Literally Swimming Through Letter S Week

Well, it just so conveniently happened that Letter S week was the hottest week of the summer.  The Temps. were in the 90s to 100 all week.  So, of course, being the diligent mom I am, I had to SWIM everyday for S week.  Only because I had to though. :) 

Monday we started out with Swimming at my aunt and Uncles house.  We practiced swimming with our back packs on and then with them off.  Tuesday, we swam at Cowans Gap with My two sister in laws and their kids and then Wed. we went swimming at the Stoner's house with Cate and Abigail.  Thursday night we went to our neighbors across the street to swim and daddy got to go with us.  Finally on Saturday, Micah took the kids to Titus' house and they went swimming in his little pool.  I think, if you ask me, These two children of mine are pretty blessed to have had so many opportunities to go swimming on such a very hot week, and the fact that it was all in the name of Letter S week worked out great. ;)

This was swimming at the Stoners.

Swimming at Cowans Gap!!!  Fun times.  They went out in the "ocean" as Christian called it.  Ava called it he Ocean with little waves.  She told her Nana that something was wrong with the water since the waves were not working. :)

We practiced writing our letter S everyday and then we talked about the story of Sampson and we learned our verse.  The foods we ate were anything Sweet, S shaped  Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches, sweet corn, sponge bob snacks, spaghettios, sugar  cookies, and we even got a Super Sour liquid candy thingy from our friend Heather Stiffler.

Hahahah, this was a vain attempt to keep the kids occupied while we were sitting at the vehicle repair shop.  It worked pretty good along with a stack of books we took along to read.  :)

 I had colored sugar my mom had made for me for Ava's b-day party last year and we never got to use it.  So, I had the kids fill some baby food jars up with Sugar art, instead of the sand art.  They had a blast with this idea and it was little to no preparation for me, thanks to my mother who put so much time into it before hand.  The kid loved this activity though I had a hard time getting Christian to actually put the sugar in the jars once he realized it was sugar and not sand. :)  I had to cut him off at one point because I was sure he was consuming more spoonfuls than he was getting into his jar.  :)

Making our fun sugar art.  The kids loved this activity, of course.  Thanks Nana!!!

We wen to visit Heather and Olivia Stiffler on Friday for awhile.  We took them a sweet sugary surprise of brownie bites and then we took them a another sugary surprise.   Ava and Christian each gave Heather one of their sugar jars and they were so proud of them. :)  The other really fun part at Heathers was that Heather had some little girl clothes she was giving Ava and so we had a surprise fashion show and she tried and modeled all the clothes for us so we could watch her SHOW.  She kept making us laugh as she posed and smiled all different ways.

These are the Super Sour Surprises that Heather gave the kids. :)  Their faces were priceless when they first tried them.  Heather got a picture but I missed it. 

Another fun activity we did was we made a shoe collage.  I had a few kohl's magazines and other magazines so I told them to go through and cut out lots of different shoes.  Then we glued them all onto a piece of paper and made a pretty collage.  Ava really enjoyed this activity since she enjoys shoes period.

We also went to Grandma and Pappy's house on Thursday to Husk, Cook, Cut-off, and Freeze 500 ears of sweet corn.  This was quite the undertaking and we were very tired after this job.  We came home and took a little SLEEP.

The kids used some of the boards and strings we had to practice sewing for S week too.  This was a fun activity and it occupied them for quite awhile.  Ava wants to learn to sew like her Nana  and Grandma.

Over all, it was a super swell week.  I am glad it is over and now we are starting on the next letter but I have to say, with all the swimming it entailed, S week was my absolute favorite Letter of all. :)

Christian's Big Catch of the Day

A few weekends ago, we decided to go out with Troy and Carrie and Titus for breakfast and then to Gettysburg for some rock climbing.  By the time we were finished with our breakfast, we realized it was so hot out that we were gonna melt if we proceeded to go rock climbing, so we opted to have a quick switch of plans.  We decided to go home, get our weed eaters and head down to our camping sight at the jig to let the kids go fishing.  Micah had just bought the kids each a small fishing pole of their own, so we were excited to use them.

I sent daddy to the store to get them one that they could both use, he broke and bought two, one girlie one and one boyish one. :)  Softy!!!

It didn't take very long for the kiddos to decided it was too boring to sit still and be quiet while waiting for a fish to bite, so they went a little further down and splashed around for awhile while us parents sat and manned the fishing poles.  They did however like putting corn and worms on to bait their hooks.

