2 excellent books you should be reading

safely home by randy alcorn is an excellent fictional account of the persecuted church but as ron dicianni says "not fantasy". these horrendous things are actually happening and the american church (me included) needs to be more aware and be PRAYING for our brothers and sisters enduring through persecution.
now before you say "i cant handle reading a book about horrible things happening to people" this book handles persecution in a way that you can handle. i am one of those people who didnt want to read this book but im so glad i did. did it challenge me? yes. was i uncomfortable with some of the scenes of torture? yes. but right along with that is a wonderful story of how our God is still with us and working for us.

the other book is kisses from katie by katie davis. this is a story about a girl who felt God calling her to live in Africa and love on kids. it is so excellent and im afraid if i tell you any more i will give things away. so no spoiler alerts here. just go read it.

my boy is 3!!

 

i cant believe its already been 3 years since God blessed us with this bundle of joy (and now lots of energy and all boy-ness). happy birthday miles and may your year ahead be one of more feeding yourself, eating real food and developing into the boy God created you to be.
in the pictures above miles is eating spaghetti pie, one of the few real things he eats, so i made it for his birthday dinner.
for miles birthday we did a sesame street theme. heres a picture of the balloons audrey and i made to decorate. i think they turned out perfect.

and here is the boy opening presents, with his always helpful sister.
audrey bought him a book and we got him a super friends magna doodle. the stamps are the super hero symbols, its so cool.

 

 

 

 

 

made a necklace i liked on pinterest

i made myself a necklace that i like on pinterest.
here it is:

went to see the ducks

it was a gray, sprinkly kind of day so we went to see the ducks. and there were ducklings. so cute.

 

sorry the picture is not better. that was as close as i could get and i was using my cell phone.

the great park search has begun

this summer we are going to try out new parks that we have never been to in our area. today we visited one that not only had a fun playground, with the most adorable little truck for miles to "drive" (sorry my cell phone picture wont send to my computer), but it also had a sprayground. those things are awesome. if you dont know what a sprayground is its basically just an area where water shoots up in fountains and they have a few structures that squirt water. at this park it was a spiral and an arch that sprayed. miles and audrey loved it. i liked it too, theres nothing like getting wet on a really hot day.

 

i wish his face was just alittle more turned up because then you could see his oh-so-happy grin.

it was also nice to be the only ones there for the first 30 minutes.

last day of school

i wanted to have audrey's first day of school and last day of school together for comparison. she didnt give me much time to set her up, she was sad, so its not the best for comparison but it was the best i could do.

 

plan for the summer

since audrey was so heart-broken that school was out for the summer i knew i needed to have a plan. so i made a huge calendar and wrote all the activities i could find from the library, art museum, free concerts at the pavillion downtown, fun stuff at chick fil a, plus any other events we had with church or friends or family. turns out that keeps us pretty busy.
i also made a clip behavior chart. if she does really well, like when she didnt complain when her brother stole her cracker sandwich and just let him have it, she moves up to blue and gets to pick a reward. she can pick from: 1. stay up 30 minutes later, 2. milkshake at sonic, 3. pick the movie and have a movie night, 4. pick out an item from dollar tree or the one spot at target. it is working pretty well so far.
heres some pics:

 our big calendar is on the blue. the behavior chart is orange with a blue strip at the top. those other 2 are our chore charts.

 we went to a book fair held at a local church for schools in the area. we got to pick out 10 books each, even me. and audrey got her face painted. we came home with 24 books, good ones, and i loved that the kids just wanted to sit and read them when we got home. 

 here is one of the library events we went to. it was at the municipal airport. first they had a storytime, then there was a short tour, we got to look into this plane, and then audrey made a paper airplane and got a balsam wood plane to make.

 this was when we went to target to get audrey's first reward, she wanted bugles. and we couldnt resist going down the toy aisle and having the kids put these on.

 

thats the cutest little ironman ive ever seen.

summer reading programs

do you sign your kids up for summer reading programs? if you dont then you should.
audrey is signed up for at least 4 and miles can do at least 2.
they are so wonderful to remind you to get reading in every day. and you get cool free stuff. who doesnt like cool free stuff??
so check out your library for summer reading programs as well as: half price books, barnes and noble and scholastic.
dont forget about yourself. our library has a program for adults as well and you can win cool prizes.

so get reading!!

it was a good day

we started off the day by going to a storytime for miles at our library. they had stories and songs and then fun activities for the little kids to do like: wagon rides, 3 different tunnels (miles' favorite), sand boxes and a musical instrument area. they also had a drawing for a target giftcard. and guess who got one?? yup, i did. :)
then the library celebrated their 90th birthday of being open. so they had cake and punch and the kids got horns to blow.
then this evening our local chick-fil-a hosted a mother/son date knight. it was knight-themed and i was amazed at how they even decorated the dining room to look like a castle with fake looking stone wallpaper. they had real tablecloths and roses for the moms. they even seated you and then served you your food. miles got an inflatable sword, a stuffed knight cow, some crayons and a shield to decorate. we also received 2 coupons for free milkshakes. and if thats not enough they had a sand candy (like pixie stix powder) craft table to mix your own candy and then the cherry on the top was the horse-drawn carriage ride through the parking lot. miles liked the ride. at the end they let you pet the horse. miles was alittle timid at first but by the end of the pictures he liked that horse, bob, and cried when we had to leave. thanks chick-fil-a for a WONDERFUL event, as always.
heres some cell phone pics of our date night. what a handsome little man i was with!!