Lego Duplo Read and Build Party

Saturday August 4th the boys and I hosted a Lego Duplo party.  House Party is a company that offers free products in exchange for hosting a party.  We have hosted one other party, The Pull Ups Potty Dance Party, back in March. 

Owen and Oliver both have really enjoyed building with blocks lately. We have a big Mega-Blocks set but they were getting to be too simplictic for Owen.  He wanted to create more but was limited by the size.  

Lego Duplos are an awesome size for him! Our friends, the Lyes, let Owen borrow their set and he has played with them every day since.   Therefore, I was really excited when we got selected to host this party.  

Lego Duplo has a new product called the Read and Build Series.  The kit comes with a small board book that you read to your child  While you are reading, each page has a figure to build out of Legos.  We were given the Big Farm set and the boys love it.  The animals are simply enough for them to build by themselves, but fun for us to do together. 

Onto the actual party...

The food station...here you could build your own edible lego.  There was cheese (cut into little circles) and square crackers as well as graham crackers with M&Ms (held on with a bit of frosting).  To make it a little more healthy, I added a fruit bowl . :)

The Lego mobile above the table.

 The drink station..juice boxes covered to look like Legos (thanks to Daddy for designing them!)

The coloring station with coloring sheets from Lego's website

Owen playing with the Legos while waiting for our guests

 The Busy Farm set with the Rooster

Owen couldn't wait to try a juice box

The Terrys playing with our huge stash of Legos

 More of the party guests

Sadly I didn't get a picture of the whole gang together as some of the younger kids enjoyed the playroom toys more.  Thanks for those who joined us! 

Summer 2012

I'm sorry I've been such a bad blogger.  We've had a busy summer but I feel like there hasn't really been anything really blog-worthy.  For memory-sake, here's what we've been up to this summer.

Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings have been spent at the Y just like the school year.  I have been co-leading the 3 year old preschool camp. It's been a HOT summer so it's not always been very pleasurable to be outside, but luckily the Y has many activities scheduled for us inside.  The pool helps of course. :)  The boys are still going to childcare at the Y while I teach and they have been enjoying their pool times and games as well.

Tuesday and Thursdays we've been for running errands, having play dates, and going to the pool. We have made many trips to the library as well and finished our summer reading programs.  The boys each earned two new books through the program, which was fun.

The weekends have been jammed back I feel like.  We have made several trips to Rocky Mount to work on our house.  One weekend was just cleaning and yard work, while weekend 2 was to paint all the bedrooms. Luckily all our hard work paid off and we are finally under contract!! The showings had been slow coming so we were getting nervous. We got one low-ball offer and could never reach an agreement, but the following week we had another couple come in with one.  They are giving us our asking price; we just have to pay their closing cost! We are so excited about this and are now just praying that the inspection and appraisal go well.  The expected closing date is not until September 15th (due to the loan), but we are hopeful that we will soon be done with this house.  We have never been more excited to NOT be homeowners!

Speaking of buying/selling houses, my parents are now under contract for a condo here on Lake Norman.  They have always wanted a lake house and now with both of their children here in Charlotte, they thought it would be a great place to have one.  The condo will be great for weekend visits, summer weeks, and hopefully as a retirement home. We look forward to seeing them more!

At nights, Jeremy and I have been working on random craft projects. TV in the summer kind of stinks so it's been a good excuse to turn it off and get some stuff done. Jeremy is building Owen and Oliver a train table and I've been doing some sewing and playing with my Silhouette. (Note to self: Do a post on craft projects).

So that's it...that's been our summer.  Low key but busy at the same time.

8th Anniversary

On July 10th, Jeremy and I celebrated 8 years of matrimony! It's been an amazingly fast 8 years! God has brought us through so much and we are so thankful that He gave us each other. There is no other person I'd rather walk this crazy life with. :) On July 7th, we were able to go out and celebrate thanks to Groupon and our friend Emily. Emily graciously babysat the boys so that we could go out sans kids. Thanks to Groupon, we got a great deal on a local vineyard tour.

Treehouse Vineyards is a small vineyard in Monroe, NC that has been open for about 18 months.  They make a variety of muscadine wines that are both rather sweet. Our Groupon gave us a winery tour, tasting, and a sample.

The actual treehouse on the property. You can rent it out for date nights. Sadly it is rented out until December.

8 Years! 

After the tour, we had dinner at Miro Spanish Grill.  We enjoyed reflecting on the last year and "planning" the years to come. We pray that the Lord gives us many, many more together.

Silhouette Fun

One of my first projects with my new Silhouette Cameo was to make vinyl wall art for our playroom.

We have these two great bookshelves Jeremy built in there now, and the wall was very barren up top. I had seen a bunch of neat sayings on Etsy (and I think we ended up copying one exactly) and decided to recreate ourselves.  Jeremy designed, I imported and cut it out, and then the two of us took on the daunting task of hanging it.

