"Breakout"

Our class - Jennifer, Kayla, Saydee and Connor
Ken and I have taught a discipleship class for several years on Wednesday nights at church. It is called "Breakout" and it's for kids in 3-5th grades. In past years we have taught the first or second year class repeatedly, but this year for the first time we are teaching the third year class. Because we taught the same class each year we usually had a different group of kids, but this time we have been with the same group of kids for all 3 years. This has been a wonderful experience because we have gotten to know the kids alot better and have connected with them more than in the past. There are only 4 kids in our class, so that helps us get to know them better also. One of the reasons we have taught them for 3 years is partially because each year at the end of class, the kids asked if we would teach them again the next year, and partially because going through all 3 years with them means we will get to go on a short term mission trip with them at the end of June to a small church in Oregon, where we will help put on their VBS for the year. This is the culmination of 3 years of hard work by them. Part of the requirements to go on the mission trip, besides completing all 3 years of the program, is to memorize 10 verses relating to leading someone to Christ. Ken and I decided that we would join them in memorizing the verses, so I'm going to list the verses we are memorizing, so I can look back and see what they were some day in the future. Luckily, we had already memorized the majority of the verses, so it hasn't been to hard for us to refresh our memories on them. 2 of the 4 kids have already memorized all 10 of their verses, so they are doing a great job! The verses we are memorizing are: Jn 10:10, Jn 3:16, Rom 3:23, Rom 6:23, Eph. 2:8-9, 1Pet. 3:18, Rom 5:8, Jn. 5:24, and Jn. 1:12

Bathroom Remodel Started

We have been planning to redo our main upstairs bathroom for several years, but it has kept getting put off. This winter we decided to start figuring out what we wanted to do to change it and last Saturday, Ken started work on it, so now we are committed to working on it. This is what the bathtub and shower area looked like before we started work.
Because it was a big one piece shower stall, he had to get his saw out and cut it up into small pieces. Dust was flying as he cut it and that's why the picture looks dusty.

Prying it off the wall.

The tub and shower is out!

Introducing (Not so) New Things

Todd, Betsy, and Seth came to our house last Saturday for most of the afternoon. While Ken and Betsy worked on changing the oil in their car (a lesson Betsy had requested for Christmas), and I put Todd to work sorting through some of his old belongings, I had charge of Seth. One of the things we did was take his first ride in the wagon, that now lives at our house. Seth enjoyed it for awhile, but by the time I was coming back from the cul-de-sac at the end of our road, he was ready to get out and walk again. This wagon first belonged to some kids that went to the day care I used to work at, they gave it to me so we could use it in Kari and Kyle's wedding. After the wedding, it was given to Lara, then when she out grew it, it went back to Kari for Saben to use, and now I have it at our house to use when the grandkids visit our house.
After we got back to our house, Seth enjoyed picking up the rocks at the end of our driveway and trying to put them in his mouth.

I spent a lot of time later that day trying to get a good 1 year old picture of Seth. this one turned out the best.

The next day, we watched Saben and Annika while Kari & Kyle went looking for a car. I introduced them to the old Lite Brite that we had up in the closet. I hadn't gotten it out before because I thought they were to young to do it. Annika didn't really follow the color code on the picture we tried to make, but Saben was able to. They both enjoyed playing with it, even though Saben didn't like Annika using the wrong colors and we ran out of some of the colored pegs we needed to complete the picture.