VBS and More

Selena attended her very first VBS this past week. I enjoyed the mornings to myself. We decided to use this opportunity as a trial run for what to expect when school starts. Selena had a lot of fun, while there was a bit of adjustment the first day with the expectations from her teacher, by the next day Selena was fitting right in and doing great. During the presentation for the parents, Selena truly hammed it up, dancing and praising the Lord. At times she appeared to be leading the other children in praise. She truly was her own free spirit.

On another note, I have been putting a lot of thought into my blog. With Selena starting school, and my intentions to try to find time for me, my friends, and then cherishing my family, I am not sure where my blog will fit in. While I don’t want to just stop blogging all together, and don’t know at this point what I will be sharing, I guess I will just have to wait and see. Another side of me sees Selena as becoming so much her own person, and things we use to share with all of you are becoming more Selena’s private life. I do not want to pull her totally out of my blog, nor start posts with no pictures, I guess we will be more selective to what we do share.

I will have to be putting a lot more thought into the content of my blog, so it may seem that I am not around much for a while until I get this figured out. This is not farewell, but mostly just a time to rethink, and come back with just the right material for us. Expect some changes is about all I can say at this point.

Couldn’t Be More Proud

Many of my followers know we were planning a special church service to remember September 11th, and to pay tribute to the first responders and military personnel. Selena had worked very hard all week long to learn “America The Beautiful.” On Friday she asked Papa if she could get a new dress and new shoes, they had to be pretty shoes, of course if you have followed my blog for long you know Papa couldn’t resist this request.

Come Sunday morning Selena was feeling a wee bit nervous about having to get up to sing with the rest of the children in church. I assured her all would be fine, she had practiced hard, and that I would be sitting on the floor right in front of her. She proudly got her dress on and off to church we went. I think by the time we practiced the song a couple of times, Selena was feeling a lot better about performing.

All ten children did a wonderful job singing and it truly made the service very special. We were very honored to have the Police Chief and Firemen Chief in our presence to represent their men and women who put their lives on the line every day for our safety. We also took time to honor the Veterans who were in our congregation. I am not going to show the pictures of the part of the service where we had the two men come up front and honored them with gifts of appreciation as well as a special prayer. I will say this though it was very special.

Charades and More

Selena played her first ever real game of charades in Sunday school yesterday. We were continuing our discussion on family and our lesson plan was about how families learn together. I put a game together of Charades, where I made cards that had things on them that either we do as a family or that we learn from our families, such as tie your shoes, ride a bike, sing, the list went on from there. I explained the game as we sat in a circle on the floor. When it came to Selena’s turn, she happily drew her card, and whispered what it said in my ear, (I had her do that to make sure she knew what it said). Her first card was sing, Selena piped out, “I am singing a happy song!” We laughed, and I announced, “Ooops, I forgot to tell her that she isn’t suppose to use her voice, but only pretend to be singing.” Selena didn’t give up though, she wasn’t embarrassed, or upset, she watched and made guesses of what the others were doing until it was her turn again. This time she drew the card that read, ride a bike. We all got such a kick out of her walking over to the wall, pretending to throw her leg over her bike, and standing in a straddling position, looking back at us with a huge grin on her face, waiting for us to guess what she was doing. I finally looked at the oldest girl in our class and whispered what she was suppose to be doing, so she jumped up and helped Selena figure out some other ways to act this out. Selena was pretty proud of herself since it took so long for the rest of the class to figure out what she was doing. Now that is my little trooper. She never gives up!

I truly have been so proud of how well Selena has adjusted to being in Sunday school, while she is the youngest in the class, she has that drive to keep up the best she can with the older children. She gets along great with them all, joins in on the discussions, and the activities. She never ceases to surprise us with the materials she will read aloud, or to inform the class all the information she has learned. She waits and takes her turn to answer the questions, raising her hand and waits to be called on. Sometimes this surprises even me, since she isn’t use to a classroom type setting, but at the same time I am glad that she has caught on to this concept and understands that this is how everyone gets a turn. She also excepts the fact that she won’t get to go first all the time, I’ve chose to work it this way, so that she isn’t getting special privileges just because she is the youngest, or my granddaughter. While sometimes her responses do not always fully answer the question, she never strays from the topic.

