Happy Birthday Big Girl!!!

Happy Birthday B!

Today is our oldest daughter's 5th birthday. I can't believe she is already 5 years old. Where has 5 years gone? I can't believe that I am a mom of a 5 year old in kindergarten. Wow! She came into our lives early weighing only 4 lbs. 5 oz. but you would never know that by looking at her now. She's not even a toddler anymore. She is a kid.

We went to Olive Garden for her birthday dinner last night because we have youth group and a bake sale at church tonight. We are going to celebrate her birthday with my family on Sunday. She wanted a Disney Princess theme this year. We picked out her cake last night. Stephen and I went shopping for her birthday presents the other night. Everything has something to do with the Disney Princesses. I don't know when we're going to celebrate her birthday with Stephen's family because his dad just had surgery yesterday but I'm sure we'll do something with them soon. I had been hoping to have her first birthday party with friends this year but I have been so busy lately and I just didn't have time to plan anything. Luckily, she hasn't asked about having a party with friends. Maybe next year.

Happy Birthday Big Girl!

First Day of School

Today was the first day of school in our household. I started kindergarten with B and preschool with H. They both enjoyed their new school books. I also had fun with them. I kind of felt like when I was a kid. I was always excited for school to start but after about a month or so I was not so excited anymore. H was really excited to have her own school books. Her subjects are numbers and art so it's pretty much just a lot of coloring. It's cute to watch her. It's cute to watch both of them. It's so hard to believe that B is already in kindergarten. I'm the mom of a kindergartener. Wow!

Camp Has Come and Gone

Well, as you can see from the title camp has come and gone. We had such a fun and awesome time! Camp lasted from Tuesday of last week until Friday. The weather started off nice on Tuesday but got much colder on Wednesday and by that afternoon it was pouring down buckets of rain. The weather was nicer the next two days but the mornings and evenings were very cool.

I am so glad that I was able to get to be a part of serving and ministering to the kids in our youth group at camp. The games were so much fun, the chapel sessions were really good and the worship was awesome. To lead worship for the week our church brought up a band called Shachah. They are from Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa in southern California. Shachah is a Hebrew word meaning to bow down and worship. They are an awesome group of musicians who have a heart for serving Jesus. They did a concert on Thursday night with their own music. It was fun to get out there and dance around with the kids. Steve was their sound person for the week and when their drummer found out that he is also into photography he asked him to take pictures of them during the concert. Steve got some really good shots that their drummer liked a lot and some of them may end up on the band's website. That would be cool.

Like I said earlier, I am so glad that I was able to have the opportunity to minister to these kids. I shared a cabin with 7 high school girls and the other girl's high school leader, Gina. It was nice getting to know the girls better. I don't know many of them very well since we haven't been helping with the youth group for that long so I try to take advantage of every opportunity I have to talk with them and get to know them better.

I thought it was going to be really difficult to be away from our kids while we were at camp but God's grace got me through it. I was so happy to see them when we got home. These 3 nights and 4 days were just a warm-up for our trip to India in November when we will be away from them for almost 2 weeks.