This summary covers our 5th week of summer! From Saturday June 10th through Friday June 16th! On Saturday we celebrated Father’s Day as a family and you can see that post here 🙂
Growing up some of Zach’s most treasured memories are from Georgia Bible Camp. He has always said our kids will go as soon as they are old enough to attend. I don’t like the idea of my babies spending a week away from home BUT it’s located very close to our house and they are totally cool with parents dropping by throughout the week. Colt and Payton stayed last year which also helped to ease my mind. It was Kye’s big year! His first year at camp!
He and Zach went to Walmart and stocked up on snack and “supplies” and I helped him pack his house items for the week. I’m so thankful for many wise friends whose children have attended as I got a lot of great tips from them!
Heading to drop him off!
At checkin each camper had a lice check, whew glad he’s in the clear 😉
We went to his cabin and this place is a legit camp camp. Simple and basic! I actually spent some time out there the first summer Zach and I had started dating AND it’s where I got baptized (you can learn more about baptism and why it’s essential for salvation here)! I love that I have a personal tie to a place that is so special to Zach and will now be special to our children 🙂
Kye got there nice and early and was able to score a coveted top bunk!
Kye, Britt and Zach walked from the check in to the cabin but Tess and I preferred the AC! She thought she was SO BIG getting to sit in the booster for the little bit of a drive (as in 2 seconds).
Excited for a week with his bff!
I did okay dropping him off. I joked a lot that I was super upset, but really I did okay! No tears or anything. I knew he’d have so much fun and I have always tried to keep in mind that my job as a mama is to raise my babies to leave me. Small steps like these will happen over the years as Kye grows up. It’s simply a part of life!
It also helped that I had to rush from camp to Lakeland for Casey’s baby shower at her church. I didn’t have much time to be upset AND I had to keep my makeup looking halfway decent so it was good incentive 😉 Casey is due with her baby boy any day now. It was so sweet of her church family to put together such a nice event in her honor.
Typical 😉
On top of camp drop off and the baby shower…our church had VBS that started Sunday night. Kye originally was going to attend our VBS but he was having SUCH a blast at camp that he never wanted to leave so he skipped VBS this year. The girl got to go each night and they had a GREAT time! It was Tess’s first year of having a legit class and she loved it!
On Monday we kicked off Britt’s speech. (Whew, lots of big firsts this week huh?). I talked back in April about Britt’s speech and how we got her evaluated. We decided to go the VSU route as it’s FREE and she doesn’t have a lot of needs so we don’t feel we could justify the cost of her going somewhere else. She’s going two mornings a week during summer and I’m crossing fingers that it’s enough to get her where she needs to be!
Tess learning some delayed gratification and clinging to that sucker waiting for Britt to finish up!
We had a LOT of girl time with Kye being away at camp. Britt loves to bake so we baked cookies for Grampa to mail to him for Father’s Day! She chose to bake chocolate chip cookies with peanut butter m&ms 🙂
Had to taste test…and Tess has the BEST side eye 😉
Zach was home early enough for lunch to handle the girls so I could run out to camp and see Kye. Y’all. I had quite the emotional week because Tess had NO reservations about leaving me for VBS. She was just like “see ya!” when I’m SO used to her clinging to me. Then Kye?!?! I showed up at camp and he looked at me like “what are you doing here?!?!” Ugh. My babies are growing up! I didn’t stay long as I could tell he was preferring his “guy time” so I just visited a few minutes and left. It was a more emotional experience for me than the initial leaving him for camp. I felt like he wasn’t excited to see me and didn’t want me there which is something I’m totally not used to or ready for!
Kye was excited that his buddy from back in preschool was in his cabin too that week and they had a lot of fun together 🙂
Y’all this keeps happening with our washing machine and we can’t figure out WHY or HOW?!?! Does anyone else has this issue?
While the girls had VBS that night I got to catch up with a sweet friend, Brandie, who just moved back to town. We bonded over walking the aisles of Hobby Lobby while I grabbed everything in sight for Tess’s party. My part planning strategy is to buy it all then return what I don’t use after the party 😉
More VBS fun!
I love this! It was taken when they announced that The Mix truck would be there the next night during VBS!
