Kenner's 7th bday

Kenner got in his Sunday best and combed his hair so we could go to red robin tonight with Kendra, Trevor, Kenna, Bob, and Marilyn. He was so excited. I am anxious to see what tomorrow holds as he was super disappointed two days ago that I hadn't sent out the invitations yet. Oh boy... This big birthday party every 5 years is harder to live by. I have to keep my word as I like to go a bit above and beyond with birthday parties. Happy birthday Kenner. You are such a great big brother, friend, reader and son. I love you very much!

Making photo books

I can't beloved how easy it has been to do cute photo books without taking a lot of time. Don't get me wrong, it still takes a lot of time. It is all about organization of the photos and deleting the extra pictures you don't need. I have sorted my photos in months. Then I created an album on shutterfly for each child and a year. I.e Kenner 1st year, Kenner 2nd year, etc. I also created a family album so that I can make a book of just family highlights. When the boys take theirs, I won't have anything therefore I made one for Casey and I.

Once I have their year albums complete, then I use the album to make the year book. Shutterfly has a great way to make a book that is customized but not difficult to make it yours. I used the simple path at first, but it really limited your ability to move pics around. Today I tried the custom path and I am in love! I have used several different computer programs for digital scrapbooking. This allows you to digitally scrapbook by adding embellishments but also have it right in the book that you are actually publishing. Love!!!

Yes this is going to be a hefty bill, but the glory is that I have them organized and maybe even done so that I can order when my bank account allows me to or wait for killer sales.

No I have not gotten anything from shutterfly to write this...but I really should. Haha

Depriving the last born

I really didn't mean to put all the toys in the basement in which little Ike never gets to go. It wasn't until last week that I discovered that he really doesn't have many toys to play with upstairs except balls. Hence the reason he loves loves loves balls. He is in toy heaven today getting to play with all his big brothers toys without them interfering. I am thinking that he thinks this single kid life is pretty good.

Shared photo book from Rhiannon

Click here to view this photo book larger

Click here to create your own Shutterfly photo book.

Play while big boys are away

I believe this little man schemed to wrap himself in his blanket last night so that he woke up this morning with a low grade fever keeping him from daycare and a fun day at home with mommy. He was also super lucky to find a lunchable hidden in the fridge so he can enjoy a juice box and the whole lunchable to himself rather than having to eat what his big brothers don't steal from him. Oh the joys of being the baby!!

So thankful that the two big boys are in aurora at vbs week 2. It is quite odd that our vbs last week was on the journey of Moses and they are 75 miles away and doing the tabernacle this week. Picked up where they left off last week. God's timing is remarkable!

Vbs - 10 commandments moses

For the ten commandments, we made an origami pyramid "mountain" and the kids glued "10" for 10 commandments, "40" for the 40 days he was on the mountain, picture of Moses, and a picture of the tablets. We had they dab a cotton ball on top for either smoke or clouds on the mountain. I got this idea off of Pinterest.

Vbs - 10 plagues craft

Oh boy the 10 plagues had me dreaming of ideas since I first found out that we were to reach 10 plagues in one day. I found several ideas on pinterest, but only had 20 minutes to have the kids create and do something to help them. It took one pinterest idea and several trips to the sticker departments all over to generate ideas for the different plagues. This is what we ended up doing.

Pharaoh was decorated with sticker stars
Water to blood was colored
Frogs was stickers
Dust to lice was tape dipped in wheat germ or rice
Flies was either silver flower stickers w two petals plucked off or a bee stamp of black
Dead livestock was farm animal stickers upside down with lines noting the rotten smell
Locusts was beetle stickers
Hail storm was silver bling w rain drop stickers
Boils were a bandaid
Darkness was a black square of paper
Death of firstborn was a simple drawing of a baby w a red x over it.

I staples them into books so they can take them home and read it over and over again.

Vbs -burning bush craft

This was a simple tissue paper craft.

Vacation bible school crafts- Moses woven paper badket

I had an opportunity to minister to many kids this past week through something I love to do.... Crafts. Our theme this week was journey through Moses. Monday was Moses baby in a basket. I could not find anywhere the template for weaving a basket out of paper bags. It is custom for our kids to use a paper bag to collect their crafts for the week and take it home on Friday. So I just modified the plain paper bag into a woven basket.