Happy 70th Birthday, Ann!

This last weekend we went to Missouri to celebrate my Mother-in-law's 70th birthday! We thought it was a surprise, but she "had an idea" that something would happen! She wasn't allowed to do anything this weekend except enjoy her family! Liz took a breakfast casserole and taco soup, Rachel made three large pies (in deep dish 9x13's): peach, apple and dark cherry (all from scratch!), and I took cheesy potato soup, pecan tassies, and gobs (cream filled chocolate cookies, like Suzy Q's). Donna added chili to our soup menu and Milton and Larry grilled steaks and ribs for the birthday dinner menu that Donna planned.

And of course we had birthday cake!

Grandma and her grand-daughters, and GREAT grand-daughter! Kara, Anna, Makenzi, Rachel and Chloe... missing is Crystal, who couldn't make it! When Larry's grandma was living she would alway stress the GREAT when telling her great-grandchildren who she is... maybe it started with Crystal calling her that... can't remember,

but anyway now Ann is the GREAT-Grandma!

(This picture is supposed to go after the birthday cake, but I accidentally deleted it!!

and can't figure out how to move pictures within the post..)

Chloe, Jerry and the birthday girl!

Liz, Donna and Milton. Donna and Milton have a wonderful home! It was Milton's parent's home and it is filled with history and love. D&M have added on and it has made the home very company friendly! We always feel welcome and comfortable in their home!

The birthday cake was delicious! Crystal Schaper made it. It had a strawberry filling in the center... it was all delicious, but if you know me, you know the frosting was my favorite!

Donna, Ann and Rachel

Ann with her kids that were there... Donna, Jerry and Larry.

Rachel and I were hoping that we'd get there and Debbie would be there!

But she couldn't make it and we certainly missed her and her family!

Grandma and the grand-sons! Curtis, Ryan, Trenton and Rob. Missing is Steven, Debbie's son.

Makenzi and Trenton had fun playing together!

Larry and his Mom... I like this picture of them.... they knew I was taking the picture, but they don't look like they are in pain!!

Ann with some of her goodies!

Chloe loves to sit on her Daddy's shoulders!

My Sweetie and Me!

It was raining, but Papaw took Makenzi out to see the "bears." Donna had their cousin, Davey Lane carve (don't know what the correct term is..) bears in a tree trunk for her front yard. Anyway, they got out to the front and then Kenzi said, "I'm scared." It was hard for her to get her mind around wood bears in the front yard. But she stuck with Papaw! Doesn't she look so cute in her little coat? Like I said, it was raining or I would have got a picture of them out there!

One of the games we managed to fit in the short weekend! We also played Bananas!

A new game that Donna has and it was soo much fun! I could play it for hours!

Mamaw sure does love her Kenzi! Ryan came up and hugged me and Kenzi was not impressed!

"That's MY MAMAW!!!" She had to run and claim me her own!

Needless to say, I loved it!

My favorite girls!

It was hard to say good-bye to this fun-filled little girl!

We don't have a set date when we will see them again, and that seems to make it harder.

By the looks on Kenzi face, she isn't so crazy about saying good-bye to us, either!! We can think what we want!!

I had hoped to have someone take a picture of our family, but it didn't get done!

I didn't get a picture of Kristi, but she was there!

We hope Ann had a great birthday weekend. We enjoyed celebrating with her!

Valentine's Sunday School Party & Bulletin Boards

In the photo: Brittany, Ashley, Tabby, Me, Sarah, Theresa, and Layla

I teach the Kids for the Journey Class for grades 4, 5 &6. They are a great group of kids and I love doing special things for them. Last summer as I was looking ahead to the fall and wondering what we should do for memory and attendance challenges I decided to go a different route. I decided to keep having the memory verse (of course!!) but not do any challenge with it. Instead, we are having a monthly BLAST! (original anagram came from the 91st Street Christian Church's website). It stands for Belonging, Learning, & Adventures in Studying the Truth. I wanted to do something to bring us together so we could get to know each other better and I had hoped that it would boost regular attendance. So far we have been miniture golfing, had a scavenger hunt and picnic, make your own pizza and game night, bowling and then this Valentine's party. Since Valentine's Day was on Sunday I decided to have the party during Sunday School. Of course, we had a Bible lesson using conversation hearts, but we had fun, too.

I looked on the internet for weeks for fun things to make for my kids.

I saw these candy coated marshmallows and knew I had to do them.

I started doing them only covering half of the marshmallow, but I was afraid the marshmallow would dry out,

so I then went to covering all of it.

Aren't they adorable!!

Here's the party table. My bulletin board was simple but used the party theme.

That's a mirror that I got from Dollar Tree in the center.

