Sunday Worship -- Casting Crowns - Nobody (Official Music Video) ft. Matthew West

I love Casting Crowns and I love them even more after watching a Facebook Live Concert from the  living room of the lead singer where his kids were his band!  This is a great song!!

Weekly Photos 2020 - #26

Here's a look back at our week:

Saturday - It was the 4th of July!  We pretty much just hung out at home and tried to stay cool.  My mom came over for dinner and then we set off fireworks later in the evening.

 Throwing smoke bombs in the fire. 

 More fun with smoke bombs. 

 Nate got creative and attached a smoke bomb to his bike. 

 A neighborhood  set off some pretty cool fireworks! 

 Fun with sparklers. 

Fun with driveway fireworks. 

Sunday - We went to my mom's for lunch and that's it :-)

Monday - This was our first day of "water fun".  Nate also had TKD in the evening.

Tuesday - More "water fun" and we did some rearranging in the boys room.

 The boys got much needed new mattresses but, when we put Nate's on his bed we discovered that he had very little room for sleeping HA!  

 So . . .. we took the bunk beds apart. 

So now their room looks like this!  I was not expecting to take the bunk beds apart and I kind of miss them.  

Wednesday - A beach day!  I totally forgot to take my big camera so all I got were these two lousy phone photos HA!

Thursday - The kids had a free day - I had a Leadership Team Meeting and grocery shopping (hold yourself back from all the excitement! HA!)

Friday - I conquered this:

 Before . .. .

and after :-) 

My desk just blows up all the time.  Nate had a follow up doctor's appointment that was finally rescheduled to check on his asthma/lungs.  I made Darryl go with us because I hate (yes, really) the location or, more specifically, the parking garage.  Whoever thought putting most of the medical stuff downtown was dumb.  For real.

I forgot to take photos of our garage - Darryl worked out in the garage a few evenings getting it cleaned up.  The garage door springs are broken and we've been saving to get it fixed.  We are to that  point but we had to make room for them to work HA!  I'm looking forward to being able to open the garage door again after about 6 years!!! 

I also found this photo on my phone:

This was the day of the lockdown.  We had gone as a family to some appointments, went out to breakfast/lunch at Wolfgangs and drove all around downtown the city for fun.  That night came the announcement that things were shutting down.  It seems so long ago!  

So, that was our week.  Our main focus was staying cool.  I'm ready for this July heatwave to break at any point.  Give me back the 70 degree, non-humid days please!!!

Weekly Menu - The one with family in town

We have family visiting this week which means more family dinners!  We usually all gather at my mom's for dinner and sometimes some board games after dinner - my sister-in-law, Lynnette, is a HOOT! and the best person to play games with too! 

Friday - I have to take one of my kids in for a late follow-up dr's appointment (rescheduled from March) so I'm guessing we will grab something afterwards on the way home. 

Saturday - We are going to my mom's  (I think!)

Sunday - Stuffed Shells, Garlic Bread, and Salad

Monday - We will all be gone for the day so we are eating out.

Tuesday - My mom is cooking :-)  I'm making a side dish - I think strawberry pretzel salad.

Wednesday - My mom is cooking :-) Again, I'm making a said dish - I think a nice fruit bowl

Thursday - Swiss Chicken, Amish Noodles, French Bread (HA!  Notice an "international theme") and a veggie

Using the "Nifty Fifty"

For my birthday in April, I was able to get a lens for my camera that is nicknamed "The Nifty Fifty" .  It is a 50 mm lens which is supposed to be one of those "little gems" that is affordable.  It's been on my goal list for two months now to learn how to use it better.  Just before the 4th of July, I did a little reading to try and figure out how to take better photos of fireworks.

One of the tricks of the Nifty Fifty lens is that there is no zoom.  Since the fireworks were going off literally above our heads, it was really hard to get a full shot. 

I was hoping to take a couple of "portraits" of the boys to try a few other things with the lens but, it is hotter than the surface of the sun outside and no one wants to take photos in that kind of grossness HA! 

I hope you have enjoyed one of the most boring posts I've ever written :-) LOL

What We are Eating Wednesday!

So, what new and fun thing did we eat?  Nothing.  I tell you, Nothing! 

