VBS

This year's VBS experience was a totally new one for me. First of all, I was one of our church's co-directors (thanks to Allison for sticking with me for one more year!). Then, we decided to join up with St. John's (another church in town). And (for this year only), we moved it to May. The theme was Kingdom  Chronicles where the children learned to put on the whole armor of God and to discern truth and lies in our world. It was my favorite one yet!! 

Amy showing the kids how it's done in recreation

Langdon's sweet pre-school class

One of Mary Laine's favorites of the week - the puppet!!

Mary Laine and Ann Grace with Miss Callie

Our very own Jester

Snack time!!

Mary Laine's class in front of the castle

Charlie Rogan and Mary Laine

Some of Mary Laine's teachers

Ruby and Mary Laine with Princess Callie

Elizabeth and Courtney did such a great job!

The directors

All of the cans that we collected throughout the week for the food pantry

Here are some of the amazing decorations. So glad that I'm friends with people who know how to do things like this!

The crafts were so good that we're still playing with them almost two months later!!

Gymnastics Recital

Mary Laine started taking gymnastics this year and loved it (although, I must admit, it's always hard for me to tell if she loves the actual activity, or the candy that she is sure to get at the end of each session!) She did great at her recital and loved getting to show off all that she has learned this year.

Action shot!

FPK End-of-Year Program

What a great first year of school Mary Laine had! It was a bittersweet ending. She sang her little heart out at her program and setup playdates with her friends. 

Waiting for Wyatt...

Ready to go on stage for the progarm

Ann Grace was a little unhappy

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Ann Grace and Mamie were happier sitting with Miss Tami

The whole school

Mary Laine LOVED her music teacher, Mrs. Caroline!!

Susanne Graduates

At the beginning of May, the kids and I headed with the rest of the fam to Auburn for Susanne's graduation. (Gary headed to Talladega. I would say that he'll post about that later, but I have a feeling that what happened in 'Dega will stay in 'Dega!) 

The night that we got there, Walker and I joined Susanne and her friend Taylor for trivia night at one of the bars. On the way there, I made sure to let everyone know that, unless the questions were about early childhood development, I probably wasn't going to be much help. The questions were really hard, but between the four of us, we actually managed to get them all right. I even contributed - who is the leader of Snow White's dwarves? (Okay, I know about more then early childhood development. I can also contribute in early childhood literature!) We tied with another team, so they had us come up to the front. Unprepared for a tie, the guy asking the questions said that he was going to send us on a scavenger hunt. He said that the first team to get a mom in a Braves hat onto the stage would win. Susanne grabbed the Braves hat off of some guy standing nearby and threw it on my head and I jumped (yes, literally jumped) onto the stage. I did have to deliver some proof that I was actually a mom (pictures on my phone). And we won! Turns out I wasn't quite as useless as I thought I'd be. We won Crown Royal t-shirts (my new favorite sleep shirt) and two entries into the raffle. They were raffling off four tickets to Talladega. And guess what? We won those too! We ended up selling them and making a nice little profit on the weekend. (Actually, my take covered Gary's stay at the hotel since they were hit with a monsoon that very night and got rained out of their camping plans.)

Don't put money on these two in a paper airplane throwing contest!

Winners!!

The next day we got to see Susanne graduate with honors. So so proud of her! And now she's off to grad school. The sky's the limit!!

One fun thing about Auburn is that they have buildings that are named after my family (okay, maybe not my family, but maybe they are... you never know!)

Susanne and Langdon in front of LANGDON Hall

Susanne with Mary Laine in front of MARY LANE Hall (but they accidentally misspelled the Laine)

Auburn was such a great chapter in Susanne's life, but now we must say that we are SO excited to have her back in the great state of Mississippi. We've already gotten to see more of her in the past few weeks than we did in the few years before that! And in a few years, she'll be a licensed counselor ready to take on this crazy family!

A Soverign God

In the wake of everything that has happened with Langdon this week, I have been thinking about God's Sovereignty. In our Sunday School class the past few weeks, we have been discussing God's Sovereignty versus man's responsibility. The question has been posed: "Do you really want God to be in charge?" There have been alot of different answers to that question. Many have admitted that this is a real struggle for them and they want to be the ones in charge. And I believe that we all want this to a certain extent, but my answer was that I really don't want to be in control - I'm a mess and would screw up.

Gary and I were talking when we got home from the hospital. The truth is that Langdon survived because God is in control (and not me). But, the reality is that Langdon may have died, and that would have been the decision of a sovereign God. To desire God's control is to desire it even when it hurts.

I read this blog post this morning and thought that it sums up my internal struggle.