We have donuts every Sunday for the van kids to eat before Sunday School, so I didn't think that cupcakes would be that different. White cake, homemade ~BUTTERCREAM~ icing.... love, love that! My favorite combination! and we had Strawberry milk to drink!

Another internet idea... I think it originated from FamilyFun. These are supposed to be roses. I'll just call the flowers! They are made out of Fruit by the Foot. They don't look like the example, but hey were cute non-the- less!!

On the wesite they used mini muffin tins and the flower covered the whole top of the cupcake.

Another internet inspired idea. It doesn't even look like what inspired me, I just saw one thing that reminded me of another and this is what I came up with. The 4x6 frame is from Dollar Tree, I used a scrapbooking paper for the background, printed the theme on the computer and glittered a Cricut cut heart. These were my Valentine's to them.

I had snack bags that they could put these goodies in and take wiht them, altho' most of them ate them there!

The little boxes with the ribbons at the top of the picture are match boxes that I covered with craft paper and a ribbon and then I put 2 Jolly Ranchers inside.

For the craft we made jean Bible covers.We ended up hot gluing the beads on after they got them on the thread. With the time constraints we couldn't sew on one end, thread the beads and then sew in the other end.

Jesus Loves these kids... and so do I!

This is the Valentine themed bulletin board for Family Center at church. It is very large (4'x8') and so I decided to divide it this time. The border is made up of velvet roses. The roses and the floral piece are from the wedding I did in December. The right side of the board is a reminder of the missions trip that several from our church are participating in. They will share the Jesus Film with the people of Guatemala. The background is the same tablecloth that I had up for the Christmas bulletin board. I get the tablescloths from Big Lots for $6. They are better than paper because they can be used over and over and not going to tear and wear like paper. I will probalby be switching to all cloth backgrounds. Goodwill will be a good source for the smaller boards in my classroom.

Thanks for letting me share some of the fun I get to do at church!

Super Bowl & More Kenzi Fun!

These first pictures are kinda mixed up... brain wasn't working to get them in the order I wanted!

For Super Bowl Sunday we had Jerry, Liz, Trenton and Chloe over. None of us are die hard fans, although we would have loved for the Colts to win!

Makenzi and Trenton loved playing with the kitchen set... they loved putting the babies down through the hole where the sink goes. They'd do that then they'd squeal with laughter! (I really need to get the kitchen set fixed!)

Kenzi enjoyed the food and the game with her Daddy!

The crew holding down the couch!

Chloe seemed interested in the game, too!

Jerry and Trenton staying close to the food!

I didn't do a lot of decorating for this. This is the first time we ever had a special menu for the Super Bowl. Like I said, we are not really game night party people! But on this night we had buffalo wings, cheese sticks, sausage rounds, dogs in a blanket, veggies and dip...

sausage and cheese dip, tortilla chips, salsa, popcorn, pickles, cookies and candy bites, buckeye bars, and Liz brought peanut butter cookies and savory cream cheese filled cresent rolls. It was a good food night!!

Makenzi loves her Papaw and I think he's kinda taken with her, too!

Makenzi and Mommy went out to play in the snow! She's making a snow angel here.

Check out that cute little red nose!

Eyes full of wonder.

She had a fun day in the snow!

Makenzi wanted to have her toes painted like Mamaw's! So Aunt Rachel painted them and then her own. She wanted her fingernails done like Aunt Rachel's but we decided it was best to just do toenails like Mamaw!

Nothin' like painting toenails for fun girl-time!

She loved the results, but I couldn't get her to hold still long enough to get a picture of them!

Mamaw's Kenzi

Oh, my goodness! Makenzi is so much fun! We were thrilled when we heard they were coming, but we had no idea how much fun we would have with Makenzi! She has grown so much since we saw her in December. She talks so much more and she has such good manners! (Great job, Rob and Kristi!) She's just amazing!

My two favorite girls! Kenzi had so much fun with her Aunt Rachel! Rachel had to work a lot while they were here, but she made the most of her time with Kenzi. When we were alone Rachel would say "She's so silly!"

I'm thinkin' she might get it from her Aunt Rachel!

Sitin' on the countertop... nothing's changed... couldn't keep my kids off of them

and it looks like it has carried over to the next generation!

This picture is in here because, well, quite frankly, she looks like her Mamaw in this picture. =o)

Makenzi works out along with her Mommy. In these next two pictures she is demonstrating some moves.... This one is the squeeze! You should hear her doing it! So cute!

She's quite the little mover! She loves to dance! And she dances just like her Uncle Ryan did when he was little.

Yep, she's a fun, silly girl!


"I love this little person, and it is not a slight thing when she, who is so fresh from God, loves me"

-paraphrased from Charles Dickens, The Curiosity Shop