Over Mother’s Day I had some pain in my tooth and then a few weeks later I noticed it was discoloring. Prior to Mexico I went in and agreed that we’d need to watch it and sure enough, I needed a root canal. Blah. This dentist does NOT do laughing gas which made the root canal experience pretty cruddy for me. I’m a big fan of the gas bc you just don’t feel attached to reality. I was really attached to this reality and it wasn’t fun! I guess the root was SUPER deep and it took them a lot of work to get it all mended up! I then had to follow up for a few more weeks to do internal bleaching of the tooth to get it the right color. $1000 later and I’m fixed up nicely 😉
Pulled out Mommy’s childhood toys for girl time!
I told Kye before camp that I had spies all over camp watching him haha it was great because he was hardcore about trying to figure out who the spies were all week AND I did legit have tons of people keeping me updating. I especially appreciate my new friend, Tiffany, for sending me the scoop! I snagged some pics off FB too which was great! It was always nice to hear that Kye was making great choices AND that he was having so much fun!
The theme for our VBS at church was Super Heroes and the kids were encouraged to dress up like super heroes for the last night of VBS. We don’t do super heroes in our house. So I didn’t have any costume stuff, but we talked about it and deciding that princesses and fairies can totally be super heroes too 😉 Right?
For the last night of VBS Zach and I took advantage of our KID FREE TIME and had a DATE! Not just any date but we went to actual downtown Valdosta which never happens 😉 We had a great time!!!
YUM.
And we even had time for dessert at DQ before heading back to church to scoop up the girls!
Double YUM!
The girls made blessing bags to keep in our car and to pass out to people in need.
The Mix provided the froyo which was a HUGE hit!
Our local theater has movies for super cheap on Tues and Thur mornings during the summers. They are CRAZY crowded and all the cheap candy sells out at all the drug stores near the theater. So I got smart and planned ahead 😉 The girls and I stopped on our way to speech, a day before the movie day, and I let them pick their treats!
Britt instantly LOVED speech! Her instructor is wonderful and Britt hit it off with her right away 🙂
Waiting area fun 😉
Publix stop!
A couple years ago we went out to a blueberry patch to pick blueberries. (Britt was actually wearing the dress Tess has on in these pics!) It was a LOT of work to pick the berries so I had no plans on doing that again but I remembered that they sold already picked berries for SUPER cheap so I wanted to go check it out. Zach uses blueberries in his smoothies and they are SO stinking expensive. We had the toughest time finding the place and when we finally did? NO BLUEBERRIES. Booooooo. We could go pick ’em ourselves but that wasn’t about to happen!
We did stop by a produce place on the way home and while they didn’t have blueberries they did have boiled peanuts!
After all the blueberry hunting we all deserved some POOL TIME!
She found her prince!
Usually Britt has gymnastics on Wed and then we eat at Zaxby’s b/c it’s close to our church. This Wednesday, however, we got to try out Moe’s for their kids night because we went to Georgia Bible Camp for church! I wish they had a Moe’s closer to our church because their kids night was awesome and YUMMY!
The girls were SO excited to visit Kye at camp and we all enjoyed Chapel together very much. The lesson was great and the singing was beautiful.
Kye was MUCH more excited and eager to see me during this visit 🙂 He kept whispering to me throughout the whole chapel wanting to fill me in on everything he’d been doing that week.
He also wanted to walk us around camp a bit to tell us more about what he’d been up to!
The girls didn’t want to leave and even stayed for snack time!
She didn’t want to let go of her big brother.
Thursday we went to the movies and I found this random cute pair of yellow pants I did not know I had!
It’s $1 for the movie and $1 for popcorn. Can’t beat it!!! Tess was free thanks to being 2 😉
We met up with Robyn and Julie and had a great time seeing Trolls!!!
I know I’m totally late to the Trolls party. But it’s not a Disney movie, so y’all know I wasn’t in a rush to see it. But y’all. I LOVED IT!!! So cute and great lessons and no political agendas pushed down our throats. And hello, GREAT MUSIC! None of us wanted it to end!
These two played SO great together all week! Now that I have three kids I will say it’s true: even numbers are best. I’m thankful we are waiting on our 4th to even it out! Having three creates a tough playing dynamic and it’s always easiest when just two play together!
