Pajama Party at VOH

The girls and I had an opportunity to hang out at VOH Friday night and Saturday. We got to put on our comfy sweats, watch movies, and play beauty parlor.

Shelby had fun painting one of the big girls toes.

Getting a triple piggy back ride from Tikvah, Hailey's little best friends, big sister, Rachel.

Daddy's new haircut

Shelby couldn't keep her hands off it. She was enamored with daddy's tickly head.

Isn't this cool!

Bowling Night

We had a fun family night at the Bowling Alley.

Day One All Over Again

Well, today was the big day . . . the first day of kindergarten, for the second time.

Here's a video of the girls taking school supplies in for Ramp Up Day (the day before the first day of school).

We got all of our school supplies put away, visited with our friend Deanna and her daughter Madelyn, who will be in Mr Herron's AM Kindergarten.

Hailey's not quite sure what to think about having a boy for a teacher. I'm sure it's going to be an adventure!

Today after school, Hailey came to my office to do her homework, but she didn't have any yet, so she just played for an hour.

Then it was off to home where we played on the swingset and with Ozzy. He loves us so much he can't contain himself. He's very jumpy!

Have you ever been in love?

Comparisons

Shelby

Does anyone see where Shelby gets her little face? This is an older collage I made when Shelby was about 6 months old or so, but I was struck by how much the little Pooh picture of me looks like Shelby's face now. Isn't that funny!

Hailey

I think Hailey is still a healthy mixture. She has a lot of Brian in her, but I also see me.

Here's our last fun picture. The girls have recently taken up bug collecting thanks to an awesome bug collecting kit Shelby got for her birthday from Grandma Millard. They're getting to be experts at frog catching! I'm so proud!

What a week!

I've not posted anything lately because the week has been over the top busy.

On Sunday night I realized that I was supposed to be going to Nashville, TN the next day. I scurried around to pack my bag and slowly it occurred to me that I might actually need to brief Brian on the schedule for the next couple of weeks, due to its craziness. So here's our list, and the reason that you won't want to try to call until next week.

Monday - Go to work, Jocelyn go to Nashville, TN at 2:30 pm
Tuesday - Jocelyn in Nashville, getting home around 11 pm, spending the night at Vision of Hope; Brian take the girls to daycare at 5:30 am
Wednesday - Brian take the girls to daycare at 5:30 am; work for Brian and Jocelyn; Sunday School Teacher training in the evening
Thursday - Work; Daycare; Mentor / Volunteer Training at VOH in the evening
Friday - Work; Daycare; VOH Graduation
Saturday - World Pulse Festival (which I cancelled going to because it was too much to be gone all day the Saturday before school starts)
Sunday - Church; Last day of the weekend before school starts
Monday - Ramp Up Day at School (drop off school supplies, pay fees and tuition, meet teacher)
Tuesday - First Day of Kindergarten (for the second time) for Hailey

This week is going to be intense!

Have of it is done already and we survived it. The VOH graduation was amazing! Our hearts were so full. So even though the week is full it's still good!

Creation Museum

I know it's been a couple of days since we went, but I'm finally putting up my post about going to the Creation Museum with the Vision of Hope crew. Hailey went with me, and she was amazingly obedient the whole day. I was so impressed with her growth as a young women.

The Creation Museum has had a special place for the members of our church for quite a while. Several of our young people's groups travelled there to help construct it. Our church supports it. Ken Ham comes to teach at our church from time to time. So the Creation Museum has come up time and time again. We've heard over and over how wonderful it is and how awesome and amazing.

But seeing it in real life was more than I could have ever imagined! It's taken me a couple of days to really process it enough to really talk about it, because it was so much more than I could really take in.

At church and in counseling we FIGHT to get people to believe in the authority and sufficiency of Scripture in all of life. Well, the Creation Museum was the first time I've seen someone do that pictorially in 3D. It was so moving, so amazing that I left with a greater capacity to worship God because of it. I felt like for the first time, someone took all of what I've been learning these last 10 years and made a museum about it.

You can bet for sure that everyone who comes to Indiana to visit us in the next years is going to get the "Do you want to go the Creation Museum with us?" question. You won't want to miss it!

Here's Hailey in the beginning of the walk through History checking out some life size figures completing a Dinosaur Archeology Dig.

Hailey's favorite part of the trip was getting to hang out with all of her favorite "Vision of Hope Girls." They love Hailey and Shelby.

One of the awesome parts of the Museum was how professional it was. All the displays were amazing. Along with the Museum there is an amazingly beautiful botanical gardens there as well. There was a pretty cool suspension bridge that Hailey loved.

In the Botanical Garden section there were three beautiful waterfalls and water features. Here is Tori, one of the VOH staff, showing Hailey something in the waterfalls.

Hailey hanging with the VOH girls at the head of the waterfall.

Attached to the botanical garden area was a petting zoo with some unique critters showcasing how God made everything after its kind and able to expand with a great degree of change possible within its genetic code. There was a zonkey (zebra / donkey hybrid) and zorse (zebra / horse hybrid). It was interesting.

One of the most amazing pieces of the walk through history was the amazing, amazing tree of life in the garden of eden. It took my breath away to look at it. It was very, very cool!