I suppose most of all I am truly feeling blessed to be able to witness this stage with Selena, her first official Sunday school class, the maturity she is showing, and being a part of her first beginnings. It has been a fun few weeks, and I look forward to starting fresh with all new curriculum next month. Then it will truly begin to take on the feel of my teaching style, and flow in the manner I envision. I have a great group of kids in my class, we have fun, learn a lot, and they all get along so well.

Palm Sunday Play

I wish I could have gotten a video of the play, it was so cute. All the kids did a super job. I will let the pictures tell the story.

Papa made a comment this morning that he didn’t know if he would remember his lines. Selena quickly informed him what he was suppose to say, word for word. When it was his turn to speak she turned to make sure he got his cue and was saying his line correctly. She then informed him out loud, “Great Job Papa!”

I do have to say though that after the play, Selena was totally way too stimulated. From there she just fidgeted in church, complained about the new carpet, and we had to get up and go out several times, to get her to calm down a bit. The play was a success though so I guess that is what matters. She had fun and did a fantastic job. 

Selena’s Costume

I had been so stumped as to how to make Selena’s costume for her play. I finally got an idea off a site here on the Internet, sorry I didn’t bookmark it and couldn’t find it to link it to this post.

Materials:

1. Material, (I used a queen size sheet)
2. Velcro

First I folded the sheet in half and cut a hole for Selena’s head to go through. I then had her lay down on the sheet and traced around her body, leaving a lot of extra fabric for the arms and body. It really looked like a large angel since I had her hold her arms straight out to the sides. I cut this out and using the velcro I made a quick seam for each sleeve. We then put it on and having her stand on the chair I cut it to length. We made a belt using the fabric, which I used to tie around her waist over lapping the excess material on either side to make it appear as if there were a seam down each side too. I then cut a rectangle out of the left over material, and another belt like strip for her head covering. Again I used just a little bit of velcro, to hold the head band together in the back.

One more picture of Selena saying her last line while waving bye to Jesus. I must admit I am pretty proud of myself for doing all of this minus a sewing machine. Hint, Hint to Papa, please buy me a sewing machine this year…PLEASE!!

This Past Week

Besides what formal learning we have been able to fit in Selena and I have been busy designing the Easter bulletin board for our church. It has been a week long process of cutting, painting, and making butterflies. On Friday we went up and pulled the old bulletin board down and put the new one up. I was hoping and praying our bulletin board would look as nice as I imagined it looking. Well here is our final display.

We used clear contact paper and painted everything so that when this month is over we can roll this up and save it to use another time. We made the butterflies out of tissue paper and pipe cleaners. It took us about an hour and a half to completely tear down the old board and put up the new one. It took us a full week just to make the things for the bulletin board.

It is always such a good feeling once a project this size is done. Selena was a huge help by helping me measure the bulletin board, handing me things I needed, and just keeping me company. I wish I would have done something a little different for the lettering, but I still think it looks pretty good, if I do say so myself.

Sunday

We’ve talked about this for sometime how all our friends here within our community attend a different church then we do. We are very familiar with the church and attended there when we first moved here. We know the Pastor and his family through birthday celebrations or from seeing them just within the community. This is a new Pastor to the church so we had never heard him preach.

We decided to visit the church today, to begin our New Year out reconnecting with our friends, well how can you say really reconnecting with them when you see or talk with them on a pretty regular basis. I guess it was just something that we truly wanted to do, and it gave us a chance to listen to this new Pastor preach.

While the faces in the church have not changed, there are a few new faces, which is a good thing! The service is nothing like it use to be. Now the children sit through the service, all Sunday school classes are before church. Right now they do not have any children under the age of 5 so they do not offer any Sunday school classes for Selena’s age. For some reason we find that to be lacking in all the churches here, there just doesn’t seem to be a lot of young children attending church, kind of sad.

Selena’s best friend Trinity attends the church with her grandparents, so Selena was looking forward to going to church with Trinity. The children got to sing a song today in front of the congregation. Selena sat on my lap and so inventively listened and watched as they sang. When the children were finished singing and we were applauding them, Selena shouted out, “Great Job Trinity! You Did Great Trinity!” Everyone busted up laughing of course, and Pastor’s wife made a comment to the children that they have a good little cheering section.

