Fun with friends

We have been busy enjoying our friends. It is now less than 6 months before we move, so it's hitting me how much we will miss all our good friends here. 

Last week when I picked Emma up she said she wanted to go home with a friend, so I let her this Wednesday. I always have a meeting on Wednesday afternoon that I have to leave to pick her up, so this time I had a friend pick her up so I could stay. They were all excited.

Playing with Liam. Liam LOVES Emma. I am only known as "Emma mom." And every other girl is Emma. It's cute. 

Emma is in Sparks at Awana this year. IShe got her new book and red vest on Wednesday. She has been pretty nervous about going into a new class, but we have been having conversations about being brave and making new friends. She has done pretty good though.

We help clean her classroom 3 days a week, and Siri and Eleia like it when Emma pretends to be their teacher. I think she is very bossy. I tried to tell Emma, "you are not their boss," but they said, "yes she is." So I just let them play. She seems to think she is everyone's mom at school. Always helping her friends. Her teacher even moved a little girl next to her that needs extra help. There is a limit, that we are learning...some things only a mom should do. ;) 

Sick Sunday

It turns out Emma had strep. It has been going around here, so we went to urgent care on Saturday and got some antibiotics. I had to notify people that I wasn't going to be at chapel, and get a few things taken care of, but it turns out others weren't feeling well either, so we ended up canceling all children's activities and our special Sunset Sunday Night. Emma was sad we didn't go, so we had home church. We dressed up, sang, worked on her Awana verse and read Bible stories. We also skyped, watched football, and enjoyed our rest day. Oh, and Emma made me a snack. 

She was singing.

She made us hot chocolate, that was actually cold.

My sandwich that she made me: blueberries, sour cram, yellow mustard, and cheese. With a mayo and chews sauce on the side. She was so proud of herself. I wasn't going to eat it, but then she almost cried," but I made it for you , mommy." So I managed to eat the edges, then she finished it. Apparently she liked it. 

Our bulletins from home church.

Too bad we had to cancel Sunset Sunday Night, we had a great Sunset!

Color project

The kindergarten homework this month was a color project. They could do anything with color they wanted , so we looked on Pinterest and Emma picked flowers. When she was feeing better last Saturday, we stopped by Walmart before getting my new phone, and picked up some white flowers. When we got home we put each stem in a different color of water. 

Red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple.

Starting to turn colors.

At school! Pretty flowers!

Busy and sick days

Well, we just can't get better around here. Emma came home after school today pretty tired and snugly, and it turns out she has a fever again. I do not have a fever, but I also have not had a voice for 2 days. Tomorrow we are staying home and resting. We both need it. I have been busy at chapel this week, but thankfully we are slowing down and all this extra stuff won't continue. 

Home sick on Monday

Sleepy, sick girl.

My sous chef stirring chili. We have been trying to eat healthy, but she hasn't been eating good, so I just  decided to make some comfort food this week.she has eaten much better.

We were buying plants for chapel, and found this at Lowes.

Making chicken and wild rice soup. We are Olaf!

Super Serve Thursday! Planting plants with Ch. Tangen and Courtney, a new girl at chapel.

Medicine buddies!

Family Retreat at Mount Hermon

Note: this post should have been right after our Kansas trip, before the aquarium. I didn't realize it hadn't posted until now. Don't think my new app is working right. :/

If you have been wondering why you haven't heard from us in a while, it is because we have been soooo busy! After our trip to Kansas, Steven came back for a couple days, then we got ready to leave again for the Beale AFB Chapel Protestant Family Retreat at Mount Hermon. We got our suitcases out a week after we put them away. So the very next Sunday, we left for Mount Hermon, which is about 3.5-5 hours away depending on traffic. It was such a good time with our chapel family. We really enjoyed getting to know everyone better, and have other people cook and clean for us. :) Mount Hermon is up in the redwoods by Santa Cruz. They have been doing this camping thing for 109 years...they have it down, and are usually doing several camps at a time. They have zip lines, ropes course, train rides to the Santa Cruz Boardwalk, and this year they offered sailing. There are worship times in the morning and evening, and an option for specific classes on things like marriage and parenting. The childcare is great, more like day camp, and the kids loved it. It was good...but man do they keep you busy! Emma and I took naps most afternoons, and quite frankly still should have done less..but it was really nice to connect with everyone and just get to enjoy one another. 

We ended up with one of their newly renovated rooms! 

Emma had a trundle bed.

She thought it was so cool!

I took a picture of someone else's paper to remember it, but you can see the classes they had. 

We got ice cream one day for a snack. Mine was called heaven..it had peanut butter and brownies in it. 

