Our library, like most libraries, had a summer reading program.
For every 5 books they read (or in their case, I read to them), they got a prize. There were sports drinking bottles, balls, blowup balls, stickers, coupons for fun stuff like pizza and ice cream, etc... . My kids reached every prize and then some. You got a total of 30 books which resulted in 6 prizes plus the invitation to Magic Waters water park for the program finishers party.
That was held on Friday, August 8th. We decided to go and a good time was had by all. Initially my plan was to keep the baby home and just let Daddy take the other two so I didn't have to show myself in my pesky swimsuit. I will use any excuse to not have to use that thing. I ordered a new one, but until that one comes, I have this other one.
Anyway, Brookelyn (the baby) "earned" her tickets too, so we decided that she would probably enjoy the evening as well. So all 5 of us made our way to the waterpark, while I was trying to figure out how to work it so that I can keep my cover-up on.
Then I thought "okay, I am going, I will just stay in my swimsuit cover-up and just stay with Brookelyn and he can take them to the slides." I looked around and saw people that are bigger than me and decided "what is the big deal. No one is looking at me anyway. I have looked worse at the Dells before" and decided to go ahead and go with them. My husband offered to keep Brookelyn for the first part and I took them on some of the slides, then he took them in the lazy river and I took Brookelyn on a tube as well.
We ended up on the big slides with the girls not wanting to leave, slowly trying bigger slides throughout the night. I kept telling them that "this is the last one". And they would go down and ask for one more time.
Finally at about 8:45 and it was starting to get chilly, we did call it a night.
Thank you public library for a great party. My 5 year olds loved it.

Success

Raccoon update

The raccoons have left the building. Thankfully they left on their own without the expense of a trapper.
That happened last time too, except we still had the trapper come in that case.
Since the raccoons left, we had a roofer friend of ours come and patch the place where the raccoons lived for that short time.
Good riddance coons.

Well, another year has come and gone. Another birthday has past.
Not really a big deal, right? Nothing wrong with 32, right? It doesn't seem possible, but it is.

My family was so sweet. 5 year olds are funny about birthdays. My husband was trying to keep everything as secret and quiet as possible. While I went to a mom's night out, he took them to the store to buy my birthday gifts.
On the morning of my birthday, daddy was away at his accountablity group, one of my 5 year olds walked up to me and said, "mommy, daddy hid your birthday gifts in his closet."
I replied, "he did, huh?". So I wouldn't ruin his fun, I did not look in his closet.
Later, one of them said, "don't look behind the 'cucumbers'," while pointing to the romaine lettuce.
I said, "we don't have any cucumbers". I looked behind the lettuce and there was a cake in a bag. OOps.
After my husband returned, one of them told me "mom, we went to Target and got your gift."
I told my husband that if we keep going here, they are going to tell me what I am getting and ruin the fun.

We did open my birthday gifts later that afternoon and I got a couple of nice things from the girls and a Target gift card which I will SOOOO use.

That night he had arranged for "Uncle Jeremy and Aunt Anouk" to come over to babysit the kids while he took me out to the suburbs of Chicago for dinner.
He had pre arranged for a dinner at Ruth's Chris steakhouse at 5:30 that night.
That was the best steak I had ever had. There was free valet parking which we did not do because my husband's reasoning was he was not going to have someone else park our messy minivan.
The servers were in suits and ties and once you were seated, you had personal service from your server. They did not serve anyone else the entire time you were there. It was great.
I wish I would have taken a picture of our steaks. We did take a picture outside the restaurant which I will post later (along with the raccoons that I promised a few days ago).
To top off the evening, my husband put up with a walk through IKEA.

Wonderful Addition to the family --God's family.

Yesterday I was washing the stove and Bethany came to me and said, "Mommy, I want to repent." I looked her in shocked amazement and said, "ok, do you know what repenting of your sins means?"
She replied, "not really."
I said "Well, why don't we talk to Daddy when he comes home and he can help you with that."
My idea was Jason would want to be there if she truly wanted to. I also thought that if she remembered to ask, it was likely and truly the leading of the Holy Spirit.
Coming from the background that I come from -- decisionism and immediate baptism-- I wanted to be careful how it was done. I wanted to be careful what was said and all that. I wanted it all to come from her, and not from me. All to the Glory of God, not to me.

We had dinner and I took a walk. After I got back, Bethany told Daddy, "Daddy, I want to repent of my sins." He looked at her about the same way I did and put his video game away.
He started asking her questions like What is sin? Have you sinned? Give me an example of how you sinned. She was able to answer all of them. He then asked her , " who saved you?"
she replied "God",
Jason "who is His Son?"
Bethany "His Son."
Jason "who is His Son, who died on the cross?"
Bethany "God".
Me "What is His name?"
Bethany "I don't know."
Jason "yes you do."
Bethany "Oh, Jesus". He died on the cross and rose froM THE DEAD." (she yelled the last part)
Brookelyn was getting distracting, so we went upstairs and put her in her crib and Brianna came along too.
We got in their room and talked some more. Asked some of the same questions as well as explaining what repent means. We wanted to make sure she was truly ready. The Bible says, "Become as a little child...". She is 5.
When Jason was sure she understood, he said, "What do you have to do?"
Bethany "pray and tell Jesus I want to repent and ask Him to forgive me and trust Jesus."
Jason said, "do you want to do that?"
She answered, "yes"
Brianna said "I am not ready, Daddy." Of which in a way were relieved. She is her own person this way and not just following Bethany. We pray she will come to the same on her own in the near future.
We sent Brianna out of the room while Daddy prayed. He then told her that he could not pray for her as she had to pray on her own. Bethany said, " you prayed on your own Daddy, and Mommy prayed on her own, because your parents could not pray for you, right?"
We replied, "right"
She then bowed her head and prayed a sweet little prayer and we believe trusted in Christ for salvation.
What a glorious moment when we can see and hear our children come to Him. It brings tears to my eyes as I write this.
What a wonderful addition to the family of God. Now we will start the teachings of baptism and hopefully in a few years we can see her follow Christ in baptism.

Raccoons

If anyone remembers the story about how we had raccoons in our attic, dejavu. Here we go again. This time they are not in our attic, but in our soffits (our eaves). There are at least three of them. They are cute little critters in their own sort of way.
I just don't want them to stay there too much longer. I have an appointment with a trapper on Tuesday to put up some traps to get rid of them for good. I will keep everyone posted on how that goes.
It does cost a pretty penny to take care of all this though, I will say. I will post pictures of the little critters.
In the meantime, I have three new pets.

baby contest

I have been urged by more than one person to enter my baby in a baby photo contest. All it takes is votes.
VOTE FOR BROOKELYN

Here is the site. All you have to do is click and it will take you right to her.

https://www.greatamericanphotocontest.com/voter1/index.aspx?referid=EmailFriends&p=648647&x=.jpg

Here is the second picture that I have entered. Please vote for Brookelyn.

https://www.greatamericanphotocontest.com/voter1/index.aspx?referid=EmailFriends&p=648661&x=.jpg

Thanks and enjoy.