Selena did very well sitting and standing for the hour we were in service. She drew a bit on a blank sheet of paper I had, and had to collect all the pencils from our pew, well there were only 4, count them in my hand and then take them back to recount them, but she sat there fairly quiet for the entire hour. We were pretty proud of her ability to last that long. When it came time to leave, and I reached for her coat, she said in a sad little voice, “It’s time to leave?” I don’t think her sweet disposition would have lasted much longer, we were stretching it as far as we could with just that hour. We did promise her if we go back, we will make sure she has a coloring book and crayons. She informed me that she didn’t want to take a coloring book to church, but I do think we will take one just in case.

Yes, we were both very proud that she enjoyed church today, and that she did great sitting through the entire service.

Our New Church Visit

Today was the first time we visited what may very well end up as being out new church home. We were very impressed to say the least.

Selena:

She goes to a toddler Sunday school class that has about 10 kids ages 3 t0 4 yrs old. She seemed very happy, waving to us with a huge smile and a big Good Bye upon our dropping her off. They learned about Moses and the Ten Commandments today. When we went back to pick her up she was happy to see us, and upon finishing her snack went over to find her art work with her name on it. We were proud of her, as this morning she reminded us she was going to a new church and did not want to wear a pull up. She finally learned on Saturday evening that she could sit on the big potty without her potty chair, so we were a little reserved, but she did great and even used the restroom at the church before we left to come home. What a difference this new atmosphere made. Now you need to realize this was her first experience even using a public restroom. Unless you want to count when the old nursery worker scared her by trying to make her go at the old church.

Michael:

I am pleased to say that he found this church very relaxing and he really enjoyed the worship. It has been a long time since I have stood beside him to hear his voice so loud, and radiant as he praised the Lord. I could just feel him truly lifting not only his voice but his entire everything in praise. I loved it!

Me:

I really enjoyed the worship myself. I enjoyed the relaxed feeling of everyone, and the warmth of all the people there. The praise music was a combination of good worship music and old hymns. I truly felt free to worship the Lord in the fashion I am accustomed to.

Overall:

It was a good experience. The atmosphere was warm and friendly, people were not afraid to come up and greet us, introduce themselves to us and make us feel warm. The Sunday school teacher was full of energy and really seemed to know how to relate with 3 and 4 year olds. We really enjoyed the sermon which goes verse by verse through the bible, and right now they are in my favorite book of the bible Nehemiah. We will be going back.

Feeling a Little Confused

I would normally post something like this on my private blog, but I decided to post it here.

We got up this morning, and I suddenly felt exhausted and concerned about going to church. We have loved our church, but as of late we have a situation that has drained all enjoyment out of going.

We tried Pastor’s idea, but it isn’t going to cut it. You see there is a little girl who has a lot of behavioral problems. She is almost 7 years old. Her Grandmother teaches the Nursery. This little girl should be in the children’s church, but she distracts the class so bad that unless she has supervision back there she just can’t be in there.

Grandma made the decision to keep her in the nursery with her. I had problems with this since this little girl lashes out in angry bursts and is violent at times. Pastor asked us to try just taking Selena with me to the children’s church. Ok, I said I would try. I was very proud of Selena last week for the way she handled herself during worship time and in the children’s church.

This morning though I thought Selena really should be in the Nursery with children her age. Why am I banging my head against a wall trying to create a curriculum that will meet the needs of 1st through 3rd graders, and then something to keep Selena busy and interested too.

Now in my mind if you have a sour apple don’t you remove it from the other apples? If you have a child with behavioral problems don’t you make arrangements for supervision or a workable alternative that is not going to interview with the other children? I realize it was my wishes that Selena not be in the nursery with this child, so in one way I can see where I need to remove my child, but what about the other babies to toddlers?

I desire an environment where Selena can learn, not just an environment where she is being kept occupied so everyone else can learn. This has been a very difficult situation for us. We just don’t know which way to turn. We thought things would work out this way, but come on doesn’t Selena deserve to go to church, learn and play with the other children her age, without worry of an older child disrupting the entire morning?