The machine at work

Sadly 3/4ths of the way through the cutting, the vinyl began to slip and the cutting began to mess up and overlap.  We quickly stopped it and started that part over but it made for some interesting piecing together at the end.

As you can see from the picture, the alignment got off where we pieced it together.  Overall, I'm really happy with the way it turned out.  We're a little off centered, so why shouldn't our words. :)

Get ZAPPED

This past week, the boys and I got ZAPPED at vacation Bible school. Due to the size of our church and the number of participants, students under kindergarten age cannot attend unless their parent volunteers.  I actually wanted to work so it worked out well. I led a team of 12 rising 3rd and 4th graders around to their different areas.  Areas included were: Bible, Missions, Crafts, Games, and Snacks.

The theme this year was ZAPPED and we studied the life of Peter.  The memory verse of the week was 1 Peter 1:3, "God has given us everything we need to live a Godly life."

Each day we learned about how we can tap into God's power in our life through examining Peter's life.

We did the following lessons

• Calling of Peter (Luke 5:1-11)*
• Peter Walks on Water (Matthew 14:22-34)*
• Peter is the Rock (Matthew 16:13-28)*
• Peter’s Denial and Restoration (Mark 14:66-72, Luke 22:54-62)*
• Peter and Cornelius (Acts 10)*

This entire year our church is raising money to get 2 books of the Bible translated for a people group in China who don't have a single verse of the Bible translated in their language.  The goal for VBS was to have the kids bring in enough offering to translate the whole 2nd chapter of Luke (the birth narrative).  Each verse cost about $30 to translate and the kids were amazing! They brought in over $2600 to get all of Luke 2 and 3 translated!! They were sooo excited!

My boys enjoyed Bible school though weren't sure about going every day.  In the end, they had fun and made the sweetest little books.  Owen learned some new songs and we listen to the cd all the time in the car now.

I didn't get to take many pictures, but here is my sweet little group doing water games on Friday.

This is the large group worship time. The kids loved rushing to the front to sing and dance!

(Sorry, I can't get it to flip) Oliver and Owen's little books

I'm looking forward to next summer's VBS already!

Girls Beach Weekend

June 8-10th, my sweet friend Janet invited a bunch of us girls to her A-MA-ZING beach house at Bald Head Island.  My husband was so gracious and let me slip away for 3 glorious kid-free days. 

If you've never been to Bald Head, it's the most amazing place! There are no cars allowed on the island, so you take a ferry from Southport, NC over to the island. Once there, you are taken by tram to your house and then you travel by golf cart the rest of the weekend.  It seriously felt like we had transported to somewhere far far away.  

Due to nursing babies and family commitments, the group was small, but we had an awesome time, just the 4 of us.

Myself, Mary-Ann, and Sara on the ferry ride over

The 4 of us in front of Old Baldy Lighthouse (our lovely host Janet beside me)

Close-up

The club pool we spent the morning lounging by.. I mean serious when was the last time I got to just lay in a pool chair and talk to my friends

The most un-populated beach I've ever been too

Have you ever had so much space at the beach?

The whole weekend was pretty amazing! There was no schedules, lots of girl talk, lots of chocolate, and fine dining.  Janet, THANK YOU so much for giving us the opportunity to get away! 

10 Year "Meet"-iversary!

June 8th, 2002, I woke up that morning feeling horrible.  The night before our Camp Willow Run staff had gone to Rocky Mount for a night out.  We were going from my house over to another girl's house to watch a movie.  Because I knew where we were going, I led the caravan.  Sadly one car of 2 guys got caught by light and lost us.  I tried to go back and find them but to no avail. (We later find out that they just decided to go back to camp, since neither one of them had a cell phone at the time to locate us.)

I felt horrible for losing them, especially since I was attracted to one of the guys in the car (Jeremy).  The next morning at camp, I ran over to his boxcar first thing to apologize. Luckily he didn't seem to mind and I ended up going to lunch with him and bunch of other staff guys.  

While we were eating, everyone commented on what a pretty day it was and how we should go sailing.  We agreed to meet back at the dock after changing into our suits. Wouldn't you know? Jeremy and I were the only two to show up.  We decide to go sailing together...it turned out to be an epic trip! We spent time talking and getting to know each other. While we were out there, the wind died. We were two inexperienced sailors and had a hard time trying to get us back in.  Finally 4 hours later, we have a ski boat tow us back to camp.  

We arrive back to camp where everyone has gathered for dinner, right by the docks.  Of course we were now the talk of camp, but we really didn't seem to care. During that 4 hours, we really got to know each other and began to fall each other.

This year marks 10 years since we took that first boat ride. The picture above was our first picture together taken a few weeks after that trip.  We look so young..and skinnier! 

Jeremy and I were reflecting on the past 10 years just the other night.  It seems like this picture was taken so long ago yet it seems to have gone by so fast.  It's amazing to see how the Lord has directed our path and now we are married with two awesome little boys. I love this man and feel so blessed that the Lord has put us together. I can't wait to see what the Lord has for us in the next 10 years!