Granted I did find these at Wal-Mart the other day:

Cheesecake Factory at home!  I had thought they would be more like cheesecake with a cookie crumb on the bottom but they are more like a pudding cup with a sauce on the bottom.  I did notice, when looking for this photo, that it appears there are also cheesecake slices - I'm guessing those would be in the freezer section - so I might have to check that out!

This makes me miss eating out - I had planned to go to the Cheesecake Factory for my birthday dinner because the one other time we ate there it was AMAZING but we did not since everything was closed down!  Maybe next year :-)

My mom made this great dinner the other night with smoked sausage, corn on the cob, green beans and little potatoes with butter and seasoning - all wrapped in foil and cooked on the grill.  It was super yummy. 

I guess I better find something fun to cook this week so I have a recipe to share next week HA!

Are you thinking about Christmas yet?

I know, I know - it's JULY, not Christmas!!  This wasn't even on my mind until my neighbor, who sells jewelry, decided to plan a "Christmas in July" week for her business HA!  The past 4 years, we always enjoyed Christmas in July at the campground.  Santa always came to visit and brought treats, there were crafts to make and a parade.  Granted, if it wasn't for the pool I think we would have all melted HA!  (I just realized, I should have made this weeks school "Christmas in July" . . oh well!)

Christmas is one of my favorite times of year.  I love the lights, decorations, and planning.  We have such great traditions that I work hard on to make sure they all happen.

What are some of your favorite traditions?  Here are some of ours ---

1) I love the programs and concerts -- On normal years, I always have a choir concert (this year our choir season was cancelled) and the kids have the Christmas Program.  I've always wanted to add something else - a play, a concert -- but it has never quite fit into the plans.

2) Our "Grinch" calendar - This is our Christmas Countdown calendar that starts on December 1st.  Each day we read the card with part of the story on it.  It has gotten better through the years because the boys now read the story.  It does get harder though because the boys are quite as thrilled with little trinkets so I have to get creative with their daily gift.  (Money is always a favorite HA!)

3) The Christmas Tree -  We have a great place we go to cut down out tree which is still a fun tradition.  Plus decorating it is always fun as we watch "Home Alone" at the same time.

4) Christmas Lights - Driving around and looking at lights is fun too.  There are some really great decorations out there!

5) Christmas Eve Service - I feel like this service kind of grounds us into what the true meaning of this Holiday is so I make this a priority.

Of course, the culmination of it all is Christmas Day.

Yes, I have already started to plan for this Christmas.  I have Christmas wish lists started on Amazon for each of the boys.  They are already giving me some ideas as well.

So, to all of you --- MERRY Christmas (in July!)

Summertime Week 3- Links and Looks

I count week 3 as successful!  As always, we did not get through nearly what I had planned!  The main reason is because things took the kids longer then I thought they would!  It's fine though, I'd rather over plan then not have enough to keep them busy.

We continued with the morning individual time scheduled for Tuesday-Thursday.  Since this is the least favorite thing the kids do, they are glad that it is down to just three days instead of five.  Sometimes it's less than that due to our schedule for the week!

Our theme this week was "4th of July"!  I really had fun pulling together ideas for this holiday week.  I also had a little more success finding free things compared to last week.

Monday - We started out our group time with a 4th of July word search that you can find HERE.  They kids worked on it for about 20 minutes but no one finished it.  We moved on to our next activity which was a  trivia scavenger hunt.  The kids had a sheet with questions on it; I had taped the answers around the house.  They just had to find them and write them down under the correct question. You can find it HERE.  After that we played some simple BINGO games. The down side to this BINGO game is that there were only 3 cards so the kids all played the same card and won all at the same time.  They loved it.  Finally, we worked on a 4th of July Lapbook. 

Tuesday - Today they focused on the Lapbook.   We also made Pinwheels.

Wednesday - Our first activity was a Mystery Graph Photo which is found HERE.  This is all we did because it took the kids a full hour to work on this and only Nate finished.  I totally expected this to take about 20 minutes!

Thursday - The main goal today was finishing some things.  We worked on finishing up the Lapbooks, finishing their mystery pictures and finishing their word searches. 

All in all, this was a good week.  I enjoyed the kids projects and I "think" they did also.