{iPhone Rewind} :: July

Aiden's turban nest. He said, "send that to the president." This kid's got jokes!

We had a long stretch of 100-degree days, and the humidity was stifling. Not our favorite summer days...

4th of July flowers from Mike

Maddie was super excited about the free samples at Trader Joe's :)

A beautiful {double} rainbow after a storm

Lunch and a show {our neighbors were having a tree removed}  :)

Happy 15th Anniversary to us!

I wonder how many days are left of seeing this bear on the stairs...

This little guy spent a lot of time climbing around our living room window, flying into our back door, and hanging out on our patio table. I'm pretty sure he was either a baby learning to fly, or he was hurt and needing to recover. I'm choosing to maintain our Disney backyard aesthetic and believe he eventually gained the strength to fly safely away on his own :)

They're both WAY too big to snuggle on top of Mommy, but where there is a will, there is a way...

 

We ventured into Rainforest Falls for VBS this year! Our Super Sloth, Jumpin' Jaguar, and Amazing Anaconda learned all about the nature of God, and it was a fun week full of praising our all-knowing and faithful Creator!

Aiden accidentally left Pooh Bear at a friend's house...and he took a journey to make it back safely home :)

Our little World Cup junkies haha

One of our missionaries from the Netherlands {same one Mike visited earlier this year} has come back to Virginia for the summer, and he taught a class on the 4 gospels: Four Portraits, One Jesus. I always enjoy learning from him, but was doubly excited for this class, as I prepare for our Luke Bible study this Fall!

After almost 40 years of faithful ministry, Milt and Val said "see you later" to our CBC family. We had a sweet morning hearing Milt's last sermon as our Shepherding Pastor, and then enjoying an all-church picnic with family and friends throughout the years.

These two thought it was hilarious to stuff the Pooh bear costume with blankets and have been carrying it around like an extra person. They have been dancing with it, sleeping with it, and I find it propped up in random places. 

{iPhone Rewind} :: May

Mike got to spend time in the Netherlands with some of our missionaries, as well as visit a church in Belgium. It was a great trip, and we look forward to continuing/deepening relationships in both countries.

We learned about the Tabernacle in Bible, and we were able to build it with a Bible Bricks set! I love Eli's complete focus :)

The kids were in charge of watering the lawn while Daddy was out of town...and it went about as well as you would expect. It was mostly Mom redirecting the water flow and reminding them that the water actually has to go ON the lawn, not their bodies :)

Kids are the BEST #nomercy

I had a sweet Mother's Day with cards and flowers and my favorite people :)

Mr. Jesse and Ms. Linda came into town!

His head was cold. Haha. 

We wrapped up the ministry year with our 2 Corinthians study. I love these ladies, and I am thankful for their diligent study.

We just had cold weather and then made it all the way to "feels like 97." A nice warm day for a soccer game. Then it rained, and we were back in the 50s. Gotta love Virginia weather.

We wrapped up our school year! I am so proud of these three and how hard they have worked this year.

Love them.

{iPhone Rewind} :: March

We got another round of snow to kick off the month!

Just a little mid-week Latin :)

I get to serve with Tracye in Bible study leadership, and I am so thankful for her! She always points our ladies to the truth of God's Word, encourages me in Scripture memory, and makes things more fun!

A few Alka-Seltzer tabs make for some exciting science :)

My heart is always full when I study the Word with the women of our church. We wrapped up The Way of Wisdom!

Maddie and Aiden finished 2nd Grade Math, and Mommy rejoiced! On to 3rd Grade Math :)

Eli wrote his own short story and shared it with us

March 12th snowfall. Sure, why not?

We served at Generosity Feeds, and this time, we held it at a local elementary school, and we got to bring Grandma along too

Library day is a good day

My little dinner helper :)

Fun flowers :)

Our church hosted a Seder dinner, and it was great to get to walk through it together as a family. Maddie had a part to read during the dinner.

I'm going to miss when they don't sing in church anymore :)

When sweet neighbors drop off vegetables and poetry! :)

A Fun and Full Grandma Visit

Grandma came into town and spent almost 2 weeks with us! She came in to join us for our history field trip, and it worked out for her to join us for some extra time. Which means, she got to join us for all the day-to-day crazy life things! :)

It also meant that Grandma got the full gambit of crazy weather while she was here. Right before she arrived, we had a beautiful and warm sunshine day. As we were heading to the airport to pick her up, it starting snowing, and the flakes were HUGE! Haha. It was wild. So we definitely had cold weather, but then it also warmed up again, enough to have a tornado warning. So we spent an afternoon hanging out in the basement. Good times.

But other than that, we got to spend lots of fun time with Grandma. Grandma had promised Maddie a trip to the nail salon, so we found a place and she got to enjoy a girlie morning. Maddie and Eli had an appointment in the afternoon, so Aiden got to get some one-on-one time with Grandma and he chose to play games. 

Grandma joined us for Generosity Feeds, came to church with us, joined our library trip, babysat while I was at Bible study and Mike was at Elder meeting, and came to the consignment sale with me and Maddie. And when we weren't dragging her around to all the things {or on our history field trip}. we were reading books, watching movies, eating yummy food, coloring/doing crafts, and playing games. We introduced her to Ticket to Ride and just enjoyed lots of time with her.

We LOVED having Grandma here, especially for such an extended time. While it was fun to include her in our field trip, we loved just having her around for all the normal life things. {And hopefully we didn't exhaust her too much ;) } The only thing that we were missing was Papa. We are definitely looking forward to the next trip!