Chaplain Tangen was having fun being silly with Emma on the train ride. 

They were making fun of us for missing daddy. 😂 

The ocean! I wish we could have stayed longer.

We couldn't stay at the boardwalk for long, we desperately needed a nap, but I let her play one game.

Sorry this is sideways, but Ms Holly came by and played some Guess Who with Emma. 

We had lots of fun just hanging out. Holly did Emma's hair. Emma dressed up her bear.

Landon and Emma headed to pajama night.

They had free babysitting during the afternoons so parents could have kid free time. We picked Landon and Oliver up so Stefan and Brittney could finish the zip line. These two were really glad they had a friend there. 

Oliver even had fun with us. I may have let them jump onto the trundle bed. 

On the last night the kids all got up and sang songs for us. Kid is not afraid of the stage. 

I will try to post more tomorrow of other people's photos, but this is enough for tonight!

Sick days

Well, I think kindergarten has finally caught up with us. I have been hearing kids coughing for weeks at school, and Emma was up half the night last night coughing. So I kept her home. She acted mostly fine all day, but as the day wore on she started feeling worse and went to bed with a fever, headache and I think the chills. So another home day for us tomorrow. (Although we did get out of the house to check on Delilah, whose parents are gone right now.)

On another note, for those that I haven't reached yet, my phone has died. And as soon as she is feeling better I will go see what my options are for a new one. It may take a few days, so until then I am not ignoring you, but you can email me (hope.bency@gmail.com) or message me on FB. I try to check those throughout the day. (I had to borrow Ada's mom's phone this morning to call Emma in sick. This is quite the adventure.) She has been asking to Skype, so if anyone wants to, email me with a good time, just FYI.

Playing with new toys on a sick day. We also watched shark/animal shows. 

She has been exhausted but having trouble going to sleep at night. Yesterday I gave her a nap, and tonight she finally just couldn't stay awake any longer. 

Oh Motherhood

Today was one of those days. I googled "5 year old tantrum" to see if they could give me any insight into why my child is apparently exchanged for a different one at kindergarten every day. But I already knew, today at least, was because she woke up, at 5 AM.  I will not go into detail about our day,  but I did notice that I had a very difficult "mom" day the day before I start teaching/facilitating a Motherhood Bible study. Kindergarten has proved to be a difficult transition thus far, and I think it may just take some time, lots of sleep and prayer...and maybe mom remembering not to have after school appointments. I got on my iPad to look at pictures for the blog, since I hadn't updated in a while, and found these pictures. Since we had two parties on Saturday we missed cleaning day. Her room had needed cleaning for a while, but we just hadn't gotten there. Sunday we were tired and needed to rest, and we ended the day snuggling on the couch talking with Daddy. Then she went upstairs and cleaned her room all by herself. When she was done she asked me to vacuum. Sometimes those moments feel very far away, so I'm glad I took pictures to remember them on days like today. 

She made her bed, laid out her clothes for school.

I love seeing how she cleans.

Also, she pointed these turkeys out to me. I said, "oh a mommy and two babies." She said, " no, that's the Daddy. He took them out for lunch." 😂😂😂 where does she come up,with these things?

2 birthday party day

Some days we need to relax. But even if we are doing things, it is refreshing to be around friends. Last Saturday we had two birthday parties to go to. I wondered if I was crazy, but one was at lunch and the other at dinner, so I didn't have to cook the whole day...which totally made it worth it. Owen turned 4 and had his party at the splash park in Plumas Lake, which we had never been to. It was warm enough for it...even in September. Hopefully soon it will cool down, but he kids all had fun. And Riley's party was at his house. He had a dinosaur party...also ironman and other things, but mostly dinosaur. :) we had a blast. I told Emma we would split the cake at both parties, so as not to go,crazy with sugar. She didn't even finish either of her halves, and didn't grab much piñata candy. She mostly just had fun playing with her friends. :) it was a good, exhausting day. Also, I forgot to take pictures at the first party, so these are all from the second. 

Pinning the head on the fossil. 

Dino egg hunt!

She didn't do the piñata at the first party, but she did here. 

Crazy boys...and Emma. 

More presents!

Emma loves packages! We have gotten several in the mail lately, and she has enjoyed opening them all. 

Minnie Mouse! 

I tired to catch her reactions, but it didn't work out. She loved this book! And she also got some glow pads, which I forgot to get a picture of, but she has gone to town coloring them. 

Minion! 

She loved the party stuff, too. 

Daddy Bear, Bob the Minion, Minnie Mouse, hanging out on the stairs. I can't remember why. I think they were going somewhere.