VBS Pictures

I finally got a chance to put up the VBS photos! I only have a little time, so I'm just gonna post a quick caption right now and try to come back and write more later. :)

Abigail and Nathan, the little boy who fell in love with her over the week. :) He would help her with all the games, make sure she had a toy to play with, and hold her hand in the hallway.

Abby and I with the camel. She loved the camel and waved to it every morning.

Abby and Nathan holding hands in the hallway.

Hope, Nathan's sister, in costume!

Hanging out in the pyramids in the gym.

Giving the brick offering at morning assembly.

One of Abby's classmates, a girl named Emily.

One of the crafts we did... it's baby Moses in the bullrushes. :)

One day a bunch of Abby's classmates got dressed up in costumes.

Nathan, Abby's "boyfriend", helping her with brick offering.

Holding hands on our way to the gym!

Waiting withour class for assembly to start.

Playing games in the gym.

Hiding in the pyramids again!

Running a beanbag relay race!

We're basket cases!

Once Nathan started paying attention to her, all the little boys started paying attention to her. :) I think she liked all the attention!

Another costumed classmate!

More classmates waiting for morning assembly to start.

My angel, waiting for morning assembly to start.

Mary Poppins!

P.S. to my last post:

Today at VBS one of the other little girls (probably about 4 years old?) came up and asked if she could sit on my lap. I was sitting on the floor with the other kids, and I told her she could, so she plopped down and studied Abigail (who was playing a few feet away).

"I was up sooo late last night!" she suddenly announced.

"What were you doing up so late?" I asked.

"We went to the movie theatre," she told me. "The movie was sooo funny. But at the end, my brother (who I think is around eight or nine?) cried."

"What did you see?" I asked.

She wrinkled her nose and thought for a few minutes. "I don't remember!" she finally said sadly.

There are only two G or PG movies out this week, so I took a guess. "Did you see Toy Story 3?"

She immediately brightened up. "YES! and it was SO FUNNY!"

"I saw that, too!" I told her. "I thought it was very funny, and I cried at the end just like your brother!"

She thought about this for awhile. "Did Abigail go see it with you?" she asked.

I shook my head. "No, I didn't take Abigail with me."

"Who stayed with Abigail?" she wanted to know.

"Abigail's mommy and daddy stayed with her," I told her.

She looked at me, then at Abigail, then back again.

"Well, WHO are YOU?" she demanded (interpretation: you're not Abby's mommy?!?!!?).

"I'm Abigail's nanny," I explained. "I come to Abigail's house in the morning when her mommy and daddy go to work. She and I are buddies who spend the day together."

This concept still seemed a little strange to her, so I tried again.

"I'm like Abigail's babysitter, except I babysit every day."

Suddenly her eyes lit up. "Like Mary Poppins!!!"

Yeah, kid. Like Mary Poppins. :)

Move VBS

I just went to get my camera to pull off all the pictures I took today of Abby doing the different activities at VBS, and I discovered it's not in my bag. Must've left it on the counter of the 2's and 3's room at church. Grr! I'm not worried about it being stolen, but it is kind of annoying as this is probably the last chance I'll have to blog before I go on vacation, and I wanted her parents to get to see the pictures. :(

Anyway, I think Abby is really enjoying it! The first day, she obviously didn't know what to make of it, and yesterday she was still a little shy, but apparently the third day is the charm! Today she got excited when we pulled into the church parking lot, then ran straight to her class without me when we got to the auditorium. We still have the "wigglies" when it comes to assembly, but really, it's such a long time for small kids to sit (20-30 minutes each time) and she does better than several kids who are a few years older than her.

I bought her an "offering brick" today to put on the offering pile. I think I was expecting a little more enthusiasm, but she seemed kind of unimpressed with it. Oh, well! I wanted to get a picture of her putting it on the pile, but one of my "not so well-adjusted" little ones *hums loudly* began misbehaving at the exact moment Abigail went up. I turned to take care of it and missed the moment completely. Oh, well.

We've been coloring pictures each day with our daily verse... "...God made the world," "I am fearfully and wonderfully made," etc and each afternoon we come home and put them on the fridge. :)

This is the daily schedule of events, for whomever is interested: We arrive a little early and hang out with our class before assembly. During assembly, we sing songs, do the brick offering, and pray, then we go to our classroom. We color our picture of the day, then we have some free play before storytime. During storytime we learn about the daily truth, and we usually have a small activity that illustrated the daily truth - the first day, when we learned about how God made us, we got to feel some dirt in a bucket; the second day, we learned about our sense of hearing and smell by passing around small film canisters filled with scented cotton balls or small objects that rattled. We also learned about our sense of touch by passing around frozen objects (Abigail loves frozen things - MAggie uses ice packs frequently, and whenever she uses them around Abigail, she loves to touch them and then go "brrrrr!").

