AVCS banquet

It's rare that Justin and I go anywhere fancy. As a stay at home momma to three little ones, and Justin as a business owner and student in Bible college, our lives don't really scream fancy and elegant ;)

So when we were invited to a dinner and auction at the Country Club to support our kids' school, we jumped at the chance. Good food, great company and fancy clothes? I'm IN! I got gussied up (is that a word?) and Justin dressed in his button down shirt and finest jeans ;)

Special thanks to our awesome babysitter Britt for watching our kiddos that night :)

One word...

DIVA!

Baby girl playdate

Our local theater offers G rated kid movies for $1 during the summer (score!). And since my girlfriend Mandy and I both have babies that prevent us to going to these movies with our big kids, we made a deal; we would each take turns taking our three big kids while the other one stayed home with the little girls.
This week was my turn to watch the babies and OH MY GOSH, they had so much fun! Not a single whine or tear or complaint for EITHER of them!

First we emptied our Lauren's stuffed animal basket and played with the animals (and the basket itself):

That was fun until I mentioned a Veggie Straw snack. Then they snacked (and shared!):

We read books. Lots and lots and lots of books:

Next was outside play time. Meg got down and dirty in the dirt,

while Millie went to work cleaning up the mess Meg made!

I pulled out the water table and that's where the magic happened.... the girls happily played there for about 45 minutes. It was amazing!

But then they got thirsty and improvised :)

They were soaked from water play so I stripped 'em down and we had some lunch,

followed by some high-five practicing:

But more than anything, there was lots of interaction between the two:

and even more FUN!

Yes, this arrangement is gonna work out very nicely :)

Deleted Facebook

I did something that gave me a slight panic attack. I deleted my facebook account.

I had been feeling very convicted recently about how I was spending my time. And then I began to feel discontentment and jealousy creep in when others on Facebook appeared to 'have it all together' or attempted to make it look that way.

And I knew that my focus was not on Him. And not on loving His people who He has brought into my life. And not on sharing His Good News with others who don't know Christ. 

And then...

I felt such a tug on my heart to let it all go and be intentional and purposeful. To love on my husband. To love on my babies. To love on my friends and family. To reach out. To be intentional. To be purposeful.

So this is a time for me to learn to be intentional with God, with justin, with my kiddos, with my friends.... with life. 

And you know what? I am excited to see where God leads me and what He'll have me do in my 'spare' time :)

With that said, I want to keep in touch. So if you're reading this, either subscribe to this blog so I can contact you, email me (shelly@topnotchnetworks.net), or text/call me (message me and I will send you my phone number because something tells me it might be dumb to put it on my blog, haha). Or better yet, lets grab some coffee and chat face to face ;)

xoxo

I stumbled upon this idea a few weeks ago here and yesterday we decided to recreate it :)

So, this is what we did:

1. Gathered our supplies; an empty plastic bottle, a piece of terry cloth fabric ( I used an old dishcloth) and a rubber band (I used one of Lauren's hairbands). Oh, and make sure you have a cute kid as a photo bomb:

2. Cut the bottom off of our plastic bottles.

3. Assembled our Bubble Blowers by putting the fabric over the open bottom of our bottles and securing it with the rubber band.

4. Then we put some dish detergent in a bowl and added a little bit of water. Finally, we diped our Bubble Blower Makers in and voila:

5.  After dipping into the soap mixture, I had the kiddos gently blow into the mouth of the bottle. A slow, gentle stream of air will create a long chain of bubbles. ( Just don't inhale, or you might get a mouthful of bubbles ~ yuck! )

It was a fun little project. Easy, cheap, and kept my kiddos busy and learning for a while :) 

Swim classes 2012

This is our fifth year of summer swim classes. Lauren's fifth, Jake's fourth and Meg's first.

Megan's face pretty much sums up how she feels about swim class in general... she's not too crazy about it, haha.

Meg doesn't like anything about swim class. The water is cold, she has to lay on her back occasionally, and she has to be held (instead of investigating) the entire time and she hates it. She has cried everyday but thankfully, it is getting a bit better as she's not crying quite as long :) But Lauren started off the exact same way so I'm not discouraged... we'll get there.

Jake is doing better than last year, that's for sure. He's dunking his head, bobbing, blowing bubbles, opening his eyes under water, etc. He's beginning to float and attempts swimming with help. Great improvement :)

And Lauren? WOW WOW WOW. She has blown us away this session. She LOVES swim class, for the first time ever, and is constantly going under water without being asked. She's dunking herself and then pushing off the side of the pool. This girl is becoming a fish and we're crazy proud of her (esp. since she's always hated the pool, even as an infant).

We're one week in, one week left, and we're having a great time (well, the big kids are!). Here's to hoping we have swimmers soon :)

Snuck in during rest time...

and heard singing to the tune of Happy Birthday. Turns out, it was Lambie's Birthday and she was sitting atop her cake (balloon). Lauren and bears were throwing her a party ;)

Then I snuck out quickly before she caught me watching her play pretend ;)

Dry Erase Activity books

My kids have a love-hate relationship. They do alot of playing together but they also do alot of fighting, especially in the car. If I hear 'Jake won't stop teasing me!' or 'Lauren looked at me!' one more time, I might just shoot myself.

So when I heard about this idea below, I got all giddy thinking about possibly having quiet car rides :)

Supplies:
3 ring binder
3 ring pencil holder
sheet protectors
dry eraser markers
activity sheets

I printed off and ripped out some Dot-to-dot activity sheets, coloring pages, mazes, letter tracing sheets and put them into each child's binder (the great thing is that you can personalize them for your child's ability level):

Voila!

Quiet car rides :)

LLC; prep for our Art Exhibit!

Mandy had a great idea that we prepared for today; an Art Exhibit!

Next month, one of us mama's will be opening up our home to our LLC friends and their families to see what each child created with four different mediums. They are:

1) Painting on Canvas - Theme: Family
2) Sculpting - Theme: Animals
3) Watercolors on paper - Theme: Artist's choice/Collaboration with Mommy :)
4) Medium Comparisons - Theme: Artist's choice

Each child got only one color of 4 different mediums - colored pencil, crayon, chalk, marker - and they drew a picture on construction paper.

So today, while our little ones splashed a bit...

the biggers created:

This was right up Lauren's alley. She LOVED creating and I am so exited to allow my kiddos an opportunity to show off their work to our family :)

Stay tuned for the Art Exhibit next month!

Family Fun Night; Dogs!

Lauren has been really interested in dogs lately so one afternoon I decided that that evening we would do a dog-themed Family Fun Night! We had all of the stuff on hand, so it was pretty simple but at 1, 4 and 5 years of age, my kiddos were very pleased :)

We started off the night by making a Dog House sign that was taped to the front door:

Then using construction paper, markers and tape, we made some dog ear headbands:

Dinner was Hot DOGS, Mac N Cheese (Jake's choice because 'dogs like cheese!) and some veggies:

At the dinner table we all made faces and had to guess what kind of dog we were. Justin was a Pug (haha!), I was a Pit (because I love them!), Lauren was a Dalmatian,  and Jake was a Beagle like Snoopy:

After dinner, we had a scavenger hunt, searching for all of the stuffed dogs in the house. We found 13... who knew we had that many?!?

We played 'Bark, bark, meow!" (duck, duck, goose!):

and 'Dog Trainer Says' (Simon Says):

and then we read... and read... and read some more ;)

We ended the night with a Dalmatian Shake (ice cream and chocolate chips):

in front of a dog movie (Pound Puppies)

All in all a fun, easy and very cheap Family Fun night :)