Zach was out of town for his infusion so I offered to host our book club at my house! We had a pj party and everyone brought a dish to share. It was SO fun!
I made one of my favs that I haven’t done in awhile: Starr Studded Dip
And I did another favorite: crock pot spinach and artichoke dip. Y’all this recipe is AMAZING!
Picnic dinner on the porch because Mama’s house was clean 🙂
Zach got home early and was SO SWEET by helping me get the house all clean for the company coming over. He went over to his parents for dinner to go over some work stuff with his dad so he was out of the house for “girl time”
I promised Britt she could stay up a little late to meet all the Book Club ladies and show them her princess room 😉
Our book for the month was NOT a winner so we mostly used the night as a chance to get to know each other better. And it was THE BEST time. I haven’t laughed that much in a long time and we all just really enjoyed it!
Wild and crazy for me means up past 11 and laughing with friends haha I had a ROUGH morning so I can’t fathom how people who go out and party feel!!!
I randomly clicked on a hashtag on one of my IG posts that lead me to see all the people who have visited our resort in Mexico. And guess what? David Hasselhoff recently got married there!!!! How cool is that?!?! I mean ignore the fact that his bride is younger than his daughter…but still so neat!
Put myself together enough to hit up the Friday Frolic!
You can get the Raising Little People shirt here!
The girls LOVE the Friday Frolic and once Britt turns 6 she won’t be able to attend anymore. So I was thankful for the day without Kye because it meant we could go! They had such a blast and I loved seeing them run around together playing and watching Britt teach Tess all her gymnastics moves 🙂
Tess did this beam, which is pretty high off the ground, ALL by herself! The first time she did it I wasn’t even anywhere NEAR her and just happened to see it from across the room!
Sweet EllaKate came too and had a great time! It’s a tough place to really catch up so Julie and I need a night out sometime to hang kid-free 😉
Pick up from Bible Camp was that afternoon: at TWO. I figured it’d be a super quick thing but there was a whole long awards ceremony. Poor Tess was wore out but did SUCH a great job sitting through it all as I didn’t pack any toys or snacks or anything!
I love Kye’s face 🙂 So proud!
Kye was awarded the TOP honor at camp! They have a Mr Georgia Bible Camp for the older boys and a Jr Mr GBC for the younger and Kye got the title of Jr Mr GBC! This makes me SO PROUD as it’s an award chosen by the staff and is for someone who shows great character throughout the week. It’s such a great mama moment to feel like you’re doing a pretty decent job when you send your kid off for a week without parental supervision and he receives such a high honor. Everyone we saw gave us compliments on his behavior and character and leadership. I couldn’t be prouder!!!
Plus a free bible whoop whoop!
When we went to clean out his cabin is was neat seeing that his bunk had Zach’s name on it. I mean I know it’s not our actual Zach but still cool!
These two had a BLAST together and I’m so proud of Colt for earning the Bible Class Award too!
Kye had THE BEST time and it made my little bits of worry and missing him well worth it to know he made such great memories 🙂
Zach and I have decided we can’t do book recommendations for each other. We never like them! Ha! This had TOO many twists and turns for me and I was just SO ready for it to END.
We have heard there is a new snow cone truck in town and we’ve kept an eye/ear out for it all summer. I saw on Facebook that the truck was coming to our neighborhood so we sat on the porch to eat dinner so we could wait and be sure not to miss it!
I got impatient so we hopped in the car and chased him down haha!!! Then proceeded to all step in huge ant beds which kinda ruined our snow cone excitement 😉
How awesome is this?!?!
I bought a refillable cup b/c I def plan to hit this up on the regular!
Levi enjoyed the attention 😉
Sine Kye had been gone all week Britt was SO pumped to have him home. Even though he was exhausted from camp I still was down for them to have a sibling sleep over because she wanted that together time with him so badly 🙂
Zach went to bed early and I randomly decided to watch Up Close and Personal. Such an old movie that I remember so vividly when it came to theaters (and the Celine Dion song from the soundtrack) but MAN it’s CHEESY.
Yet another great week of summer behind us!
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