lots of posts

I finally had the opportunity to publish several posts that I had been working on. Keep scrolling down to read them all!

Baby and girls

Today is my first due date. I still have 4 weeks to go. Baby is looking good though she does like to lay sideways instead of being head down. I like this as well because the contractions I have experienced since March are greatly reduced. I wonder if this is any sort of record for the longest labor ever... My next appointment is for August 5th.

I told Michael on Sunday that with all of the contractions I had experienced, I wasn't really looking forward to going through labor because it meant more contractions. His response was that my body should be well prepared for giving birth. I think I threw a pillow at him.

N is doing well. She planted some sunflower seeds just before Andrew & Shery came to visit. One plant is now as tall as she is and the other is about as tall as A. We have had several rainy days so I have not been able to get out with the camera to compare heights between the girls and the plants but today looks promising.

A was accepted into the preschool program run by the school system. I am both glad and not so glad about this. I think it was easier for me to send N to school because N had been in daycare for several years before I was able to stay home with her. A, on the other hand, has been home with me since she was born. I am not sure I am ready to let A grow up like that quite yet.

With the new one coming soon, I know there will be all sorts of adjustments and routine changes for everybody. I am just hoping that the little one comes sooner so we can get a few of those adjustments out of the way before school starts.

Wednesday Night Dinner

My good friend Cari is now in charge of providing a family dinner on Wednesday nights at Salem. I help her with what I can.

The response has been incredible! We were initially anticipating 30-40 people the first few weeks. Instead, each week the number has gone up. Last week we served about 75 people. And the amazing thing is that God has allowed us to feed that many people on a budget of $100 a week.

Not to say that everything has run smoothly.

One of the men in the church who was in on the initial discussion about the dinners decided on a suggested donation for each person and a maximum donation per family. His pricing did not quite line up with Cari's.

The kitchen closest to where we serve the dinner is in need of a serious remodel. So we fix the dinner in the building across the parking lot and bring it over to the other kitchen.

On another occasion, Cari did not receive the money to purchase the food until Wednesday afternoon.

And there has been some conflict about the fact that Cari has a set menu for the rest of the year.

Still, with all of that, the dinners have been a huge blessing. For me, I don't have to worry about rushing to feed my family before praise team practice or eating at 8:30 when we got home. For others, there are some children that used to come to church only with their grandparents. Now, their parents are coming to the dinner and I have seen them in the service the past couple of Sundays as well. More and more people are showing up for the dinner. I do not know how many are actually staying for the service, but it seems as though our attendance at the service on Wednesday has grown.

Helping with the dinner is hard & exhausting work. But I am so glad that our church is reaching out to bring families together.

Over $1,400

And mostly pennies at that!

That is how much money the kids gave the week of VBS. The boys won the contest by bringing in 162 pounds of change. The girls were close with 142 pounds of change.

We sorted, rolled, and counted change for at least 3 hours each day. I worked with a wonderful lady whose name is also Julie. Her son Tyler helped much of the time as well. The duties ended up being fairly evenly split. I sorted as Julie & Tyler lifted the bags of money. Then they started rolling pennies as I finished the sorting. Once the sorting was done, I tackled the dimes. Julie mentioned the first day we worked together that she despised rolling dimes. I would much rather roll dimes than pennies, so it worked well for everyone.

I never realized though that 3 hours of handling money would be so exhausting!

Then Friday night, the kids put on a play for the parents. There were 5 main actors and in between each scene, the classes would come up and sing one of the songs they learned during the week. N & A did very well. Michael had to leave early for his drum lesson, but he was able to stay through most of the show.

The only problem is that in the rush to get out the door, I completely forgot to bring my camera. Please don't shoot me???

One day down, 4 to go

VBS is here! We got up bright and early to be to the church by 8:30. We were actually 15 minutes late because breakfast was served at 8:15.

Then the craziness began. I was helping with the office side of things. There was only one problem. I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing and the person who could tell me was no where to be found!

Finally we got down to business. Attendance. One word to describe it would be nightmare. Another word would be chaos. My sweet daughter A was enrolled in the wrong age group. Another child had 2 registration forms filled out. Several had used one form for more than one child. In all, we counted 150 registration forms and some how ended up with 147 being listed in the computer.

The absolutely worst part of all of this for me was that nothing was in any form of order. I will probably be sneaking in tonight to alphabetize the forms because I can't stand how they were just shoved into the folders.

So, one day down, four to go!

Heard

I was listening to the radio yesterday. This is not an exact quote, but will be as close as I can remember.

The DJ was speaking about another person. The person stated that today (July 4th) he would be celebrating Independence Day. And then on Sunday, he would be celebrating Dependence Day. Dependence on our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Is today a day of dependence? Will tomorrow be one of dependence as well?

My prayer is that every day we will learn to be dependent on the author & creator of life.