Christian was sooo excited. . .I love the look of anticipation on his little face in these two pics.  He was so ready to catch a big fish.

Here Daddy is helping Ava set up her pole.  She got bored, went to play and then came back when daddy saw that she got a bite.  She helped daddy reel it in and she was so excited.  However, she was a bit disappointed that her fish was the smallest catch of the day. :)

Troy and Carrie fished also.  Troy got two bites and he called Titus over to help him reel them in.  Titus reeled one in all by himself and did pretty good but the fish unfortunately swallowed the hook which made for a sad fish.  Titus was just really proud though.

Titus was actually the first catch of the day.  This made Ava and Christian REALLY want a fish on their poles too. :)

The best part of the entire day was when Christian's little pole caught the BIGGEST FISH of the day.  His first fish ever and I couldn't tell you who was more proud and excited. . Daddy or Christian.  It is fair to say it was a pretty good toss up, but both were ecstatic.  It was a large Bass and it was jumping and fighting the entire time.  It took three minutes to reel it in and Micah almost lost Christian's pole twice.  The pole was bending so far I was sure it was gonna snap.  The pole did hang in there though.  At one point, Micah asked Titus for his net, pictured in the above photo, and when he went to use it to scoop up the fish, he realized it wasn't even big enough to hold the fish.  Christian's eyes were priceless and the fish put on quite the show, jumping in and out of the water and fighting for its life. 

My favorite part was seeing how proud little man was.  He was SO excited.  After things settled down, he went to Carrie first and asked if she saw his fish.  Then after she congratulated him, he headed over to Troy to ask the same question.  He continued to do this until he had made sure we had all seen and heard his big fish story.  I couldn't have been happier for him.  It was a great catch. 

Carrie caught a lot of pieces of plastic and junk.  Sometimes a tree or two.  However, we did have fun making fun of her. :)  I couldn't say much, I couldn't even cast right.

Oh and here is another picture of Bean and her fish.  She wasn't scared in the least of the slimy thing. :)  Not a bit like her mama.  Thank goodness. :)

We had a great afternoon and the kids are still talking about their time there.  We are headed back labor day weekend with the family so I am sure we will be fishing again. :)  Ava did find a small toad she played with for the better part of the day, but then we set it free. Not sure there was much life in the poor thing anymore, but hey, she did set it free. :)  Great time with friends.

Rocking and Rolling for Letter R Week

We did some different stuff for Letter R week. We did alot that had nothing to do with the regular suggestoins on the cirriculum because I didn't have time to look ahead, so we just talked and worked with R alot on our own.  It was a REALLY fun week and letter.

The first morning we made Ropes of Rings with construction paper to count down the days Till our upcoming Beach Trip.  The kids did this all morning. They cut their own strips of paper for the most part and then glued, or taped, or stapled them together.  Christian got tired, of course, ;) so Ava promised to make his long for him.  However, she did tell him that she was going to make hers a little longer than his and this was a battle but hey, nothing like some good old sibling RIVALRY to start off our letter R week. :)

Since this seemed a bit harder for little man to figure out and he got bored, I revamped my lesson plan and drew the Letter R and had him cut it out and glue it on a Red piece of paper.  He did really well with this activty and he was so proud to show daddy when daddy got home.

Some of the activites we did was of course our memory verse.  The verse was Phillipians 4:4 and it says

Rejoice in teh Lord always, I say it again Rejoice.  We memorized this verse, talked about what it meant to rejoice and then we learned the song that goes with this verse. :)

We also worked with Rainbow colored Rice as one of our crafty ideas.  This was recommended in the cirriculim and we had so much fun with this one.  I had colored some rice awhile back and so I got it out and paper and glue and then we started our creations.  We made lots of doodles and designs and then at the end we made a RICE RAINBOW and a Red Rectangle out of Red Rice.  While we did this we discussed why God sent the rainbow, what it stood for and what promise it was to us.

Here is Ava with one of her random designs and Christian with his Red Rectangle. Ava says we should do this craft EVERY DAY.

