Happy Botday!

Caleb turned 8 in July and had been planning a robot party for months.  It's fun when they get to the age where they can come up with ideas with you.  
It was a more difficult to find robot party ideas but with the collection of a lot of "junk" from friends and family (it's these times when I am so glad my dad saves the craziest things!), we had a fun party!  Dave certainly got into this one as you can see.

 The fun favors

 Auntie Lauren pulls through once again!  The kids favorite part were the legs made of donuts!  She is such a talented cake maker!

 Caleb was most excited about dressing up as a robot.  Though I had to help with the hot glue he was the designer!  I was impressed his creativity!

 Dave's creation...this robot as welcoming all the guests.

 And just to give you a little perspective here's Bella and Hannah.

 Mommy's robot creation.  I especially loved Dave's idea of using an old shower head as the mouth!

 My big 8 year old.  (I still can't believe we have an 8 year old!!!)

 Boys.  Creating Robot City and eating cake...what more could they ask for?!?!

 I think this game was a hit.  We pretended that this robot has seen its time and since it was no longer in use, we needed to "extract the extra parts"...sort of like a giant "Operation" game I guess except there was no buzzing!  What the kids didn't know is the robot was filled with "wires" (LOTS of shredded paper!).  Inside they found lots of candy within the wires.

 The result...sugared up boys, a headless robot and a MESSY living room...but nothing the vacuum couldn't handle.  Fun!

 We had all kinds of crazy things for the kids to create their own robots with.  They came out so great!  All different and creative.

I think this was one of my favorite parts.  After most of the guest had left, we found Caleb, Josiah and Isaac putting together all kinds of creations from the leftover parts.  I just loved how creative they got and now they have a bucket of these little buggers that they play with outside.  I love when stuff like this happens without any direction from an adult.  Fun, fun party!  

Pinch Me!

It doesn't feel real.  I am still in disbelief.  But it has happened and it is real.  It's official...I am home full-time with our kiddos!  I know you were probably waiting for a much larger announcement but in our world, it's a pretty big deal.  I have always worked part-time since we have had children.  I don't know what it's like to not work with kids at home.  But this week was my last week at Mount Hope and it was certainly filled with more emotion than I had anticipated. There was much excitement to take this new step but there were certainly tears shed.  I have been at Mount Hope for about 20 years other than a couple years in college...that's a long time! And it was a blessing to be a part of ministering to kids and families through my work.  I thank God for the opportunity to teach children about Jesus, to learn all have I learned through my job and for the provision for our family through it.

But God has placed us on a new journey and with that comes trust.  We are trusting Him for our provision but we know that this decision is good and it is right for our family.  I am more than excited to see how God uses this time of our loves as we trust Him and lean on Him.  

As we were in the process of making this rather big decision, someone showed me a clip from Indiana Jones Last Crusade (and they had to show me because I know NOTHING about those movies!) and it spoke to me so directly.  When we take that first step of faith, He is faithful to carry us through and reveal the next step.
Check out the clip...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_-BOvWVycM 

And recently on Twitter, I retweeted a quote by Mark Batterson:

"FAITH is taking the FIRST STEP before God reveals the SECOND STEP."

I couldn't agree more.  We may not always see the whole road in front of us but we just need to take that first step so that He can take us further to be a part of what He is wanting to accomplish in us and through us.