Hello to all my readers(to those who still follow)! I’m not quite sure where to begin, guess I’ll be honest and tell you all that the desire to write hasn’t been there. Since my last post back in April(I think), the year has been busy for the most part, sad, and depressing. I’ve put off sharing anything on here mostly because I don’t want to be a blogger who airs it all on the web, but neither did I ever imagine I’d become a blogger who would disappear for months on end without a word to my faithful readers. For that, I do apologize.
The year started off well enough, so what have I been up to? By the end of March I was asked to teach a 3&4 yr old VBS class at my church and from then on until June I was busy prepping and making decorations for my classroom and no joke that took A LOT out of me. Once VBS started we were swamped every day with fun activities, energetic kids, and I would come home to crash. It was a fun theme though, under the sea, so cute! Below are few pictures of the room my helpers and I decorated(mind you we kept it simple so as not to give little hands too much to mess with).
My son, G, decided to come hang out in my room one morning before VBS started. He played with the play-doh and made a gruesome zombie head. What can I say, that’s G for ya! 😉
This was a fun labor of love project that unfortunately I didn’t get to use. I made a puppet stage out of carboars, expanding spray foam, pain, and hot glue. The sea urchins were my favorite and one of the first things I made. A half ball of styrofoam, qtips, craft glue, and paint. BOOM, sea urchin! Thankfully another church who was using a similar under the sea theme cam in on the last day and took all the decorations to use during their VBS week. Hopefully the puppet stage was put to good use!
As for the wall decorations, all credit must be given to Party Cheap dot com. They made it possible for me decorate the walls to look we were under the sea. My helpers did an amazing job putting everything up and yes it wasn’t all perfect but the children loved it and that’s what mattered the most!
The second thing I loved the most was the beach sign! Foam poster board, paint, and hot glue made that possible. And I’m not even an artist, never claimed to be either, but the rustic skills I do have worked well for that old weathered look! On the first day of VBS I had G help me get some sea kelp up that went behind that sign on the lower wall. Wish I had snapped a picture of it, was really cute and helped finish off the wall.
The third decoration I LOVED making were the jellyfish! Crazy easy! Paper bowls, paint, tissue paper, and googly eyes is all it took. A person with long arms was kind enough to lend his height when it came time to hanging those precious jellyfish up. All the ideas were found through Pinterest and made possible through friends who donated items to me. It was fun but very tiring, not for the faint of heart. It’s the VBS I remember from the 90’s, that’s for sure!
After VBS was said and done, I went back to sort of helping a friend with her summer class. Fine tuning her weekly lessons, and making sure everything was ready. I admit my mental capability was tapped out for a bit, felt like a vegetable most days. Thankfully I was able to get her summer class announcement finished in time so it could be advertised. She had a Lego theme and all her lessons were centered around Building Godly Character.
I had saved up 13 boxes(mostly amazon shipping boxes) and wrapped them in tissue paper to make them look like Lego building blocks. Each week she could add the next block to the the previous one and use it as a visual aid for her class. The kids loved it! Of course I don’t know too many kids who DON’T love Legos! And what’s in store for next year?! An Indian Jones theme!!! Queue the theme song…😜
After the summer class ended I had the utmost pleasure in helping my sister from another mister plan for her first overseas mission trip. Spent one weekend helping her organize and price things for her yardsale, which turned out to be amazing! Being able to help her with that was a huge blessing to me, I was able to witness God work lots of miracles! I never tout that I have a lot of faith, I struggle just like everyone else and yet I was constantly being reminded of “faith as small as a mustard seed.” Truly, every single prayer was answered, lots of tears were shed as we both witnessed God working in our lives and seeing people coming together to make this trip possible for her and the group she was going with! Below is a picture of the sign I made for her after we learned someone had annonymously purchased her plane ticket.
I wish I could say the summer ended on high fun note, but sadly it didn’t. The last few months since August 17th have been the pits. I’m not even sure I can share this without crying, so for now I think I’ll stop here and hope this little update finds you all in joyous spirit! Christmas is around the corner and the new year is upon us, 😱☺️<—I am shocked and excited!
Will write more later, may the rest of your week be blessed! Amanda Gayle❤️🎄❤️
Night Owl Kitchen 