Then since it was R week, we decided to have Cousin Renee over for a slumber party.  She was so much fun and the kids were hanging on her pretty much the entire time.  While Renee was with us we did lots of fun things like making a pinata for Reece's Birthday Party. :)

We ate Roman Noodles, or Ashlyn soup as they call it because their cousin Ashlyn eats it all the time.  We also had a Relaxing time of Reading where we sat and Read for a whole morning.  Maybe 45 minutes straight.  We talked about what Rest means and we started daily REST time just for the week of Letter R. This was not a welcomed activity by the two kiddos but mommy thourougly enjoyed this one. For our servive we offered a friend of ours a ride somewhere because their car had broken down, but she didn't take us up on the offer.  We talked about what it meant to be rewarded for doing good things and we used lots of M&Ms as a reward system that week.

The kids colored a picture of a rainbow and they also made a book of coloring pages with angry birds on them for Reece for his Birthday.  We practiced writing the letter R everyday and they did pretty good with getting that down.

It rained one day, so yes, I allowed them to go out and dance in the rain.  This was a highlight for them. They took out an umbrella for awhile and then decided to just dance and run in the rain, no shelter. :)

Finally, we thought for the ending of a great week, we would go to our cousin Reece's Five year B-day Party.  It was so fun and we had a blast and it was a perfect way to Rope in R Week.

Ava Loses a Tooth

Well, we have hit another HUGE landmark in our growing up years.  Ava has had a loose tooth for a few weeks.  Daddy has taken time each night or so to help and work on it but it wasn't quite ready yet.  The other night, after Reece's Birthday party, we were dropping Kesley off at her house.  We went in and while we were visiting, Ava mentioned her tooth was even more loosened.  This got all of us excited and we were all encouraging her to let daddy pull her tooth.  She was nervous, but we kept encouraging. 

Aunt Lori, Uncle Scott, Kelsey, Christian, Micah and Myself were chanting and cheering her on and I think she felt a little bit like she HAD to do it for us.  She finally allowed and before we knew it, out came her first tooth.  Aunt Lori, being the awesome aunt, ran to get her a glass of soda to wash down the blood. :)  After it stopped bleeding, she was the proudest little girl ever.  She kept running her little tongue over her hole in her mouth and saying how funny it felt.  She was caught smiling really hugely for the next few days, just hoping others would NOTICE her missing tooth.  Of course, we told all so they would remark and make her feel even that much more excited.

That night, we told her to put her tooth under her pillow and the tooth fairy would bring her money.  The tooth fairy in this house is very cheap.  See, we have a DISNEY PIGGY BANK we are putting all our loose change into in the hopes that we will someday return to Disney.  Well, that Disney Bank actually had a few dollar bills in it and so, as you can imagine, there was one less dollar in the bank that night.  But be assured, the next day in all her excitement, she did exactly what we hoped she would.  "Mommy, Daddy, I got a dollar from the tooth fairy!!! Lets put it in the Disney Bank!!"  We all thought that was a great idea. :)  Don't knock us, we were being creative. :)

Look at that cute little gap.  I love it. She wanted me to take a picture that moment, because she was so afraid the other tooth would pop into place right away. :)

In this picture with her cousin Sharon, she was trying to show off her first lost tooth. :)

P.S. Christian has NO loose teeth yet, but he talks about his loose tooth all the time.  He is just sure he has one and the tooth fairy is coming to see him every night, or at least that is what he tells me. :)

Overcome by Spirit of Thankfulness

The definition of THANKFUL


1: conscious of benefit received




2: expressive of thanks


3: well pleased : glad


— thank·ful·ness noun


 That describes the awesome feeling Micah and I have been having for a few weeks but finally spoke of it to each other two days ago.  Let me start a little bit earlier in our story:
 


So, things have been like a roller coaster since we got married, started having children and made a life for ourselves.  Like everyone reading this entry, we had our UPS and DOWNS, our MOUNTAINS and VALLEYS.  There were times when we were on top of the world and times we were struggling to our heads above the raging waters.  Luckily, God blessed us with very supportive parents on both sides and very supportive family so we could get to the other side. 


