Jackson's 9th Birthday Party

How is it my big guy is nine?  He was so excited all day today about his party and literally did a count down.  We went to SoGo airsoft gun and the sweaty, stinky boys shot each other with airsoft (BB) guns.  There were a few tears and lots of red welts but overall the boys were pretty tough and all seemed to love it.  Pizza, cake and shooting each other in the biscuits with BB's, doesn't get much better than that!  Jackson said it was his best party ever!

Please send our Pop's back!

> Our Pop's came in for a super quick visit and it was sure not long enough! He came in Thursday and stayed through early Monday morning. He literally watched all three kids while I put in about 30 hours of work in during a 3 day period and Jason studied like a madman for his grad school finals. It really was a godsend because I'm not sure if Jason would have passed if he had to take care of everyone & study. Jason has many strengths but multi-tasking is not one of them. Pop's got to go to school with Jackson on Friday and Jackson was so excited. They then took their annual trip to Incredible Pizza just the two of them. We ended Sunday with a Wii tournament of course. My Dad hopefully knows by now that I would be very lost and ungrounded in life without him and this weekend was no different. So grateful for his encouraging, calming and always humorous presence. Jackson summed it up Sunday night when he went to bed and said "but I don't want Pops to leave". Me neither!!

Crazy Spam day for Jackson

Luthern Schools week was this week and Jackson was so pumped to dress crazy. He had green mohawked hair and backwards clothes. They then had "Spamfest" where the cafeteria served spam hamburgers and anyone could enter a spam dish in "Spamfest.". So Jackson and I entered French fry spam casserole. It was delicious. The whole school sampled the spam dishes and voted on the best one. I thought for sure we would win. We sadly did not however we must have been close cauz our Spam French Fry Casserole got lots of votes. The Spam brownies won. Talk about two unhealthy combos coming together! Gag! Jackson said they were good but I refused to try them. It was a crazy lunch for sure.

Stan the Man

Oh you just never know what you might find when you go in to get Stan the Man from his nap. His hair, his belly shirt, his fist full of "car cars", his beeper hanging out, his knee socks, those long skinny legs, his size 6 diapers hanging out of his 5t boxer shorts, that crazy look he gives you and the list goes on! Stan the man had it all going on today. Time to bust out some of the super cute clothes our sweet Aunt Jill bought him from Target when she had him last week!

Church at Staff retreat

We had a great service Sunday. Jason gave the sermon and did a great job. It was his first official sermon as a Rev. It was funny because he was talking about imitating our creator and how we are imitators of our surroundings, etc.. Smith hopped up and sat right next to Daddy as he was speaking wanting to do just what Jason did. It was the perfect "picture" of what Jason was talking on. Smith loves his Daddy. Love that I captured the moment!

More Camp fun

The weather couldn't have been any prettier and it felt awesome to be in the Silver Lining again singing to Jesus with our staff. MJ and Smith usually at with the blocks and just watch everyone worship. As we finished worship time and it was dead quiet before Jason was about to speak to the staff Smith blurts out "we sing to Jesus". It was so precious. Great lesson to me and everyone in the Silver Lining how much children "pick up on" even when we think they aren't paying attention.

Staff Retreat

We had a great weekend hanging out at Camp Barnabas this weekend for staff retreat! We had about 40 staffers come out plus all our precious Prep people!