Today we learned about how Jesus was God's gift to us, so we passed around a big box with a box (a "gift") filled with stickers. When the music stopped, whoever was holding the box got to pick a sticker. There may have been a little maneuvering on the part of the adults to make sure everyone won at least once! :)

We have time in the gym, where we get to play with balls and buckets and stick horses and other fun stuff (today we got to climb around/inside a wooden pyramid), and then snacktime.

We do a small craft after snacktime, have a little more freetime, and then closing assembly. :)

After dismissal, we take Anna to lunch, as we're all starving by then. Today Anna was going to lunch with some other folks, so I thought we'd just go home and eat there, but we had to detour a little bit to drop Anna off at her truck (she rode with us that morning), and all of a sudden Abigail got really excited. I couldn't figure out what in the world she was so happy about until I realized our path was taking us right by Chickfila. :) She kept saying a particular word over and over again - I don't know if she was trying to say "there" or "Chickfila" or just "chicken" - but I tried to reason with her.

"We're not going to Chickfila, Abigail, we're going to go home and eat YOGURT and PEANUT BUTTER" (normally this is enough to make her want to run home right away).

She kept repeating her word.

"We'll go home and get food, Abby, ok?" I kept telling her. I kind of expected her to throw a little fit.

She looked over at Chickfila, and she turned to me with her face all glowy and hopeful, like she just knew we were going to get her favorite food, and she said "Please?" just as perfectly as anyone could say it.

It was the first time she's ever said "please" to me - not that I don't encourage it, if she asks for something by grunting at it I always ask her, "Can you say please?" and she'll nod and say "Yeah!" which I accept, since her heart is obviously in it, but she never actually says the word.

So my heart absolutely melted. I am a bad nanny. I totally took her to Chickfila and bought her nuggets and she got so excited she started giving me kisses. It takes so little to make her so happy. And seeing her so happy makes me so incredibly happy, too. I'm justifying it as she asked so nicely, and didn't throw a fit at "no," and said "please" for the first time, and was really hungry - she ate seven of the eight nuggets. :)

Anyway... tomorrow is our last day of VBS and tomorrow night I fly out for vacation and won't see her for a whole ten days. This is the first time in my life that I'm actually worried about getting homesick while I'm away. I know she and mommy and daddy will have fun, but I'll miss her terribly. I already wish we could just skip VBS and spend the whole day reading "One Fish, Two Fish" and watching Pooh Bear and going swimming just the two of us.

Vacation Bible School

Today Abigail and I went to VBS at my church. I almost didn't take her today, since she was really lethargic this morning, but I figured we could always come home early. We stopped on the way for a whole fruit smoothie for her and a frozen caramel latte for me (cuz it was just one of those days where you need caffeine, lol) and she attacked it like there was no tomorrow. A few minutes later she became much more animated, chattering away. I'm not sure if her blood sugar was low or what.

Our class had thirteen 2 through four year olds - quite a handful! We went to assembly with all the other kids, where we sang and did a "brick" collection (the kids buy bricks, which they get to use to build a wall, and the money goes to missions), etc, then we went to the classroom, where we colored, had storytime, went to the gym, had snacktime, had a "circle time" and then went to another assembly. The kids got really wiggly at the end, since the youth pastor who was running it had things geared more for the older kids, and it was kind of hard to keep everyone under control, but Abby was a real trooper.

Of course, we also had some time to play in the nursery, which Abigail loved. They had a "baby care center" set up, where the kids - but really only the girls, lol - could take a plaatic baby doll, undress it, wash it in a rubbermaid of water with some foaming soap and washcloths, then dry it off with a towel and redress it. They loved it! And I have to admit, it wasn't half as messy as I thought it would get. :) I will have to remember that for an indoor activity some day.

At the end of the day, Abigail was tired but seemed happy, and said she wanted to come back the next day. We posed for a picture beside the camel (forgot to mention the theme of VBS this year is "The Egypt Files"). I'll post it a little later, since I don't have my camera cord with me. :)

To parody a page from one of Abigail's favorite books...

"We love to read -

How we love to read!

So every day, we read One Fish, Two Fish.

Over and over again we read One Fish, Two Fish.

We read One Fish, Two Fish over and over again."

(Kudos to anyone who actually knows what I'm parodying!)

Tailgating

Last week when it was nice and cool, Abigail and I met the cousins out in town for lunch. The Taco Bell where we wanted to eat ended up being super-crowded, so we parked our pickup trucks in the shade and ate lunch outside.

Abby had lots of fun climbing between the two trucks, stealing little bits of everyone's tortilla, and drinking a little bit of my frozen "margarita". :)

Smile for the camera! :)