I am not going to go into the details in this entry, of all the ups and downs, but I am going to say what happened this week.  I was feeling it and Micah expressed it in words.  We looked at each other in wonder for this is a GREAT place to be.  Praise GOD!!  He said to me, "I am just overwhelmed by a spirit of thankfulness and gratefulness for all God has given us and done for us."  I was feeling the very thing he had just put into words.  So here we are and I am going to give a few reasons why we are thankful: 


Our Reasons for Giving Thanks:


1. Two very healthy and loving children that we enjoy every moment with and we often look at each other and wonder what we did that made us worthy of raising these two special children in God's eyes.
2. A wonderful Home that we love the location and everything about it.  It felt like home the first day we stepped foot in it and at this point it seems like we may never leave it.
3. A marriage that God has revived and showered with his blessings and we are completely in awww of this one.  But we consider it the greatest blessing/miracle and embrace it.
4. That he spared my life and gave us the opportunity to have more time on this earth as a family before he calls us home to him in Heaven
5. For sparing little man when he was burnt with coffee and though it looked bleak for him, God intervened and miraculously healed his whole body, leaving only a small scar in a very inconspicuous place to remind us of his miraculous power in our lives. 
6. For the PROVISION over the four months that Micah was out of work.  We were able to keep our house, vehicles and still eat. :) It ended up being something, that though Satan meant for it to be a curse, God used it to bless us.  HE gave us time together as a family and we enjoyed and took advantage of every day.  He provided things for us in so many ways and the verse that talks about how we shouldn't worry about what we will wear or eat, or where we will live, yup, he took care of it all.  It seemed more like a huge long vacation than anything bad.
7. For family and friends that love us and support us and for the memories we have made and will continue to make through the years.


There is so many more things that are overflowing in my heart right now, but I can't go into all of them.  Partly because this would be an extremely long post and mostly because my kids are in the living room shouting, "mom, please get off the computer!"  so I must abide. :)


However, I do want to say that times are not always peaches and cream.  We all have had and still have Ups / Downs, and Mountains / Valleys, and just times when things are not looking good. I guess my challenge for myself and for anyone reading this is keep your eyes on HIM.  He really does have a plan and it is so much bigger and so much greater than anything we could ever imagine. :)  Satan will spend his time here trying to pull us down and KEEP us there but if we keep our focus on the things of GOD, we will prevail. :)


I leave you with this last word:

Matthew 11:28
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.








1 Chronicles 16:8


Give thanks to the LORD, call on his name; make known among the nations what he has done.


I challenge you to take these verses to heart today and make a list in your mind or on paper, of all God has blessed you with.  You may be surprised how many blessings you can actually come up with. :)

Quizzing and Quilting our way through Q Week

This happened to be a little easier than I expected.  Q is a hard letter to teach and I was worried about how I was going to find enough things to do and also how I was going to find a way to explain how and why Q goes with U.  We explained that it had to do with the fact that Q was a bit shy so he travels with letter U for security.  Then we discussed all the fun Qu words. 

We talked about queens of course and how they are the mothers of Princesses.  This got their attention.   Then we read the story of Queen Esther and explained how awesome it is that God placed her in the right place at the right time, and then used her to save his people.  We talked about how God can do that for us too. Then we also did a devotional on a letter Q and we focused on the word Questions.  How we have so many questions and we don't always know the answers.  Then we talked about to many of our questions we can find the answers in the Bible. We made up a questionnaire and sent it to Nana, pappy, grandma, pappy, Micah and myself.  The kids had fun making the questionnaire and then reading the results.  Ava especially loved this project.

We worked with Quarters and talked about how things many pennies made a quarter, and how much a quarter was worth.  How many quarters it takes to make a dollar too.  Then we had a quarter toss with quarters and cups and we set it up like the dime toss at the carnival.  The kids thought this was so cool since we had just recently been there at the carnival and played this game.  Daddy even joined in and played along.

They had so much fun and daddy had a bum knee, so they brought out the quarter toss game to him. :)

Some of the foods we focused on were Quaker Oats oatmeal, and we made some Quick Quencher drink of orange juice, grape juice, and lemonade.  We used the recipe in the curriculum. 

Some of our activities were coloring a Q shaped as a quarterback for football. This was an activity Christian liked and he really enjoyed putting the face on the quarter back.  We also made a quilt page out of Apple Jacks and glue and this was a fun activity they did and ate while they worked.  Ava worked on patterns with the colors and Christian just pasted them on randomly.  They also practiced writing Qs on the dry eraser board and chalkboard. 

The best part of the week was the excuse we had to play the QUIET game over and over and over again.  you get the point.  This was a huge part of our week. :) I think we will play a game similar to this game on S week, but we shall change the name to the Silent game. :)  However, all said and done, we spent quality time together learning about Q.

