Preparing to Teach David & Goliath

This Week's Story:

Each child will get to take home their own "David and the Giant Goliath" book.

This Week's Crafts:

Memory Verse Wall Hanging that includes 5 stones.

"Five Little Stones Poem"

Red, Blue, Yellow, Orange, and Green,
These five little stones remind me of many things.

Red means stop and pray for courage.
With God on my side never be discouraged.

Blue means it's okay to feel sad.
But, with the right amount of courage, I don't need to get mad.

Yellow reminds me to slow down and pray.
Thank God for His blessings every day.

Orange, this stone is very bright.
God is with me, there's no need to feel fright.

Green means for me to get up and go,
God shows me that He loves me so.

We will be making our own colored stones out of play dough.

This Week's Snack:
The kids will be making "Sling Shots" out of Y shaped cookies, Twizzlers, and 5 malted milk balls for stones.

This Week's Activities:
"Target Practice"
The kids will attempt to throw 5 bean bags into a hula hoop. This will be their warm-up before facing Goliath.

"Throw Marshmallows at Goliath"
The kids will get the opportunity to throw 5 marshmallows at Mr. Clay aka Goliath.

"David, David, Goliath"
We will be playing "David, David, Goliath," which is a twist on "Duck, Duck, Goose."

Happy Belated 2nd Birthday, Jeren!

Tonight we had our first caregroup after taking the month of July off. We missed celebrating Jeren's 2nd birthday, so we gave him his gifts tonight after caregroup.

Madison and Tristen helped Jeren open his gifts.

Madison is helping Jeren open up the gift from Jocelyn.

Jeren's favorite gift was one of his puzzles from Madison.

Cooking for Caregroup

Today the girls and I spent the day cooking and cleaning for Caregroup tomorrow night. I tried some recipes from one of the other doctor's wives, Joia. She started her own EnJOIAble Desserts Blog at http://jmddesserts.blogspot.com/ .

Mmmmoist Coconut Cake

Even if you're not a huge coconut fan, if you leave the flaked coconut off this one, you'll probably love it anyway, because it's such a moist, creamy cake!

Ingredients:
1 White cake mix
1 can of sweetened condensed milk
1 can of cream of coconut (for pina coladas, you'll probably find it in the soft drink aisle)
12 oz. Cool Whip
1 bag (7 oz.) of flaked coconut


Directions:
Bake the cake according to the package directions, in two 8 inch round pans. While cakes are baking, mix the sweetened condensed milk and cream of coconut. When cakes are done, remove from pans while hot and invert (one onto your cake plate and one onto a wax paper covered plate). With a large serving fork, poke holes all over the top of each cake. Pour the milk and coconut cream mixture over the cakes and let it soak in. Repeat this until almost all of the mixture is used (I usually have about half a cup left). When cakes are cool, spread Cool Whip on the one on the cake plate, put the other cake on top, and cover generously with Cool Whip. Top with flaked coconut. (You won't need nearly all of it.) Refrigerate until ready to serve.

The Easiest Peanut Butter Chocolate Fudge

Ingredients:
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup of milk
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup of peanut butter
1 cup chocolate chips


Directions:
Put sugar and milk in medium saucepan and bring to a boil. Boil two and a half minutes. Remove from heat and add peanut butter, chocolate chips, and vanilla (I recommend adding the peanut butter and chocolate chips first, or the vanilla will react with the hot mixture and "spit" at you!) Stir just until mixed well. Pour into greased 8x8 pan. Cool and cut.

Thank you, Joia! I am always looking for new dessert recipes. I promise to share some of mine with you too.

Sugar Free/Fat Free Raspberry Pie

Ingredients:
1 large container of Non-Fat Plain Yogurt
1 large box of Sugar Free Jell-O (any favor)

Directions:
Mix the yogurt and jello in a microwave safe bowl. Microwave mixture for 3 minutes. Mix well. Pour into a greased pie pan. Refrigerate until it solidifies. We enjoy topping it with Non-Fat or Light Whipped Cream. You can make this using any flavor of Sugar-Free Jell-O. Our favorites include: Lemon, Raspberry, Peach, and Black Cherry. This is one of Madison's favorite desserts!

Don't worry not all of the snacks will be sweet. We will also have cheese, crackers, and summer sausage, as well as, chips and salsa. The girls and I also cleaned out the pantry and made banana nut muffins and white chocolate macadamia nut cookies. We are looking forward to seeing everyone at Caregroup tomorrow night. Make sure to bring your appetites!

Practice Trip to School!

Madison only has two weeks before she starts school at Longwood Elementary. So we decided to make a practice trip to school.

Here is Madison standing at the end of our driveway with her lunchbox and backpack waiting for the school bus.

Here she is pointing at the school bus at it pulls up to pick her up and drive her to school.

Here is the pretend school bus driven by daddy that came to pick her up and take her to school.

Doesn't she look excited to be going to school.

Jocelyn was so happy to see Madison get off the pretend school bus after daddy drove her over to the school and back.

4 & 5 Year Old Children's Ministry Class

We had a great morning at church learning about David. We talked about what it means to be a good shepherd. We made our own sheep using cotton balls and clothes pins. The kids enjoyed doing this simple craft. As promised here are pictures of all of our fun. Some of them are dark because we were in the gym and the lighting wasn't the best even with my flash.

Sophia's cute little sheep.

Katherine diligently working on her sheep.
After our craft, we ate our snack. The kids got to make their own sheep using marshmallows and pretzel.

Victor loved making his sheep and eating his sheep.

Sophia's sheep!

Olivia and Emmy Xiang working on their sheep.

Katherine made a big sheep.

Dylan and his sheep. I love his smile!

David posing with his sheep.

After eating our sheep, we decided to practice herding our balloon sheep. We used pool noodles as staffs and attempted to herd our balloon sheep into pop-up tents and soccer goals.

The boys were gentleman and let the girls pick their balloon sheep and staffs first.

All of the shepherds lined up and ready to herd their sheep.

Here they are attempting to herd their sheep.

We then put our sheep balloons on the parachute and tried our best not to lose our sheep. Good shepherd don't lose their sheep.

Here are all of the good shepherds with their sheep herded.

The shepherds are working hard not to lose their balloon sheep.

As you can tell, we all had a great time. A big thank you to Miss Monica for being my helper today since Clay had to work. I am looking forward to next week's lesson on David and Goliath.

Preparing for Children's Ministry

Clay is on call today, so the girls and I have had a home day. They helped me prepare to teach the 4 and 5 year old Children's Ministry class tomorrow.

We made file folder games for the kids to take home and play. This one is called "David's Colorful Sheep."

On the inside of the file folder are all of the "color words."

In the envelope on the back of the file folder are all of the colored sheep for the children to match to the color words inside.

We also made a file folder game called "David's Counting Sheep."

On the inside of the file folder are all of the number words.

The corresponding numbers are in the envelope on the back to match.

We also made "Sheep Snacks," which consist of marshmallows and pretzels for the kids to make their own sheep out of. We will also be making a "David's Sheep Craft" using cotton balls and clothes pins. The "Handprint Lamb of God Craft" is for the kids to take home and make. We are also going to play a fun balloon game. I am hoping to get some pictures of the kids tomorrow as they do the crafts and play the games.

Balloon Fun!

It rained ALL day, so the girls were going stir crazy indoors.

So I blew up some balloons and they loved playing with them.

They sat on them.

They walked with them in between their legs.

They were silly.

Hey, where did the balloons go?