scrapbook'n

Just sing

Kids Choir Camp

This past week the girls have been spending their mornings at our church's Kids Choir Camp and the culmination of the week was to show off what they'd learned. Emily was a little nervous about saying her line into the microphone and she didn't appear to be enjoying herself as much as our little ham, Olivia, but she can't stop talking about it today! She wants to know when she can do that again! And, amazingly, when we had them prioritize what activities they might want to join this fall, Emily put Drama Club at the top of her list! A year ago, that would have never happened! She's come a long way with overcoming fears!!

The performance was called "Heaven's Kitchen" and as little chefs, the kids were told wear and apron and a chefs hat. We went out and bought hats and I made them each a little apron...so do you think they wore either of them?! Olivia left her apron off stage in the practice room along with both of their hats :( I made sure I at least got a picture with their props.

After the show, a dad came up and wanted to get a High Five from our littlest star who had caught his eye on stage. She was pretty cute up there strutting her stuff! Emily was cute, too, but just not quite as comfortable being on stage. Check out the video to see them both in action.

summer is flying by!

Before we know it, it'll be time to start school again! I've been trying to cherish our time off together because in one short month BOTH girls will be gone all day long (Olivia is going to all day kindergarten)! For the first time in almost nine years, I won't have anyone under foot during the day. I'm sure I'll figure out what to do with myself, but right now it seems like a strange prospect. Maybe, just maybe, I'll finally catch up--and keep up--on scrapbooking?? Or get back to more frequent blog posts?? Time will tell.


The girls and I have been keeping busy with day camps (VBS/church & Girl Scouts) and playing in the backyard pool. In fact, I started this post poolside as they swam and played with neighbor friends. Earlier today, they performed as little chefs in "God's Kitchen," as the culmination of their Kids' Choir Camp (pictures to come). They both really enjoyed their week learning bible verses, learning new songs, and practicing their speaking parts. I was so happy to see them enjoy doing the performance with no mention of stage fright :) Emily even said her own line into the microphone which is a HUGE step for someone who used to be deathly afraid of going on stage! I still have to upload the pix and video clips, but hopefully I'll have something to post here.

As I mentioned posting, it occurred to me that I never did post anything from our June trip (okay, just added some below), and, in a week we'll be packing up for another trip--a week long family vacation in Branson, Mo. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping that we'll enjoy it even if we're not country music lovers! Actually, it looks like there are plenty of non-country-music things to see and do so we should have a good time. We've already got our tickets to see Chinese Acrobats :)

The scrapbook pages below are from our trip to Kentucky where we went to help to move my sister, Angie, from Massachusetts. She and her husband both accepted faculty positions at Murray State University, so they and their three children made the cross country move to Murray, KY. It seems like a nice little town and I think they'll really enjoy it once everyone gets connected with friends. They closed on their new house right after our annual family reunion in northern IN, so five cars of us caravaned down to KY to check out their new digs and help them unpack. The kids enjoyed having ANOTHER family reunion there!

On the way home from KY, we decided to stop at our college towns and show the girls a little of what college can look like. We hadn't had any real reason to go back, so it'd been 17 years since we were last there and unfortunately my campus was buttoned up for July 4th. We showed the girls around both campuses and had a little more luck with his having more activity.

Father's Day interview with Olivia

We just got back from a trip to IN and KY and eventually I may post some pix, but in the mean time, here's a video I meant to post a few weeks ago.

I decided to ask the girls some questions about Daddy in order to make a Father's Day scrapbook page...and figured I may as well video tape their responses. The following video is Olivia's take on Daddy.

P.S.
I video taped Emily, too, but she was being camera shy and I mostly got "I don't know" answers when the camera was on. I can't blame her because I don't much like being taped (or photographed) either!