Saturday, March 21, 2009

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KATIE LYNNE BIG GIRL!! :) I can't believe you're getting so big!! :)

Katie's birthday isn't actually until Monday, but I thought I'd go ahead & share that today while I had a minute!

3 years ago, I had a 2 year old!! Can you believe it? Abbey was a little princess & had everyone's undivided attention...then came Katie!! :)

3 years later, and they're bestest of friends...The older they get, the smaller their age-gap closes....It's so fun to see the 2 of them playing & making each other giggle....

Okay, better go...Just had to share that!! :)

Love you all!! :)

Sunday, March 01, 2009

I'm Either Called or Insane...

That is a joke, of course!! :) LOL I feel confident (at this moment in time) about the decisions I've made for our future...Starting this fall...

First of all, I have decided to homeschool Abbey. I think in my heart I knew all along I would do it. I think that I wasn't totally honest with myself because of fear...lots of fear. I have a friend, though, who told me that I would not be a failure if it didn't work out, and that I won't scar her for life!! LOL So, we're "officially" taking the plunge.

That is a huge undertaking, especially since we want to do it mostly for free...that means lots of research & study time for Mommy, as well as Abbey...and it will only become more so the older she gets...

ANYWAYS...

Second is this...I plan on heading up our Awana program for the next school year. I have a bigger vision than just the Awana program itself. I would LOVE to expand into Family Ministry. Maybe this all sounds wierd to you all who are in a church that has these things in place, but I go to a church that does not. SO, here goes!! LOL

We had a huge problem with Awana in the past at our church. Poor leadership, and that leadership tended to focus on the incentives (the kids earn Awana Bucks and that equals prizes), and I guess they became so outlandishly ginormous, and the kids needed so many Awana bucks to buy these prizes, that turned into crazy memorization time, with little emphasis on LEARNING the verse, not just memorizing them. There are more issues, but they largely point back to leadership...The leader wanted to have a "bells & whistles" start, instead of starting small & growing from there.

Well, this cheapskate is all for Oriental Trading-type prizes, with maybe a few "big ticket" items being a lunch box or something like that...Maybe an Awana T-shirt, stuff like that that's not way over the top...

I will have a busy summer...

PRAYERS ARE NEEDED!! Not just for me, although, I will need plenty of them!! I would like to start recruiting teachers this summer (like July & August) so that we can start training & stuff in August. I'd also like to get the congregation to praying & understanding that it's not going to be as dramatic as it was...Learning scriptures are the key principle here, and that should stay the main principle (remind me of that when I'm worrying over which pencils to choose for the Awana store!! LOL).

The second phase to the vision (I sound like a villain giving away his "evil" plot!! LOL), is to get parents involved. A LOOOONG time ago I found these "family day" activities on children'sministry.com & filed them away for future reference...And have recently been thinking that now is the time...to get started...

So, quarterly, we're going to have a Family Day at church, with there being a main focus for parents to be encouraged & equipped to be examples & influence their children by their lives with Christ. That sounds all deep & heavy, but I can assure you that these principles are laced with LOTS of fun!! :) First would be a day about prayer!! There would be a workshop for parents, a seperate workshop for the kiddos, and then they would have free rein to explore different developmental stages & ideas of incorporating prayer into their familial lives (ie. what to pray about, from toddlers praying for their families while holding & looking at pictures of them, to a station set up with a TV newsreel loop & newspapers to open up dialoge with their teen children on praying for current events.) Families would have time to explore these different centers & then there would be lunch (of course, we're Baptists!! LOL) .

Again, PRAYERS, please? These are some big ideas, and I obviously won't be able to do everything by myself, so it will take a team of volunteers (can I just hope for positive-attituded ones?LOL) to carry everything through.

OK, love you all, and if you made it this far without skimming, thank you!! LOL :) I appreciate you wading through my craziness!! I needed to blog about it...