Vacation Bible School

The boys had vacation bible school all last week at the church where Cutie Pie has preschool.  They had so much fun!  The theme was PandaMania and the many volunteers who helped  out made this VBS at truly special event.  From music CDs to t-shirts to crafts to photos with a guy in a panda suit to waterslides- it was an awesome week!  The boys are disappointed that it is over.

I really loved the colorful paper lanterns that were strung up in the sanctuary.

The program on Friday was really cute.  The children sang lots of songs that they learned from the week.  All 240 students were on stage at one time!  I completely lost Wildman in the crowd when he sat down…

But I had a pretty great view of these two!  LOL!  I love it!

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Pink Flamingos Aren’t Just for the Trailer Park

Cutie Pie’s sweet preschool Christmas program was last Friday.  The kids did a wonderful job performing the holiday songs they’d worked so hard on.  Cutie Pie dressed as the king in the white robe and did an awesome job of remembering all of the words and hand motions for his songs.  Adorable!

I was in charge of the program committee this year which just added another layer of stress to an already stressful time of year.  Of course I was happy to do it but I’m also happy that it’s over too.  Luckily, I had lots of helpers.

This year’s theme was “Christmas in Florida”.  A very talented local artist (and preschool grandparent) graciously offered to make a couple of cute signs for the event.

Another preschool parent made this beautiful layer cake for the “Happy Birthday, Jesus” portion of the program.  This photo does not do the cake justice.  It was gorgeous!

When the children had finished singing, we all made our way over to the fellowship hall for some refreshments. Cutie Pie was so proud of himself!

When planning the decor, I asked Big Red to stage a small landscape in the center of the fellowship hall.  Since his son attends the the preschool too and he had done it a similar thing at Boo at the Zoo this year, I figured he would not have a problem assisting us.  Besides, it was great advertising for his lawn care and landscape company.  Big Red happily agreed to get us whatever plants we wanted.  We had a Christmas palm strung with white and pink lights as the centerpiece with two concentric circles of tropical plants and poinsettias extend out from the palm.  It was beautiful!

No “Christmas in Florida” design would be complete without pink plastic lawn flamingos!  We had them everywhere!

The whole room looked so festive!  I was thrilled with how everything came together.

We gorged ourselves on lots of yummy food.  We had doughnut holes in three varieties, cheese cubes, tropical fruit salad sprinkled with coconut, pretzels in various holiday shapes, goldfish crackers and pink punch made with raspberry sherbet and lemon/lime soda.  Each of the three buffet tables had a mini potted palm and pink wrapped presents as the centerpiece.  Pink and turquoise glitter snowflakes were scattered around the tables as well.

It was a lovely way to wrap up the end of the semester.

Spring Family Fest

Some local beachside churches in our area got together to host a Spring Family Fest on Saturday evening.  We didn’t have any plans so we decided to head over there when J got back from kiteboarding napping at the beach…  Big Red tagged along since he had his boys this weekend.  We put up with him because of the boys…

The event took place in the parking lot of a semi-abandoned strip mall where one of the host churches resides.  It was not the most picturesque location what with all the heavy equipment, piles of dirt and boulders strewn about but it was fun.  And I certainly can’t complain because it was free as well!

The boys immediately made a beeline for the pony rides.  The same lady from the Spring Festival last weekend was doing the pony rides for this event!  She must be on the church festival circuit 🙂  The older boys rode the horse first.  Big Red completely missed this because he had to run to the bank for dinner money…

The little dudes entertained themselves with the tortoise while they waited for their turn.

They thought the horse ride was pretty fun too:

All four of the boys were thoroughly amused by the pig in the “petting zoo”.  I put that in quotations because it was basically a pig and a goat tied to a Jeep.  There was a table set up with a caged rabbit and a caged iguana in addition to the tortoise in the tub.

There were the usual fair activities like the bounce house, a bean bag toss game and the sno-cone station.

Then there were some more unique things like the foosball table (could not tear the boys away) and the surf video.

After we’d filled our bellies with yummy food from the booths of two local restaurants and finished watching the surf video, we headed over to Starbucks for a special treat.  The boys either had hot chocolate or chocolate milk and the dads had dark chocolate cherry Frappucinos.  I was too full from dinner so I just took pictures 🙂

We had a great evening and ended up seeing lots of people we knew at the festival.  It was nice to catch up with old friends and spend quality time with our children.