Here's an example of the amazing displays all throughout the walk through history. This is one of the displays of Adam and Eve after God united them, enjoying their relationship in the Garden of Eden in perfection. It was amazing. They were wax / siliconish life size figures in a real water pond with amazing decor.

I don't know if these were real dinosaur bones or not. I would assume not, but who knows? I'm not all that crazy about dinosaurs in general but I learned a lot about them, and it was all about how God created them after their kind.

Hailey even got to ride on this little bugger!

Here are a couple of shots of the amazing gardens from the deck at the Museum.

We can hardly wait to go back, to take Brian and one day (when she's a little older) Shelby. Meanwhile, we can't wait for all of you to come visit us so we can take you too! Hailey kept saying over and over how much fun it would be to bring Sunni.

Sunday Funday!

We had a great Sunday!

We started out by a great discovery of a wonderfully warty toad in the back yard. It was the first such discovery for Shelby, and she was ecstatic. She has been looking for her own personal toad for quite a while now, so it was definitely a reason to celebrate. Here's a cool video we got of Matilda Jane, our kitty, playing with him. Apprently, he did something evil to her while he was in Matilda's mouth and it tasted pretty horrible. She started foaming at the mouth. It was hilarious! Well I do have a video of it on my phone, but since it's not as easy to use as my camera, I still haven't figured it out yet. I'll try to do that tomorrow.

The only downpoint was that as we were trying to record this delight one of the more smaller members of our family dropped my camera and it finally bit the dust. When I asked if she had dropped it she said "Just a little bit." Which I don't totally understand, but it is clear it's not going to work anymore. These pics and videos are off my phone, and they seemed to turn out good. So yeah for us!

The girls were the most obedient they have ever been during Sunday church. Both of them actually sat still through the whole service.

They had pretty good naps.

And we had a wonderful Sunday evening service. We had 18 new members join the church this month, and we got to vote on some pretty exciting 5 year goals for our next strategic plan. I can't wait to see what the results are.

After Sunday evening services (which we usually only have the first Sunday of each month) we always head over to the community center, eat supper / snack together, and hang out with friends.

Here are some photos of us hanging out with our friends the Franklins and their little boy, Luke, Shelby's best little buddy. Hailey was hanging out with her best little buddy, Tikvah, and we were all on one fabulous frog hunt. Gracie also hung out with us for a little while too. It was an amazing fun evening - perfect weather, good friends, and a great relaxing time.

Shelby can't keep her hands off Lukey's brother, Stephen. Poor boy, he's going to get loved to death.

Saturday Fun

Today started out bright and early with highlights and haircuts at Christina and Co. It happened to be quite a long morning, and the girls did as good as they could being confined to one chair for three hours. Everybody's heads turned out quite nice, but it was a frustrating morning because they started to get out of hand toward the end. Hailey did better than ever before, but Shelby is getting quite vocal in her disobedience at times, and when someone with scissors has a big chunk of your hair in their hands you're not really able to chase kids around and make them be quiet. So I decided the girls needed to wear off some energy at Columbian park.

We've never taken Shelby to the zoo there before so Hailey and I decided to show her all the cool things we found on her school field trip there this past spring. It was great.

The best part about it - it's free! We can hardly wait for Aunt Jodi and the kids to come visit so we can take them there with us. There's so much to see and do!

The girls rode giants painted frogs.

And they acted like hillbilly children who had never seen water coming out of an elephant's trunk before. Shelby was fascinated, and (given that she has frog blood coursing through her veins) couldn't help but jump, step, slide, squat, shake, plant her little self on top of every fountain we came to. I'm surprised she didn't come out of the park soaked.

(By the way, her fascination with all things liquid has taken on a new turn in the last two months. She has realized that everything IN bottles, cups, etc looks even cooler when it is OUT of the bottles, cups, etc, and she has begun pouring EVERYTHING out of its rightful container, just for the pleasure of watching it pour. Milk in my back seat, water from the cat's dish on the kitchen floor, sprite from the bottle. She stands there, pours it, and squeals with delight as she watches it dump out of the bottle. Hopefully, she grows up to be some sort of hydrolic engineer or something. I deserve some payback for her dumping an ENTIRE happy meal milk down my back door panel the day she decided she wanted to watch it splash. YUCK!)

Look at the two little birdies I found in the giant Bald Eagle nest.

This was a visit for us to see some goats in the barnyard doing their thing as we contemplate what kind to get if we end up doing that this summer. Based on our research, this is the kind we could get - Nigerian Dwarfs. They're good for milk and meat and are considered great companion animals. Obviously Shelby thinks so too.

Shelby is in LOVE! I have never heard so many belly laughs in one hour as I did in the Barnyard playing with the goats. She was hugging them, chasing them, climbing with them, scolding them, mothering them, feeling their bellies for babies, etc, etc, etc. I can hardly wait to get some!

Hailey was very fascinated with the hangy things from the goats throats. I don't know what they are but Hailey kept playing with them.

Then we decided to see what we could discover at the Dinosaur Dig. Thankfully we didn't discover any sand in the eyes. Shelby was so discouraged about her goggles slipping down her face, she kept taking them off. They both kept flipping dirt up with their "discovery brushes" that I was sure one of them would end up with grit in the eyes. Thankfully they didn't play there long.

We finished the day with a stop in the flower garderns where I caught these two butterfly fairies sampling the nectar.

What a fun little Saturday!