Vacationing with Our Bumbaughs

Ocean City Maryland is the most loved vacation spot for many a years.  There are tons of good memories made and more yet to come.  I remember my first vacation with the Bumbaugh Family was in August 2001, when I went on a special NANNY BUMBAUGH BEACH TRIP.  Kesley, my youngest Bumbaugh niece, was only about 4 months old and so very adorable.  I was really glad I went because that ended up being the LAST trip with Nanny to the beach and I was glad I got to experience it.  Micah and I were sort of dating at the time. :)

Anyway, so three years ago, we did another Bumbaugh Family Trip and we had so much fun, we scheduled another one summer of 2011.  It was the finale to celebrate the Bumbaugh Family Singers as they were retiring. We had tons of fun!!! We even tried to do a sort of winging it photo shoot down by the water, and we had Johnny lined up as our photographer.  The above picture was my favorite of all the pictures because it kind of just shows a little of character in each person. . and our personalities are shining through.

We spent everyday on the Beach and then the evenings were up for lots of activity.  We mini golfed, rode go-carts, got Henna Tattoos, walked the boardwalk, and of course ate at Phillip's Seafood Restaurant one night and Tommy's Cheese Stix the rest of the evenings.

At one point our guys were all out and in the water, and the waves were rough that day.  One life guard came out to Save the group and he was very surfer dude like. He was telling them how he was getting all his buddies together because he thought they were going to have to come out for "a Party Pool, Man"  hahaha.  The guys all say they were fine but had to laugh about it. 

Garrett and Isaac were interested in making sure they rented the umbrellas each day so they could talk to the pretty umbrella girls.  And our scopes girl was cute so Micah asked if she would let us take a picture of her with Thomas, Garrett, and Isaac. I think he slightly embarrassed them but not bad enough that they turned down the opportunity. The boys also were really working the boardwalk, trying to get girls numbers.  Thomas grabbed Renee by surprise and threw her in the water.  Kelsey and Ava played Life Guard and practiced saving each other in the shallow water.  Christian simply loved to get buried in the sand every day.  Sharon bought her hermit crabs and named them Max and Ruby.  Christian and Ava each got tattoos and we all got ice cream almost every night. 

Margaret and Harry had a room next to ours, so we literally spent most of our time hanging out between the two rooms, since Grandma brought so much food.  One night the girls all had a slumber party in Fawn and Jeff's room and watched Sharon's hermit crabs.  Fawn made us a big breakfast one morning and we all went up to eat bacon, eggs, potatoes, and sausage.  So yummy.

I love this family!!!

Memories with Mom and Dad

For my entire life, I have always had a set of grandparents living in Missouri and a set living in Pennsylvania.   We of course, lived in Pennsylvania, so we always anticipated the rare once a year visit from our Missouri grandparents.  The time flew by way too fast but we always made great memories and had lots of fun together.  We made the best of every second. 

Saying all of this, I never imagined that my kids would someday face the same situation.  A few months ago, my parents moved to Missouri to be near my mom's family out there.  It truly is a great blessing and yet, we all miss them so much here.  The grand kids are crazy sad about it but they are learning to cope, as we all are.  Change is not ever easy and adjusting is a challenge but we are all working through it and will be alright in the end.  God will see to that.

So, a few weeks ago, my parents came to visit all of us here in Pennsylvania. :)  We were so excited and since we only had two weeks, we planned to pack every second full of fun and memories. 

 We spent our time with some of a these activities:

Watching movies, late night talks, early morning talks, Hershey Park trips, picnics outside, swimming parties, lots of good food, reading books, tea parties, shopping, hair cuts, sleepovers, baby deliveries, and many many more.  If you thought we couldn't pack all this into two weeks, you were right, except we did because we basically just didn't sleep!!! We figured we could make up for our lack of sleep once they went home.  Well, dad still slept some. ;) 

Family dinners. . .

Meeting New Grand babies.  Nana meeting Roman for the first time and then helping Christian to hold Roman when he met him for the first time.

Nana was supposed to take the boys on a date but then we decided to keep them at home. . . they were a little hyper and running around screaming some choice words like Poopy head and Poopy butt, so we chose to get them food ordered in and eat at the house. :)  I love this picture of them with Nana though. :)

Swing rides with Nana and date nights with Pappy.  P.S.  Pappy, it is the door with the two fish on it. :)

Okay, we were a little "Hershey Park Happy!!!"

WE did have a great time and looking forward to the next visit. :)  Love you Mom and Dad!!!