Sorry just had to rant!

One Proud Mama

We made a choice that Selena would not go to the Nursery at church anymore. There is a 6 year old in there that has trouble with her behavior. This little girl is suppose to be in the Children’s Church but due to her behavior, her Grandma chose to keep her in the nursery with her. We were concerned for Selena’s well being so after talking it over with Pastor we decided in Selena’s best interest she will go to Children’s Church with me.

This was the first Sunday that this change has been implemented. I was surprised when this Grandma decided to have her granddaughter sit with the rest of the kids and myself during the worship time, then when we were dismissed, I took her to the nursery.

As we sat down, of course Selena spoke up and asked for them to start the singing, we all kind of chuckled. Once the singing started, this little girl grabbed Selena’s hand and wanted Selena to dance around with her. Selena withdrew her hand and told the little girl “No.”

When we sat back down this little girl got very clingy with Selena and wouldn’t leave her alone, almost sitting in Selena’s lap. Selena politely pushed her away and again told her “No.” It didn’t stop there, the little girl started a slapping game with Selena’s hands, Selena climbed down from the bench and retreated to sit down on the other side of me.

During the meet and greet time of course Selena went with me around the church to shake hands and greet others. When we came back the little girl was laying on the bench with her eyes closed and wouldn’t get up or move. Selena spun around turning her back to her, and grabbed the hand of the 7 year old boy and my hand and continued to worship with us until time came we were released to go to class. We dropped the little girl off at the nursery and Selena followed the boy to our class.

She was so good through Children’s Church, prayed out loud when it came to be her time, and listened very attentively to the story and through the question and answer time. Shared the puzzle I had brought for her to work on if she got bored, and worked hard to complete the activity I brought for the rest of the class.

Now picture how proud I am, I just had a 3 year old who out shown a 6 year old in her maturity, attentiveness, and who made me so proud. Now believe me my prayers are with this little girl who is having problems, I love her like any child, I just don’t care for her behavior. I just never thought that my 3 year old would or could handle the situation as well as she did today. So yes, I am a proud mama right now.

Annual Gifting the Children

Our Church does something that I have never had the privilege of participating in before. They do an Annual Gifting the Children every Christmas.

Today’s service was the Christmas program. Everyone had the opportunity to participate. I had no idea they were going to have all the children called up front to sing “Away In The Manger” so unfortunately we didn’t get a picture of Selena up there. She stood so proud, except she wanted Clarence’s microphone to sing in.

After the service we all gathered in the fellowship hall for cookies, coffee, and punch, while Santa…well he wanted to dress up as Santa but the church decided not to go that far handed out gifts to every child there, even the visitors received something.

There were a lot of gifts under those two trees! It was hard to really get good pictures of all of them.

Selena waited so patiently as she watched friends, and all the other kids get their gifts. They would call out the age and either boy or girl so all the kids in that age group would stand up, then have to wait to see if their name was called. The room was so full of laughter. Don here, the Santa did a great job of joking with every single child.

Selena got impatient and finally informed us that she was 8 yrs old, either that or she thought she was going to be left out. Finally they asked for the 3 year olds. Selena gasped with such excitement everyone in the room heard her. Don, cracked up as he knew she was the only 3 year old. He asked her if she was Selena, and off she ran to get her present.

The package was almost as big as she was, and heavy. She waddled back to our table to start opening it. I don’t know who chose her card off the tree, but boy did they go overboard. She got a 8 pack of large containers of play dough, a Glo Doodle, and a Disney book called The Princess and the Frog, it is a board book mounted on a Doodle board, so that as the child reads the story they can draw something from the page.

There was so much generosity today at the Church, as  no child went away without a fabulous gift, bought just for their age, and gender, and these presents were not small. I have never ever experienced anything like this in a church before.

First Night at AWANA

Selena had her first night at AWANA, last night. She was so excited as we put her Bible and Bible verses in her little Cubbie bag. She did not want to take the CD though, (we have a problem here).

Her Cubbie Leader and the Commander were amazed that Selena recited from memory all 4 of her verses, she is really only expected to do two a night and these do not need to be memorized at this age, but Selena isn't going to go for that!

