study) to others.

I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review. All thoughts and opinions are 100% my own.

Youth Group

We've been doing a lot with our youth group lately, trying to come up with new ideas to get them excited about church and their faith, so every so often we've been giving them a night off (doing games or something else fun instead of a lesson) or getting together on a Saturday.

These pictures are from our youth rally which was back in May. I couldn't stay the whole time - it was a 7-hour event - but the part I was there for was so much fun!

 Then, just a couple of weeks ago we took them to Ben's ice cream near Candor. I loved the idea of all of us piling onto our bus and hoofing it down to the ice cream stand. I couldn't remember the last time I was on a bus! Luckily, one of my faves, Prescilla, is as obsessed with picture-taking as I am!

When we got back, we had just enough time for another one of my faves, Glennette, to pierce Prescilla's ears. Haha!

This past week they all went to Camp Anchorage for a retreat. Yesterday at church the teens and the counselors (my hubby Stephen, along with two other guys Mike and Keith from church) all talked about their experiences. I came home from church absolutely giddy and excited for the things these kids said. They faced things in their lives like the decisions they were making, the music they listen to, the relationship they have with their parents. To hear them talk about all these things and realizing on their own the things they need to work on in their lives was just amazing. I did record it on Keith's phone but I really just can't describe how good it felt to listen to them. I thank the church for sending them (we've never gotten to do anything like this before for our youth group) and I thank the counselors for taking a week off of work to go with the kids.

Just for the record, I am totally going next year!!

Fundraiser for Blaise McNair

Several weeks ago we heard the news that a young boy in our community was diagnosed with a brain tumor. It was pretty sudden - he was totally fine and then one day he was in the middle of a baseball game and started having problems with his motor skills and one side of his body. He was diagnosed very quickly with the brain tumor, which is inoperable. He was given 10 months to live.

His name is Blaise McNair and because this is such a small community, we have a lot of connections to him. My friend Allison who owns The Classy Paci just really felt like she could do something to help him. At the same time, I also wanted to do something. I texted her on June 7 telling her that I wanted to sell some things that have been donated to Fed By Faith and give the money to Blaise... she wrote back that she already had some things in the works for doing something big at Classy Paci - so we collaborated!!

And 10 days later we had a yard sale extravaganza for Blaise! How did we do all this in 10 days? Allison basically didn't sleep at all and lots of people from our church spent a lot of hours at church and at Classy Paci going through the donated items!

I worked on Friday the 15th so that Allison could spend her day tying up loose ends. Hunter and Brianna were obsessed with this swing.

 I put this picture on Facebook. Just like a man to "test" out the furniture and fall asleep!! He slept through customers, cleaning up, and all kinds of stuff!

 The beginning of the yard sale - 6am. You can see we are just beginning to rifle through the donated items. These items filled up not only an entire storage unit, but outside the storage unit and part of Allison's store and my truck!! People from all over the county donated an insane amount of items.

One of our friends from church, Donna, was on scene all week long helping Allison. 

This is what we went home with - Rock Band!

 Southern Lawn & Irrigation was out there bright and early with the rest of us, setting up the bouncy house which they donated for the day!

And Rita's came out to serve their AWESOME Italian Ice!! I spent a lot of time talking to the manager of our Rita's and he is super nice. I am so grateful they came out to support the benefit!

 Panera Bread donated all sorts of breakfast goodies for us!!

 This butterfly landed on me and sat with me while I sorted clothes. Must have been good luck!!

Allison snapped this picture of me sorting clothes before I looked like a lobster!!

I don't know if Allison has made the final tally "public" yet so I won't say anything here, but from just the yard sale we raised a VERY good amount of money! Allison also donated part of her daily earnings from the store to Blaise.

Please note these local businesses that helped with this fundraiser.

Remember The Classy Paci the next time you need clothes (children's, adult, teen, maternity) or toys.

Remember Southern Irrigation & Lawn when you need landscaping, pressure washing, irrigation (among other things!) or a bouncy house! We got our bouncy house for Brianna's birthday party from them and were 1000% satisfied!

Remember Panera Bread when you are hungry!

Remember Rita's Italian Ice when you need dessert!

Thank you to everyone from the community who donated time, money, and items to be sold! I was in AWE for those ten days. I love being involved in things like this and seeing how people step up!

This Is What Summer Looks Like To Me

Onions and eggplant ready to be frozen (eggplant is not local), cantaloupe, strawberries, grapes ready to be eaten (grapes are not local), and green beans snapped and ready to be cooked.

Not to mention the delicious foods in my refrigerator ready to be consumed - zucchini and squash from my parents' garden, local tomatoes, cucumbers, peaches, plums, blackberries and corn!?!? 

My stomach loves summer.