Back to the CD....I assumed that Selena would be working in the first Handbook, so I had ordered the CD to go with that one. Selena loves it and has over half of the verses memorized. Her leader informed me a week ago that they will be working out of the second handbook, I thought OK no big deal, and ordered the CD for that handbook. Upon hearing the CD, Selena screamed and had a complete melt down in the van. The music is more hip hop which really drowns out the bible verses, which in my opinion are not geared for a child Selena's age. At one point here at home Selena took the CD out of the CD player and told me "Throw this in the garbage, I want my verses!" It seems this behavior continued through group, when the leader put the CD in, Selena would go turn it off an pull it out of the CD player. At least she didn't tell the leader to throw it away!

At about 7:00 Selena grabbed a blanket and wanted the leader to rock her in the rocking chair...now this is not Selena. She is usually so wound up at this time of the evening and won't sit hardly long enough for a book to be read to her. Maybe it was just the excitement. I know that they keep them pretty busy with music, handbook time, and games so I am hoping that it isn't too much stimulation for her. I will try to pop down and look through the one way mirror next week about this time to see how she is doing.

Over all Selena was happy with the club, proud of what she had accomplished, and seemed very happy when I got there to get her, until her best friend had a complete break down as she doesn't like being in the Sparkies and wants to go back to Cubbies. Selena did not like seeing her sad and crying. It was cute how Selena was down on the floor trying to console her with hugs and sweet words.

It will be interesting to see how next week goes! I would love to get pictures of her, but I am busy doing my director job with TandT group. I will have to try to figure something out! When she gets her uniform there will be lots of pictures of her in it though, so more to come!

Busy Sunday

Sunday was the Church Picnic at Friend's Landing, down on the Chehalis River, here I am in my car seat enjoying the view as we drive out there. The first thing we did when we got there was eat hamburgers and yummy pasta salads. Then it was time to have FUN!!

This tube looks interesting, but I wasn't sure what to do. Grandpa was telling me to go through and find Grandma, but I didn't see her so I thought he was crazy. He kept telling me to go through though, and I could hear Grandma.

Oh there you are Grandma! I actually made it clear through to Grandma on the other end. It was fun but I didn't want to do it again. A little scary for me...maybe next time.

Now to tackle the slide, I think I can have just as much fun climbing up the slide as I do coming down it. Chase is looking on but telling me I am going the wrong way. By the way it was Chase's birthday so we had fun in Sunday School giving him a birthday party!

There with a little help from Grandpa I made it to the top!! Chase ran up the stairs and met me at the top. Hey I was pretty proud of myself though as I did make it clear up to the top of the slide!

Then I had fun as Chase and I came back down the slide together! I do love to slide and will do it all day if you let me!

Later that evening my two Uncles and Aunts called and we drove to Aberdeen to visit with them. I was one pretty tired girl, but I still had so much fun!

My Aunt Linda and I

Uncle Bill is giving me one huge hug!

Uncle Ken is truly a big cuddly teady bear!

I kind of hogged the picture of my other Aunt Linda and myself.

I ended up not getting to bed until after 10:00 P.M. and I went out like a log. I slept until Grandma finally woke me up at 10:00 A.M. Hey it was a busy day for me, but I had a lot of fun and would do it again!

They came by the house on their way to Seattle on Monday morning. They brought me all sorts of goodies. A small back pack full of markers, stampers (markers that make all sorts of shapes like Grandma's rubber stamps, crayons, sidewalk chalk, and paper! I will have lots of fun using these in school and play! I have the greatest Aunts and Uncles around!!

Time Flies

Wow! It has been so long since I made a post here. So much has happened on this end since I last posted, I don't even know where to start catching up. We had a great summer, the weather couldn't have been better. In June we found a wonderful Church home. How great it is to be serving the Lord with a wonderful extended family. In July we spent a weekend at the beach and had a blast. The weather was great, Selena went on her first carasel ride and she absolutely loved digging in the sand at the beach.

I have now made up with the friend in my last post. I am so happy too as she truly is a very good person and one I missed very much. I will try to do better at keeping up with my Blog this time and try to get some new pictures posted of Selena.